Packaging not exempt from food safety scrutiny

Consumer demand for traceability and transparency in the fresh produce industry has extended to packaging.

"It's the first time in our history that our packaging is considered like a food ingredient, so we go through the same type of testing and qualification you may see with food ingredients," said Roman Forowycz, chief marketing officer at Clear Lam Packaging, Elk Grove Village, Ill. "There's a lot of accountability, so it's kind of a game-changing time in the industry that everybody's working together to deliver this safe product to the consumer."

Jason Risner, strategic marketing director at Alliance Rubber Company, Hot Springs, Ark., said his company recently completed verification that its popular ProTape is FDA compliant for direct food contact. The process was a response to customer requests that had been rolling in for a couple of years.

"It's always been compliant with FDA regulations, but we've had to go through the cost and the headache of actually verifying that it does meet those minimum standards for direct food contact just so that we could give everybody that warm and fuzzy feeling," Risner said. "It always has (met those standards). There's never been anything wrong with it, but there's been more of a push to verify.

"You kind of have to backtrack … You use an adhesive, but what's in that adhesive? What's in those materials that are in those materials? And where do those come from?" Risner said. "It was intense getting it done. And then of course we're dealing with overseas suppliers on some of those and communicating through all those networks. It's cumbersome."

Since the company completed that process, however, it has seen more interest in its ProTape and expects a 20% increase in sales of it this year.

"At the very least, we knew it was going to be worth it because our current customers were asking for it," Risner said. "But we had hoped that it would also create an uptick in interest, and it has."

Sambrailo Packaging, Watsonville, Calif., has also responded to the growing emphasis on food safety. At the time of the passage of the Food Safety Modernization Act in 2011, the company had nine facilities, and food safety at each one fell under the purview of the respective plant's manager. With the new legislation introducing more regulations in food and industrial safety, the company hired Art Juarez about two years ago as its safety and compliance manager.

"With the addition of a safety and compliance manager, we created a consistent and comprehensive program that fully encompassed and regulated all locations using the same standard operating procedures," Mark Jurach, vice president of operations, said in an e-mail.

Juarez developed a manual of policies and procedures that all nine facilities now use, and he visits all the locations to do orientations and make sure each plant is on the right track. Juarez indicated the company has ramped up its efforts to cover all bases in the area of food safety.

"They've been really, really focusing on being able to trace back every item out of each facility … It's a big, big emphasis," Juarez said. "It's changed the whole dynamic of the operation in general … Now you have somebody that's more into what's going on and who has more experience."

The company's food safety audit scores have increased as a result, he said in an e-mail, with 98% now the average. Sambrailo's facility in Zamora, Mexico, in 2014 received a 100%

- a score Juarez had never seen in his 14 years in the profession.

"Having a dedicated person in charge of keeping everything in compliance has made a big impact on our safety program," Jurach said in an e-mail.

Monte Packaging, Riverside, Mich., received word in mid-July that its three facilities are now all Primus-certified, said Sam Monte, director of operations. The company's Lakeland, Fla., facility was certified in November 2015, the Riverside facility in April, and the Boynton Beach, Fla., facility in June.

"For a long we've been very proactive on implementing food security and food defense policies throughout our facilities, but never to the extent of having a third-party audit," Monte said. "But with the requirement set out by these certifying bodies that our customers have a third-party audit from their packaging supplier, we wanted to make sure that our customers were going to be able to have a confidence in us that we were doing the right thing and that it was certified by somebody.

"Obviously it has a cost with it, but it's a necessary cost, and it's a cost that all the different levels throughout the industry have felt, from growers to packers to repackers to now packaging providers, so it's something that everybody has to deal with, and now we're included in that, but when it comes down to it, it's the right thing to do," Monte said. "We've seen what happens when the right things aren't done, and it can have devastating effects."