Million-dollar donors ask industry to step up and support Center for Produce Safety
Two fresh produce organizations put their money where their mouth is and contributed to the Center for Produce Safety at the highest level.
Taylor Farms and Western Growers are each donating $1 million to Center for Produce Safety to continue that group’s work to fund science, find solutions and fuel change in fresh produce food safety. The organizations are the first Diamond ($1,000,000+) level supporters to a capital fundraising campaign that Center for Produce Safety unveiled in late January, according to a news release.
CPS has now raised over $5 million toward its $15 million goal to finance produce-specific food safety research, and to transfer research learnings to industry, government and other stakeholders, over the next five years, the release said.
Dave Puglia, president and CEO of Western Growers, said in the release that he ranks food safety as a “top-level threat” to the fresh produce industry. The association also contributed $1 million to CPS in 2015 during CPS’s previous campaign.
“We are in an era of greater transparency, and the high expectations that come with transparency about how this industry operates and the standards that it adheres to,” Puglia said in the release. Along with labor and water, Puglia said “food safety has joined a triumvirate of challenging issues that need our full attention.”
Bruce Taylor, chairman and CEO of the fresh-cut processor Taylor Farms, echoed the sentiment about the importance of food safety.
“Produce safety is important to us because one in three Americans enjoy Taylor Farms’ healthy, fresh foods every week,” he said in the release. “It is critical that we continue to earn our consumers’ trust by producing very safe food.”
Taylor pointed to CPS’s success to date to make the case for supporting the center’s continued work. Taylor Farms co-founded CPS with Produce Marketing Association in 2007 with a $2 million contribution, and gave another $1.25 million to CPS’s 2015 campaign, the release said.
“We are delighted to see the amazing progress in research and practical application of food safety knowledge that is being driven by Center for Produce Safety,” Taylor said in the release. “We’ve seen a consistent track record of success with their research programs, and their ability to communicate to the industry. That’s just as important – research without communication doesn’t help anybody.”
Puglia said the work of the Center for Produce Safety connects the grower priorities of food safety, and technology.
“For us, investing in Center for Produce Safety promises to deliver practical, science-based solutions to enhance food safety practices that will be realized by technology in many cases,” Puglia said in the releasse. “On the other side, the technologies that don’t exist today can get us those practical food safety solutions. We are invested in bringing those new technologies forward quickly. The two have power together.”
Both executives called on their industry counterparts across the fresh produce supply chain to join them in supporting the Center for Produce Safety’s future.
“One, open your checkbook,” Puglia said in the release. “And two, pay attention to the work being done within CPS. Don’t assume that because some really talented food-safety experts are keeping their eyes and their brains engaged with CPS, that covers all the bases. “ He said the practical impacts of CPS-funded research have to be understood by everybody in the industry, including the people who grow, the people who harvest, the people who market the product. “Help shape Center for Produce Safety’s research portfolio, and guide its priorities,” Puglia said in the release.
“The future is in our collective hands,” Taylor said in the release. “It is incumbent on us as an industry to do everything we can to win consumers’ trust.”
