Food Safety

Ahead of the Curve in the Race for Food Safety Compliance

Mon, 23 Mar 2026 19:04:41 GMT

While the 2028 enforcement deadline looms for the food traceability final rule under the Food Safety Modernization Act Section 204, representatives from Church Brothers Farms, Classic Yam and The Nunes Co. sat down with The Packer to share their companies’ individual journeys toward digital traceability.

Early Lessons From the Frontlines

Traceability has been a standard at Church Brothers Farms since 2016. It was an early adopter of the Produce Traceability Initiative label, says Arlin Valenzuela-Reyes, food safety quality director of recall, customer response and document control with the Salinas, Calif.-based fresh vegetable grower and processor.

“We were a few of the initial companies that implemented that since the initiative came out,” she says.

Valenzuela-Reyes says Church Brothers’ work in PTI has set the company up well for FSMA 204 implementation.

“We have a very organized system as far as inventory and block ID creation, how we enter that into our system and how it follows the supply chain from planting all the way to shipping,” she says.

Church Brothers shares data based on customer requirements. For some, it’s electronic data sharing, but for others it’s sending traceability data through the bills of lading. Valenzuela-Reyes says this includes block ID for field direct commodities and run numbers for processed items that run through the company’s facility.

“We created a page in our company website where our customers can reach out directly to us in case of any regulatory inquiry or internal inquiry regarding the lot code source or the lot code of the item that they are requesting,” she says.

She says one surprising part of adding PTI labels has been the cost of labor. This included buying the equipment, the labels, test labels to find the best option that works with the company’s cartons and RPCs. Valenzuela-Reyes also says the company customizes the information based on the customer, as they have different requirements.

“We basically do what our customer wants, but it definitely adds that complexity to our system,” she says. “The main wish is for all of our customers to have the same requirement as a standardized traceability request.”

Another challenge, says Valenzuela-Reyes, is how the company handles entering the traceability information from purchases from a broker to fill either something that Church Brothers is a little short in or doesn’t grow. This challenge is amplified when sourcing from outside suppliers who may be somewhat behind technologically or track information differently than Church Brothers.

“How are you going to enter that information into your system, and then how are you going to continue to pass it on to the next end user?” she says.

Valenzuela-Reyes stresses that produce industry businesses need to be thinking ahead to prepare for FSMA 204 compliance. Even for those businesses already on the traceability journey, now is the time to check to make sure systems work as they should.

“You might think that you have everything to the dot, but as you dig deeper, and as you double-, triple-check your systems, there’s always going to be something,” she says. “Waiting till the last minute, it’s going to be chaotic.”

Why Classic Yam Isn’t Waiting for 2028

Dodie Gauger never expected to be working in food safety. After starting at the front desk of grower-packer-shipper Classic Yam in Livingston, Calif., she transitioned to sales and then began working in food safety. She says it’s a challenge to wear two very different hats for the company and keep up with meeting the ever-changing food safety requirements of retailers.

Gauger says her and Classic Yam’s journey into traceability started with PTI. As she read through the goals and milestones, she realized it was a lot to undertake and sought help.

“That’s why we chose to go to a company and say, ‘Look, these are their goals. This is what they want. We don’t want to stretch it out. We want to do it now,’” she says.

Classic Yam focuses on key data elements, or KDEs. Some of Classic Yam’s customers require advanced ship notices sent through electronic data interchange.

Classic Yam uses iFoodDS Trace Exchange to generate pallet labels and send ASNs via EDI. Gauger says she still hand-logs everything with a columnar pad, but she sees the potential for digital reports to bridge the gap in the future.

“Just the thought of there being a report where I could go, ‘OK, this lot number, this date, right here, where did all this product go?’” she says. “Right now, I do all that by hand. I don’t have a spreadsheet on the computer. I can’t queue up a report like I need to, but I’m happy that it’s heading my way because it’ll take a little bit of that stress off.”

She says it’s difficult to keep up with when retailers add new requirements, especially for a company that grows a low-risk food item, as sweetpotatoes aren’t on the FSMA 204 list. However, she says she understands why retailers often have the same requirement for all fresh produce.

“I have to think about it from their point of view,” she says. “If you think of all the thousands and thousands of categories of different things that they have, I can’t see how they would be able to differentiate between all of these different categories.”

Gauger says it was important to begin the compliance journey early to be prepared.

“If I’m operating a year ahead of a deadline, I don’t care, because I’m not going to be there panicking at the end,” she says. “Because it will come, and it is necessary. People are out there that are not operating above board.”

With the final FSMA 204 enforcement deadline approaching in 2028, Gauger’s advice to the industry is simple: Don’t wait.

“Please don’t put it off, because they’re not always going to push those deadlines out the way they have,” she says. “It’s going to come. And the thing is, do it. Do something. Take it apart. Do something, do a little at a time [and] at least start moving toward the goal.”

And don’t be afraid to say you need help and seek assistance from companies that specialize in compliance, Gauger adds.

“You have to know your limits,” she says. “I’m not familiar enough with the traceability — all of the necessary aspects of that — so I’m not afraid to reach out. The company I work for is not afraid to reach out and say, ‘Hey, this is a little bit beyond us.’”

Gauger says ask neighbors, ask competitors and collaborate to move toward food safety compliance.

“You’ve got to work together, because it doesn’t matter if it’s low risk,” she says. “We’re all in this industry, and we’ve got to keep it moving forward.”

Nunes Co. Builds on PTI Foundation to Secure FSMA 204 Compliance

It was around the 2006 spinach recall when The Nunes Co., which grows and markets vegetables and leafy greens, first began to work on traceability.

“Spinach was pulled off every shelf, and there were millions and millions of dollars lost to the industry because we couldn’t identify to a level of detail the source of the outbreak,” says Johnny McGuire, director of information technology for The Nunes Co.

McGuire, who has been with the company for eight years, worked with a startup company that created the first field-pack labeling system aligned with PTI. He says Nunes took traceability seriously and began labeling cases in the field, which was a part of PTI’s seven milestones. While those last-mile steps were never picked up by buyers, growers helped create the standard and work toward continual improvement, he notes.

“For a company like Nunes, looking at the FSMA 204 key data elements and the critical tracking events and what we need to in terms of record keeping and interoperability with our trading partners and suppliers, a lot of that work that we did for the on the PTI is aligned with what the FDA [Food and Drug Administration] is bringing down in FSMA 204.”

McGuire says it’s important throughout the journey to traceability that the produce industry understands the why behind these requirements. It’s not just an additional checkmark or audit; it’s about public health.

“We’re all on board with the one goal of keeping consumers healthy and safe,” he says.

McGuire points to how Nunes’ work with PTI and how the FDA has aligned much of the FSMA standards to PTI requirements have positioned the company well for compliance in 2028.

“Case labeling, SSCC [serial shipping container code], pallet labeling, advanced ship notices through EDI, bill of lading — a lot of that groundwork is in place so with two more years to kind of get it done, we feel fairly confident that we can do that,” he says.

While the work isn’t finished in Nunes’ journey to traceability and FSMA 204, McGuire says the rallying call of the spinach outbreak really pushed Nunes and other fresh produce industry businesses to improve traceability.

“We’ve still got some work to do,” he says of the company. “We’ve got a few blind spots here and there. That kind of foundation that we set almost 15 years ago is serving us well now.”

And it’s only one part of Nunes’ food safety efforts.

“We layer on top of that world-class food safety professionals and systems and processes and people ... with that view of keeping that consumer happy, safe and enjoying our product,” McGuire says.

For companies still waiting to embark on the FSMA 204 compliance journey, McGuire says it’s important to get the data organized. This includes assigning GTINs [Global Trade Item Numbers], global location numbers and more; then, look at interoperability and EDI integrations to share that data with the next step in the supply chain.

“Do you have those integrations in place?” he says. “Because that’s going to be your key method of sharing that shipping key data elements.”

Clean Works Adds Senior Sales Executive

Tue, 17 Mar 2026 20:55:01 GMT

Clean Works has appointed Ellise Fallon as senior sales executive. Reporting to Vice President Michele Visser, Fallon will lead commercial expansion and strategic customer partnerships as the company scales its waterless decontamination technology globally.

Fallon has more than a decade of experience supporting the growth of innovative technologies across the food and agriculture industries. Before joining Clean Works, she held commercial roles at Pivot Bio and Apeel Sciences, where she worked closely with customers and partners to expand adoption of emerging agricultural and postharvest solutions, the company says.

Throughout her career, Fallon has focused on go-to-market execution, strategic account development and supporting customers through the successful implementation of new technologies. Clean Works says her experience working across growers, packers, retailers and global food companies positions her to help expand its reach in key markets.

“Ellise has built her career around helping breakthrough technologies gain meaningful traction in complex supply chains,” Visser says. “She understands how to translate innovation into real-world value for customers. As Clean Works enters its next phase of growth, her ability to drive adoption and cultivate strong commercial relationships will be instrumental.”

RedLine Solutions Launches FSMA 204 Guidance for Growers and Shippers

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 20:39:23 GMT

RedLine Solutions has released a new technical blog series designed to help produce operations navigate the specific requirements of the food traceability final rule under the Food Safety Modernization Act Section 204. Led by CEO Todd Baggett, the series focuses on the operational shifts required for growers, packers and distributors to meet the 2026-28 implementation deadlines.

RedLine says the series prioritizes practical field and packinghouse applications over regulatory theory, covering:

Implementation timelines — Why the 2028 deadline requires a transition to digital traceability discipline starting now (the “18- to 24-month” rule).
Bulk storage risks — Managing lot definition and product commingling in packing sheds to prevent overbroad recall scopes.
Field-pack precision — Establishing lot codes and harvest location data before the first bin is picked to ensure compliance at the source.

The guidance helps companies map mandatory critical tracking events and key data elements to existing workflows, ensuring that traceability lot codes are captured without slowing down production, RedLine says.

All technical guides are available at redlineforproduce.com/blog .

IFPA Adds Vice President of Food Safety and Regulatory Affairs

Tue, 03 Mar 2026 07:44:41 GMT

The International Fresh Produce Association says Eric Stevens will join the organization as its vice president of food safety and regulatory affairs, effective March 18. He will lead IFPA’s global efforts to shape food safety and regulatory policy.

Stevens will serve as a key liaison to U.S. regulatory and food safety agencies and strengthen engagement with global and regional regulatory and standard-setting bodies. He will also support IFPA member needs through technical expertise, resource development and strategic collaboration with internal teams and external coalitions, the organization says.

IFPA says Stevens is a respected food safety and regulatory affairs leader known for his ability to translate science into practical, risk-based policy. Most recently, he led scientific and market development for farm-to-fork food safety diagnostics and supported verification programs aligned with global regulatory and audit expectations at Hygiena.

“Eric brings a valuable combination of deep scientific expertise and global regulatory experience at a pivotal time for our industry,” says Alexis Taylor, IFPA’s chief global policy officer. “His expertise in translating science into risk-based, practical policy that works for regulators and for the produce supply chain will be an incredible asset to IFPA’s strategic goals and mission. His leadership will strengthen our voice as we advocate for clear, scientifically rigorous standards that protect public health and support innovation.”

Stevens began a career in public service in 2014 at the Food and Drug Administration as an FDA commissioner’s fellow. He later served as a public health adviser in FDA’s Office of Regulatory Science, helping expand FDA’s GenomeTrakr, and completed a secondment with the World Health Organization’s Nutrition and Food Safety Unit, developing guidance for foodborne disease surveillance.

From 2019 to 2025, Stevens served as an international policy manager in FDA’s Human Foods Program, where he led science policy and regulatory cooperation on food hygiene standards, risk-based oversight and global market access.

He is also a delegate to the Codex Committee on Food Hygiene and FDA’s Codex Alimentarius manager, where he worked across FDA, the U.S. interagency, global counterparts and the industry to advance science-based positions and strengthen international alignment, often in areas central to fresh produce.

In 2026, he was selected by WHO and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations to participate in a Joint FAO/WHO Expert Meeting on the Use of Omics for Microbiological Risk Assessment.

Stevens earned a doctorate in human genetics and molecular biology from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, with a focus on genetic relatedness.

“Fresh produce is central to healthy diets worldwide, and advancing practical, risk-based policies is essential to ensuring both safety and access,” he says. “I look forward to working with IFPA members and partners around the world to foster regulatory alignment, strengthen food safety systems and support practical implementation in diverse markets.”

Strategic Alliance Between TraceGains and iFoodDS Extended

Fri, 20 Feb 2026 01:40:33 GMT

TraceGains and iFoodDS have extended the companies’ strategic alliance, which the organizations say strengthens integration between TraceGains Supplier Management and iFoodDS Trace Exchange.

The companies say this expanded alliance delivers seamless data integration that simplifies how suppliers share traceability data and how fresh produce companies identify, monitor and work with FSMA 204-ready trading partners.

“This alliance offers a differentiated alternative to legacy approaches to traceability and supplier management,” says Gary Iles, chief marketing officer of Esko and TraceGains. “Food and beverage companies can find proven, traceability-ready suppliers, monitor FSMA 204 compliance and manage supplier data and documents in one place, while suppliers gain a clear way to stand out in a competitive marketplace.”

TraceGains’ global network spans more than 100,000 supplier locations. iFoodDS’ Trace Exchange platform provides a flexible, scalable traceability solution that is purpose-built to support FSMA 204 requirements across complex supplier networks. The companies say that by integrating these platforms, the alliance makes traceability data sharing and compliance management a natural extension of existing supplier workflows.

TraceGains and iFoodDS say a cornerstone of the partnership is the ability for suppliers to earn the TraceApproved FSMA 204 traceability readiness badge through iFoodDS and showcase that credential directly on their supplier profiles within Gather, the TraceGains supplier marketplace. Fresh produce companies can then search for and engage suppliers that have demonstrated their readiness to comply with FSMA 204.

The integration also enables seamless data sharing between the platforms, including master product and location data as well as critical tracking event data. This eliminates duplicate effort for suppliers, reduces errors and supports integrated reporting within TraceGains Supplier Management.

“Many suppliers are already taking proactive steps toward FSMA 204 compliance by adopting iFoodDS’ flexible, cost-effective traceability software and completing our TraceApproved readiness program,” iFoodDS CEO Scott Mathews says. “Our expanded alliance with TraceGains streamlines supplier workflows and gives suppliers a powerful way to showcase their traceability capabilities to current and prospective customers.”

Counting Down the Top 6 Food Safety Concerns for 2026

Sun, 04 Jan 2026 19:55:23 GMT

When looking back at the past few years, former FDA Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas says the fresh produce industry still has a lot of work to do when it comes to food safety.

“[2025] was a tough year,” he says. “I said this same thing last year at the end of ‘24. I said, ‘It’s been a tough year for food safety.’”

He notes, however, that the industry seeks continuous improvement.

There have been successes, Yiannas says, highlighting romaine lettuce, but there are still constant recalls and foodborne illnesses, though not all related to fresh produce.

“Just last week, recalls this year are up,” he says. “But more importantly, just the total number of recalls by FDA-regulated products, the number of units is dramatically up; the number of units that are being recalled, almost twice as many.”

So, he says it’s time for the industry to do more.

“There’s certainly a lot that we could say about what’s transpired in ‘25,” he says. “Philosophically and for the organizations I’ve worked with, it’s even more important to look back, but let’s look forward. What should we be doing and planning for ahead?”

Yiannas sat down with The Packer to share his top six food safety concerns for 2026.

1. Know the Risks

Yiannas says that while many growers might think more about the regulations, he says it’s more important to focus on the real risks.

“The first thing you have to do is just rereview your hazard analysis and risk assessments,” he says. “Rereview it, and challenge the assumptions, because what I see is that companies continue to have problems.”

Yiannas says some produce industry businesses have not identified hazards or risks in production or growing. Companies can’t measure what hasn’t been evaluated, he says, adding that this evaluation should be continuous; any existing hazard and risk analysis should continually be challenged to make sure it’s good enough.

“I always say, even if it’s a low probability, high-severity event, I want to think about it,” he says.

It’s also important to remember the relationship between hazard and risk, Yiannas adds. The hazard might be E. coli, but the risk is: How does the produce get exposed to E. coli? Is it adjacent land? Is it irrigation water?

“It seems fairly basic, but I promise you that if companies did a better job with hazard analysis and risk assessments, we’d have less outbreaks,” he says.

2. Rethink Controls

“We have literally what I call a gazillion controls in food safety, but most of the controls are not very good,” Yiannas says. “I don’t believe we bend that curve until we start, what I would say, adopting or utilizing more design or engineering controls.”

He says these controls are designed to manage or reduce hazards, but if those measures rely on administrative controls, that is not a recipe for success.

Yiannas says an example of an administrative control is having an employee check available chlorine in the water four times a day. This relies on the employee performing this control consistently at the same time and conducting the test properly. Whereas, if a produce business automates a control, it reduces the potential for error.

“Clearly, in the 20^th century, there was the industrial revolution in the way we grow and farm. They adopted technology and they did things so much differently,” he says. “I think it’s time right now to say, ‘How do we continue to modernize how we produce and harvest products so that it’s more dependent on engineering controls as opposed to administrative or human controls?’

“I would look around those points of harvesting, whether it’s done by people or equipment, and make sure that we have the right food safety considerations there, and certainly water applications, which has been very much traditional and manual,” Yiannas adds. “And in some cases, we haven’t even had controls, right?

3. Have a Laser Focus on Water and Adjacent Land Use

“Water is one of the best conduits to spread contamination, whether it’s indoors or outdoors,” says Yiannas, who notes that, while he was with the FDA, salmonella was found in a nutrient pond of a controlled environment agriculture facility.

What also complicates food safety efforts in modern agriculture production is that there are often many types of farming operations within a location, Yiannas says.

“We have these complex agricultural ecosystems all across the U.S.” he says. “They differ depending on whether you’re in Salinas or Yuma or other states. We need them all to coexist together and safely.”

However, if a grower’s farm is across the field from a neighbor raising livestock, it’s important to consider the risk and the hazards that come with those neighboring farms, Yiannas says.

“The solutions sometimes aren’t easy, especially if they’re upstream, but there are things you can do, whether it’s planting a hedge, a tree or barriers to try to direct the flow of water, but you should think about that,” he says.

4. Continue to Digitize Food Safety

Food safety records on paper should be obsolete, Yiannas says.

“You have it on a piece of paper; it’s a dead end. You can’t automate anything. You can’t trend and compare. You can’t evaluate it in totality with other data, but food safety data in digital form is the beginning of what I call meaningful action,” he says. “You can trend and compare long-term. You can trend and compare with other data sources that might be relevant.”

Yiannas says technology helps an operation bridge the gap between data and powerful information. While the fresh produce industry may have a wealth of data, it lacks actionable information, he says — and for food safety, it offers immense potential for data analysis.

“I think [in] the year 2026, every food producer, regardless of the type of food you’re producing, you should be challenging your teams and yourself to say, ‘Maybe we don’t digitize everything overnight. It might be a multiyear journey, but we’ve got to start making the transition,’” he says.

5. Be Ready for Compliance

While the FDA’s Food Traceability Rule does not go into effect until 2028, Yiannas says that is way too long to wait to become compliant. Whether it’s a potential issue with onions or beef, or spinach or other leafy greens, traceability will help prevent food waste and minimize the harm caused to the commodities involved, he says.

“Let’s minimize the damage as opposed to destroying the livelihood of all romaine growers, of all onion growers, of all spinach growers,” Yiannas says. “It pays to have food traceability now.”

He strongly encourages all produce industry businesses to take traceability seriously and work toward FSMA 204.

6. Cultivate a Culture of Food Safety

While Yiannas says he’s known for touting the importance of a top-down culture of food safety, he couldn’t offer a list of food safety concerns without mentioning it.

Food safety culture trumps strategy and planning because, at the heart, it’s about the values and beliefs of the company, he explains.

“I’ve seen enough outbreaks over the course of my career to know that those companies that have strong cultures — they’re doing this just because they really genuinely care about the safety of people,” he says. “And they’re not just trying to protect their brand reputation.”

Yiannas says it’s important for fresh produce businesses to embrace food safety throughout the entire company, in which it’s important to conduct food safety properly every day.

“I am always struck by companies thinking that food safety is a regulatory requirement,” he says. “They have the wrong mindset. Really, food safety is just the right thing to do because we care about consumers.

Counting Down The Packer Podcast's Top 5 Moments Of 2025

Tue, 30 Dec 2025 23:12:26 GMT

2025 for The Packer Podcast has been a year of great conversations. While interviewing leaders and disruptors in the fresh produce industry, each guest has a chance to answer some “Fresh Take” questions to help our viewers get to know them a little better.

While each response is as unique as the guest, here are a few of my favorite responses:

1. Surprising “Saturday Night Live” Connection

Jennie Coleman, president of Equifruit and Chief Banana Badass, shared how she took a job as a cook for the Aykroyd family in Kingston, Ontario, after wrapping up a master’s degree.

Catch the entire episode here .

2. Beach, Please!

Tara Murray, vice president of marketing for Fresh Innovations and Yo Quiero Brands, shared how she answered the question when her future husband asked her what her dream job was.

Catch the entire episode here .

3. Silver Screen Shoutout

Walt Duflock, senior vice president of Western Growers, shares how his program at eBay had 15 minutes of fame in the “40-Year-Old Virgin” movie.

Catch the entire episode here .

4. Put Me in Coach

Frank Yiannas, former deputy commissioner of the FDA, shared with “The Packer Podcast” viewers his love of the New York Yankees and his dream to play in Yankee Stadium.

Catch the entire episode here .

5. Urban Farmers

Canadian Produce Marketing Association President Ron Lemaire shared his early ties to agriculture on his family’s farm in Ottawa.

Catch the entire episode here .

Wegmans Recalls Mixed Nut Pack

Mon, 08 Dec 2025 19:44:19 GMT

The Food and Drug Administration says Mellace Family Brands California, headquartered in Warren, Ohio, has issued a recall for Wegmans Deluxe Mixed Nuts Unsalted 34-ounce tubs and Wegmans Deluxe Mixed Nuts Unsalted 11.5-ounce bags due to a potential contamination with Salmonella.

The product contains cashews, almonds, pecans and pistachios.

Routine testing by a supplier found one lot of raw pistachios to be positive for Salmonella. A recall was initiated after determining these pistachios had been further used in the production of the Deluxe Mixed Nuts products.

The affected products were sold at Wegmans stores in Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, North Carolina, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, D.C., between Nov. 3 and Dec. 1.

The information for the recalled nuts is:

Wegmans Deluxe Mixed Nuts Unsalted 34 ounce (964 grams)

packaged in a plastic tub
UPC 077890421314
Lot code: 58041 BEST BY: JUL 28, 2026

Wegmans Deluxe Mixed Nuts Unsalted 11.5 ounce (326 grams)

packaged in a plastic bag
UPC 077890421352
Lot code: 58171 BEST BY: AUG 10, 2026

How a Sticker Can Help the Produce Industry Fight Food Waste

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 13:36:00 GMT

Ryp Labs CEO and co-founder Moody Soliman didn’t necessarily intend to start out in the fresh produce industry, but after working in medical devices, he encountered sticker technology that could extend the shelf life of fresh produce.

“I’ve always worked on technologies that can impact people’s lives,” he says, adding that he then turned his focus to food waste. “We started to realize that this is just a massive problem.”

That challenge is one on a huge scale, according to Soliman, who says every minute people waste enough food to feed more than 1 million people and release tons of greenhouse gases.

“It’s environmental, social and economic, and it’s experienced all across the supply chain from the farm all the way down to the consumer,” he says.

And that’s around the time he and his co-founder came across technology, created by a young entrepreneur from Malaysia, that extended fresh produce shelf life.

“We figured out that if it’s going to be an impactful solution that’s really going to make a difference, it has to be very easy to use, can be applied anywhere along the supply chain, scalable, and very importantly, can be adopted by the largest distributors and packers in the world down to the smallest smallholder farmer,” Soliman says.

What Does Ryp Labs Do?

Ryp’s main product is StixFresh, which is a food-safe sticker coated with 100% natural food-grade bioactive formulation that inhibits fungal growth. It’s also OMRI listed in the U.S.

“You can apply our sticker to the fruit, or to a package of the fruit, and it releases those natural bioactive and can extend the shelf life anywhere from 40% to 100%, depending, of course, on the use case conditions,” Soliman says.

He explains there are essentially three ways that produce decomposes: through oxidation and dehydration; through the production of ethylene; and through pathological and microbial damage.

“Essentially what we’ve done is we’ve taken how plants have been defending themselves for millions of years and we’ve repurposed it to now extend the shelf life of fresh produce,” he says. “We just inhibit the fungal growth in the vapor phase.”

Soliman says an important part of what Ryp Labs has introduced is that its technology is easy to integrate into the supply chain. Ryp’s formulation is applied to the surface of a standard PLU sticker.

“One of the challenges that we saw and learned from earlier on is if you’re adding anything into the supply chain, it’s going to hinder the adoption of the technology,” he says.

Ryp Labs also has sachets with the same bioactive formulation.

Soliman says the company uses volume-based pricing for its technology.

“As we get higher and higher volumes, we can bring the cost down considerably,” he says. “Today, we estimate that based on their losses, if we’re talking about a very high-value, short shelf-life produce, they can see up to 300% ROI. For every dollar they’re spending on the technology, they can get $3 back.”

Where the Future May Lead

Soliman says one goal is to get to a scale to bring costs down to a place where it is a fit with more produce commodities.

“Our ultimate goal is that this technology becomes readily available and becomes an industry standard,” he says. “Of course, it’s a huge challenge, especially in this industry. We, you know, learn sometimes the hard way of how risk-averse people are and how conservative they are and slow they are to adoption, but we’re definitely making our way there.”

Latin and South America and Southeast Asia have been very interested in Ryp’s technology, Soliman says.

“When you go down to South America and Latin America, they want to ship their produce further, longer distances into the U.S. and into Europe, and that’s where they see a lot of breaks in the cold chain and a lot of issues happening, and that’s where they can get higher prices for their produce, so they’re a lot more excited about something new,” he says.

While Soliman says it’s been harder to get into Japan, he sees strong potential for strawberries.

“That’s why Japan is actually an ideal customer for us, because of very expensive, high-end strawberries; they pick them so they don’t sacrifice the quality, but then it means it goes bad a lot quicker,” he says.

Soliman says he also sees potential for packaging to contain the bioactive materials as well.

“It’s going to take time, but eventually we want to get to the point where that customer, [with] the box they’ve been buying off the shelf for the last 20 years, they can just now pick one up and the box itself is going to keep their produce fresh,” he says.

Canada Advises Consumers Against Consuming Imported Pistachios from Iran

Wed, 03 Dec 2025 02:42:43 GMT

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) and Health Canada issued an advisory, urging consumers to consider alternatives to pistachios from Iran and products made with pistachios from Iran due to possible Salmonella contamination.

The agencies say the advisory is related to an ongoing salmonella outbreak linked to various brands of pistachios and pistachio-containing products .

CFIA says it continues its food safety investigation, which includes sampling and testing at various stages of the supply chain and working to verify that recalled products have been removed from the marketplace. The agency also says due to the long shelf life, pistachio products could remain on the market for many months.

The government of Canada says all food recall warnings and notifications related to CFIA’s investigation into pistachios and products made with pistachios will be combined into a single list .

The Public Health Agency of Canada says the outbreak has sickened 155 people, with 24 hospitalized in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick. No deaths have been reported.

Your Fresh Market Broccoli Florets Recalled in Canada

Tue, 02 Dec 2025 15:32:00 GMT

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says broccoli florets from Fresh Taste Produce Ltd. that were sold under the Your Fresh Market label have been recalled due to a potential contamination with salmonella. The florets were distributed in the provinces of New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island and Quebec.

The recall includes the 907-gram Your Fresh Market broccoli florets with a 627735270548 UPC and lot code of 25318.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency says the recall was triggered by its inspection activities. The agency says it has begun a food safety investigation, which may lead to the recall of other products.

There have been no reported illnesses associated with the consumption of this product, the agency says.

Moonlight Recalls Peaches Due to Potential Listeria Contamination

Fri, 31 Oct 2025 14:50:28 GMT

The Food and Drug Administration says Moonlight Companies voluntarily recalls its California-grown conventional yellow and white peaches due to a potential contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.

FDA says the recalled peaches were sold nationwide between Sept. 16 and Oct. 29 and were sold as individual pieces of fruit with PLU stickers or as multi-packs. The agency says the recall does not include packages or PLU stickers with “Washington” and/or “Organic.”

No illnesses have been reported to date, according to FDA.

Recalled peaches include:

Moonlight Yellow Peaches individual pieces, PLUs 4401 and 4044 and lot codes: 01PCLC, 03PCAF, 106PCLF, 113PCAF, 113PCLF, 129PCLF, 134PCLF, 142PCLF, 150PCLF, 151PCLF, 159PCABA, 159PCABB, 159PCPG10, 20, 22PCAB, 22PCPG10A, 22PCPG10B, 22PCP8A, 22PCPG8B, 22PCPG8C, 23, 25, 30PCEN, 40LT, 40YP#3, 44PCLC, 44PCLCB, 45, 51PCLC, 51PCLCB, 86PCAF, 69PWPR, 79PWPRT
Moonlight Yellow Peaches multi-packs, lot codes: 01PCLC, 03PCAF, 106PCLF, 113PCAF, 113PCLF, 129PCLF, 134PCLF, 142PCLF, 150PCLF, 151PCLF, 159PCABA, 159PCABB, 159PCPG10, 20, 22PCAB, 22PCPG10A, 22PCPG10B, 22PCP8A, 22PCPG8B, 22PCPG8C, 23, 25, 30PCEN, 40LT, 40YP#3, 44PCLC, 44PCLCB, 45, 51PCLC, 51PCLCB, 86PCAF, 69PWPR, 79PWPRT
Moonlight White Peaches individual pieces, PLUs 4401 and 4044 and lot codes: 01PCLC, 03PCAF, 106PCLF, 113PCAF, 113PCLF, 129PCLF, 134PCLF, 142PCLF, 150PCLF, 151PCLF, 159PCABA, 159PCABB, 159PCPG10, 20, 22PCAB, 22PCPG10A, 22PCPG10B, 22PCP8A, 22PCPG8B, 22PCPG8C, 23, 25, 30PCEN, 40LT, 40YP#3, 44PCLC, 44PCLCB, 45, 51PCLC, 51PCLCB, 86PCAF, 69PWPR, 79PWPRT
Moonlight White Peaches multi-packs, lot codes 01PCLC, 03PCAF, 106PCLF, 113PCAF, 113PCLF, 129PCLF, 134PCLF, 142PCLF, 150PCLF, 151PCLF, 159PCABA, 159PCABB, 159PCPG10, 20, 22PCAB, 22PCPG10A, 22PCPG10B, 22PCP8A, 22PCPG8B, 22PCPG8C, 23, 25, 30PCEN, 40LT, 40YP#3, 44PCLC, 44PCLCB, 45, 51PCLC, 51PCLCB, 86PCAF, 69PWPR, 79PWPRT
Moonlight White Peaches (“Peppermint Peach”) multi-packs, lot codes: 01PCLC, 03PCAF, 106PCLF, 113PCAF, 113PCLF, 129PCLF, 134PCLF, 142PCLF, 150PCLF, 151PCLF, 159PCABA, 159PCABB, 159PCPG10, 20, 22PCAB, 22PCPG10A, 22PCPG10B, 22PCP8A, 22PCPG8B, 22PCPG8C, 23, 25, 30PCEN, 40LT, 40YP#3, 44PCLC, 44PCLCB, 45, 51PCLC, 51PCLCB, 86PCAF, 69PWPR, 79PWPRT
Kroger Yellow Peaches multi-packs, lot codes: 01PCLC, 03PCAF, 106PCLF, 113PCAF, 113PCLF, 129PCLF, 134PCLF, 142PCLF, 150PCLF, 151PCLF, 159PCABA, 159PCABB, 159PCPG10, 20, 22PCAB, 22PCPG10A, 22PCPG10B, 22PCP8A, 22PCPG8B, 22PCPG8C, 23, 25, 30PCEN, 40LT, 40YP#3, 44PCLC, 44PCLCB, 45, 51PCLC, 51PCLCB, 86PCAF, 69PWPR, 79PWPRT

RedLine Solutions Adds FastPack for MyProduce

Wed, 15 Oct 2025 11:31:44 GMT

RedLine Solutions has released MyProduce version 5.0, which includes a major new feature called FastPack.

RedLine Solutions says FastPack handles receiving, packing and moving finished goods into inventory. FastPack offers the ability to print on-demand or preprint batches of both case and pallet labels, which optimizes both field-packed and direct-packed workflows with full FSMA Section 204 data collection and reporting compliance built in.

“FastPack is the result of our field-packed and pack-on-receipt workflow analysis,” says Ross Lambert, director of software development at RedLine. “Packing in the field or pack-on-receipt have significantly different workflows than receiving and packing from bulk storage and potentially separate locations. This configuration is optimized for these unique packing environments.”

RedLine says label printing for FastPack drives efficiency in field-packed and packed-on-receipt workflow. The company says when the packed produce is scanned at receiving, the pallet label data is matched to its harvest plan and added to inventory along with the associated traceability data. And, the company says, matching the scanned label to its harvest plan radically reduces the amount of data entry required and significantly reduces the opportunity for error.

FastPack offers label reprints as needed and without fear of duplicate IDs; the software will not put the same pallet ID into inventory more than once.

FastPack also provides the status of all pallets it has created.

“The new Pallet Details tracking screen tells you in real-time which pallet IDs have been printed as well as which pallets have been received and scanned into inventory,” says Todd Baggett, president of RedLine. “The MyProduce Zebra device client supports mobile scanning and can even capture pallet weights, which are stored for use in the shipping process.”

Environmental Monitoring is Key for CEA Leafy Green Safety

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 17:02:52 GMT

As the phrase goes — you can’t manage what you don’t measure. But in that same vein, how you measure something matters. When it comes to pathogen contamination in leafy greens, it really matters.

That was a key take away at the most recent Center for Produce Safety webinar, held Oct. 6. During the webinar, researchers presented the findings of a study into the food safety of leafy greens grown in different controlled environment agricultural systems. The study was partially funded by CPS.

“We were trying to identify if CEA systems are safer than open fields, and we can conclude that they are not inherently safe,” says Ana Allende, from the University of Spain’s Center for Soil Science and Applied Biology and the study’s principal investigator.

“What we can do to make it safer is not magic,” she continues. “We recommend implementation of an environmental monitoring program. It will be essential for early detection and prevention of any microbiological contamination.”

About the study

According to Allende, there is a perception among consumers that CEA-grown produce is inherently safer. However, illness as a result of CEA-grown leafy greens contaminated with salmonella has happened, and listeria is a pressing food safety concern for field-grown leafy greens. Allende says there was a knowledge gap in the CEA industry regarding risk for listeria that this study, in part, tried to address.

The research was conducted at commercial CEA growing facilities in Spain, though the facilities selected mirrored U.S. and Canadian growing practices. The study looked at three different types of CEA growing conditions — soil-based, hydroponic and substrate-based systems — growing a variety of leafy greens for listeria and salmonella contamination.

Researchers also looked at persistence of pathogens in the environment and on common surfaces such as harvesting crates after intentional inoculation. They also looked at the efficacy of crate washing systems for removing contamination.

The study’s main findings included:

Water is a primary contamination vector: Salmonella was found in the substrate-based system’s irrigation water and nutrient solutions, and listeria was found in the hydroponic system’s drainage water.
Soil or growth media can serve as pathogen reservoirs: Listeria was found in the soil-based and hydroponic systems, especially on workers’ boots.
Normal work in CEA systems can spread pathogens: Workers’ boots and cart wheels inoculated with listeria could spread the pathogen to other parts of the CEA facility, though persistence after 24 hours was low, particularly for cart wheels.
Dirty harvest crates can harbor pathogens: Insufficient cleaning of harvest crates that allows organic matter to remain can protect pathogens.

One of the most surprising findings according to Allende came from the portion of the study that looked at the cleaning of the harvesting crates.

The study collected swabbed samples from harvesting crates before and after being run through a commercial tunnel washing system. While the researchers didn’t find listeria on either the dirty or clean crates, they did find other bacteria. A lot of them. The study reported that “the total bacterial levels were very high” and washing did almost nothing to change the total bacterial load on the crates.

“I must say that the experiment dealing with the crates was really surprising because the growers were using these automatic systems, which seemed to be very advanced, but they are failing in the most basic task,” Allende says.

Key takeaways for growers

The researchers had a few key recommendations to CEA leafy green growers that came out of the study. The primary one was to have a rigorous environmental monitoring program that focuses on key contamination vectors, or hotspots as Allende calls them.

“We identified soil and floor surfaces as a hotspot, as well as the reusable plastic crates. Also, the water is a key risk factor for contamination, and of course the recirculating nutrient solution that is used in the hydroponic and the substrate-based systems.”

When it came to monitoring water, which the study identified as the primary contamination vector, Allende stresses you cannot do initial tests and then assume the water will stay safe.

“You have to check as the days go on,” she says.

Mabel Gil, a co-principal investigator on the study and also from the University of Spain, adds that the volume of water sampling sizes is important. The bigger the better.

“For irrigation water, our growers were surprised about the results because the labs normally have a very small sample size like 100 milliliters or something similar,” she says. “In our case it was 10 liters. When you increase the sample size, you have more possibility of finding positives.”

When it came to the apparent failure of the automatic washing systems for reducing bacterial load on the harvesting crates, Allende says there are a lot of potential advantages to automation. However, she says growers must both implement the systems properly and validate their efficacy.

Ultimately, however, both researchers stress the need to monitor for contamination and to monitor properly based on the risk factors of growers’ specific facilities and growing systems.

“If you don’t want to find, you will not find, so you really have to look,” Allende says. “If you don’t use the more sensitive sampling methods, you probably will think that you don’t have any positives in your system. But you have to look carefully to really detect the contamination points.”

USDA Announces Public Health Alert for Select Hello Fresh Meals

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 14:55:12 GMT

USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has issued a public health alert for ready-to-eat meals produced by FreshRealm containing spinach that has been recalled by Sno Pac Foods due to possible contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.

FreshRealm is a third-party supplier of ready-to-eat meals used by Hello Fresh.

The FSIS says that based on current evidence, the products included in this public health alert are not related to any ongoing outbreak investigations.

The following products are subject to the public health alert:

10.1oz. containers of “HELLO FRESH READY MADE MEALS CHEESY PULLED PORK PEPPER PASTA” with establishment number “Est. 47718” and lot code 49107 or establishment number “Est. 2937” and lot code 48840. This item was shipped directly to consumers by HelloFresh.
10 oz. containers of “HELLO FRESH READY MADE MEALS UNSTUFFED PEPPERS WITH GROUND TURKEY” with establishment number “P-47718” and lot codes 50069, 50073, or 50698. This item was shipped directly to consumers by HelloFresh.

FSIS says the company notified the agency that the spinach used in the products tested positive for Listeria monocytogenes, but there have been no confirmed reports of adverse reactions.

Commercial Food Sanitation to Open Food Safety Training Facility in New Orleans

Thu, 02 Oct 2025 11:14:17 GMT

Commercial Food Sanitation is set to open its first stand-alone training facility, CFS Institute North America, at the Intralox global headquarters in New Orleans on Oct. 3. The facility will be a place for CFS technical experts to help food processors worldwide implement preventive programs that mitigate and prevent critical food safety challenges, according to a release.

The 13,700-square-foot facility will be home for CFS trainings and certifications, including its Sanitation Essentials Training, Hygienic Design Training, and Advancing Sanitation Impact Training.

The facility also features three laboratories, providing real-life plant environments for training participants. Additional collaboration spaces in the facility enable learning and cross-functional collaboration among food manufacturing professionals in engineering, quality assurance, sanitation, and operations roles as they are educated on risk reduction, operational efficiency, and long-term food safety performance, the release said.  

“Our new facility will be a hub for food industry collaboration, learning and innovation,” says Darin Zehr, CFS general manager. “This facility is purpose-built to support the food manufacturing industry and its professionals with cutting-edge resources and a collaborative environment.”  

CFS Institute North America is a part of a global network with training offered in Amsterdam; São Paulo; Shanghai; Monterrey, Mexico; and Melbourne, Australia. CFS says it has trained over 5,300 participants at its global training centers to date. 

“This new facility is more than just a space; it’s a place where we can instill a true passion for food safety and empower teams through hands-on education,” says CFS Global Training Manager Nicole Cammarata. “By combining training with real-world application, we’re not only helping provide safer food to the world but also shaping a culture where food safety is the top-priority.” 

CFS, an Intralox company, is committed to building a safer global food supply by helping food processors worldwide to implement preventive programs that mitigate and prevent critical food safety challenges, the release says. Using robust education programs and customer-centric consulting, CFS says it helps food manufacturers instill a companywide passion for food safety and sustained improvement to efficiency and productivity. 

Fresh-Cut, Processed Cantaloupe Recalled

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 17:58:50 GMT

The Food and Drug Administration says Wholesale Produce Supply of Minneapolis, Minn., has recalled its fresh-cut and processed cantaloupe due to a potential contamination with Listeria monocytogenes.

Wholesale Produce Supply sold its fresh-cut cantaloupe to distributors in Nebraska, North Dakota and Wisconsin, who may have distributed into other states under the “Harvest Cuts” and “Fresh & Finest” brand at traditional grocery locations, according to the FDA. The company packaged the fresh-cut cantaloupe in traditional plastic clamshell containers under the “Harvest Cuts” and “Fresh & Finest” label in both cantaloupe-only products, as well as mixed containers that include other fresh cut-fruits.

The FDA says no illnesses have been reported to date.

The company recalled its products following a routine sampling program, which revealed that the finished products potentially contained bacteria, according to the agency. The FDA says Wholesale Produce Supply has suspended production and distribution of the affected lots as the company continues its investigation into the cause of the contamination.

Visit the FDA’s recall notice for lot codes and UPCs of the recalled products.

How Water Sanitizers Help Reduce E. Coli on Leafy Greens

Wed, 01 Oct 2025 11:30:08 GMT

Remember the aphorism, “Perfect is the enemy of good”? It applies to water sanitizers for keeping leafy greens safe.

The Center for Produce Safety (CPS) hosted a Sept. 30 webinar presenting the findings of a study on food safety in leafy greens. The study , partially funded by CPS, looked at how effective common irrigation water sanitizers are at reducing or eliminating E. coli already present in the soil or on leafy greens. It also looked at which E. coli infection scenarios posed the biggest risk.

Generally, the researchers found both common water sanitizers used by industry reduced microbial loads on plants and in soils. They also found that the “animal intrusion” scenario — for example, deer entering fields and leaving droppings — posed the highest and most persistent contamination risk.

“Hopefully, the results of this study are helpful to industry, not only growers but also regulators, because it really helps us understand … additional positive impacts of water treatment to ultimately reduce risks for consumers,” said the study’s principal investigator, Channah Rock of the University of Arizona.

Background on the Study

The research was spawned in part because food safety attention surrounding illness-causing E. coli in leafy greens has shifted to agricultural water. Researchers found a problem, however.

“While significant progress has been made in understanding pathogen reduction within water, a critical knowledge gap remains regarding the impact of treated water on pathogens already present on plant surfaces or in soil,” the report’s abstract reads.

In an attempt to fill that gap, researchers inoculated romaine and the soil the greens grew in with different strains of E. coli. These strains included the 2006 spinach outbreak strain, the 2018 romaine outbreak strain and a generic strain. Plants were inoculated at differing concentrations of E. coli — one intended to mimic atmospheric deposition, one mimicking animal intrusion and the last replicating a treatment failure.

The plants were then treated with irrigation water containing common sanitizers — either peracetic acid (PAA) or calcium hypochlorite (chlorine) — at low and high concentrations. Researchers then looked for the level and persistence of illness-causing E. coli on the plants and in the soil.

Study’s Findings

Overall, both of the trial sanitizers reduced — but did not eliminate — illness-causing microbial loads both on plants and in the soil, regardless of contamination level.

“No sanitizer was completely effective, nor at differing concentrations,” said Kerry Cooper of the University of Arizona, one of the co-principal investigators (PI) on the study. “We see a lot of variation within the different concentrations as well as between the different strains when it comes to the efficacy of the different sanitizers and the different concentrations.”

For example, PAA was more effective at reducing pathogens on the plant in the short term, but chlorine was more effective in the long term. The different strains also showed different reactions to the sanitizers, both on the plant and in the soil.

Efficacy also differed depending upon the contamination scenario. Of the three contamination scenarios tested, the animal intrusion mimicking fecal contamination posed the most risk. It had the greatest microbial load and persisted longer on both plants and in soil.

“Essentially what we’re seeing is bacteria is able to hold on for extended periods of time when we’re comparing it to the other two contamination type scenarios,” Rock said. She also reported that the animal intrusion contamination scenario had the least response to the two sanitation treatment methods.

Still, water sanitizing treatment did reduce microbial loads. And that reduces risks to consumers; an important takeaway.

“Ultimately, what we see is that applying the chemical sanitizer decreased the relative risk in all cases,” said Hunter Quon of Arizona State University. Kerry Hamilton, also of ASU and one of the study’s co-PIs, added that while there is no way to remove all risk, water sanitizer does help reduce the risks to consumers.

Advice to Growers

From the findings, researchers had some recommendations for growers. The first is to optimize their approach to using sanitizers for leafy greens.

“That ultimately is going to help maximize microbial reduction and limit some of that treatment variability,” Rock said.

Regarding the high-risk contamination potential of animal incursion, the report recommends growers “develop enhanced mitigation strategies” to deal with the potential.

“The last recommendation or take home is monitoring of your systems can really help to support confidence that they are operating as intended,” Rock said. She cited the changing requirements of the Food and Drug Administration’s Produce Safety Rule , specifically in Subpart E , backing the importance of water systems data.

“We believe that FDA and other state inspectors are going to be looking for is confidence in your water treatment system,” she added. “The only way that you can do that is to have monitoring information and data that you can present to show their efficacy and to show that they are operating as intended.”

RedLine Solutions, iFoodDS Talk Traceability Partnership

Fri, 26 Sep 2025 04:29:14 GMT

Recently, RedLine Solutions, a produce traceability and inventory management system company, and iFoodDS, a food traceability, quality and food safety software company, announced the companies have integrated RedLine’s MyProduce and iFoodDS Trace Exchange.

The companies say this partnership helps produce suppliers collect, manage and share critical tracking events (CTEs) and key data elements (KDEs) across the supply chain. KDEs and CTEs are an essential part of the FDA’s Final Food Traceability Rule, also known as FSMA 204.

“What our partnership with RedLine does is it alleviates that operational expense, that operational burden, because there are many suppliers, especially produce suppliers, that are already using RedLine Solutions for case and palette labeling or even for their own individual traceability, but they need a broader ability to share that data out with all of their downstream customers,” says Alyson Sharron, vice president of marketing with iFoodDS,

Sharron says this integrated solution helps produce companies better share the information gathered without having to input the data into two different systems.

Todd Baggett, CEO and founder of RedLine Solutions, says the partnership is relatively straightforward. RedLine is the data collection and gathering mechanism, and iFoodDS is the storage mechanism.

RedLine labels cases, identifies what’s on a pallet and where it went.

“They don’t do what we do,” Baggett says. “We don’t do what they do, but we’re meeting in the middle. [iFoodDS’s] place in the market is to really assist the retailers and the large food service companies in retaining that traceability data for the FDA … What we’ve specialized in for the last 25 plus years is data collection, and we’ve had software that manages the data collection and passes it on to ERP or other systems, grower, accounting, etc.”

Baggett says RedLine has tracked its customers’ productivity after integrating its solutions, and in the 20-plus years of business, RedLine saves grower-shippers around 25% in the labor required for storage, picking and shipping processes.

Sharron says the goal of this partnership is to help RedLine and iFoodDS customers share data as easily as possible. And Andy Kennedy, chief traceability officer with iFoodDS, says the value of the data collected by RedLine is so important.

“They understand all the different ways a product can be harvested and come from the field and how that gets tracked inbound,” he says. “So, it looks like a really simple piece of data.”

This simple piece of data is inbound field binds, field harvested products and keeping track of the raw product as it is converted to pack product.

“You need a specialist who really understands the industry, understands the language and can handle all the complexity, and then track that through production, into storage and then outbound,” he says. “[RedLine] does all that work, packages up that shipment record and then sends it to us. So then we have the confidence knowing that the initial packing record has the correct information. It’s got the right field, it’s got the right commodity, variety, etc., and the labeling is good.”

Kennedy says a real risk is that if a label doesn’t scan properly, it defeats the purpose of tracking the produce up to that point.

“The key piece of information that a specialist like RedLine captures, which is so important, is the first critical tracking event,” he says. “It’s really one of the most critical pieces of information in the whole supply chain, because what happens during initial packing? That’s where the harvest information, the fields, where that harvested product actually came from and where it’s being packed gets linked to the case label with the GTEN lot.”

More Pistachio Products Added to Canadian Recall

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 18:18:17 GMT

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) published a food recall notice for additional pistachio products to be added to a multi-province outbreak of Salmonella traced to pistachio products.

The agency says through its ongoing investigation, led by the Public Health Agency of Canada, the organizations have identified additional pistachios and products that used recalled pistachios.

The CFIA added more products recently, which include:

Center for Produce Safety Names New Board Chair

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 12:53:04 GMT

The Center for Produce Safety has elected Carter McEntire, vice president of foodservice sales at Fresh Express, as chair of its board of directors.

“As the incoming chair, my vision is to build on CPS’s strong foundation, driving progress in produce food safety and advancing our mission to fund science, find solutions, and fuel change,” McEntire said in a news release. “I am grateful to past chair Joe Pezzini for his exemplary leadership and dedicated service, which have strengthened the Center for Produce Safety and set the stage for the important work ahead.”

According to CPS, McEntire brings 25-plus years of experience in sales, operations and management to the role.

McEntire began his career in 1993, helping his father automate processing lines and expand foodservice sales. After a brief stint in financial advising, he returned in 2002 to lead the company’s move to a new 165,000-square-foot facility in Columbia, S.C.

Over the next two decades, he built a strong team and grew his family’s company, McEntire Produce, into a leading Southeast provider of fresh-cut, repacked and wholesale produce, according to the release. The company was acquired by Fresh Express Inc. in December 2024.

Study Finds Promising Pear Food Safety Situation

Fri, 12 Sep 2025 11:49:59 GMT

It seems the pear industry is doing well when it comes to food safety on pear harvest, packing and storage. This is according to a study partially funded by the Center for Produce Safety (CPS).

During a Sept. 10 CPS webinar, Laura Strawn — professor and extension specialist at Virginia Tech — presented findings from a recently completed study into food safety risk mitigation in pears. The study used a metagenomic approach to catalog microbiological communities present on pears at harvest, during various stages and conditions of storage, and at retail.

Among other things, the study found that the packing line reduced microbial load — including of foodborne illness-causing microbes — on pear surfaces, and that method and length of storage changed the volume and makeup of microbial communities on pears.

“We were able to find that Listeria monocytogenes and generic E coli did not grow on intact pears throughout the entirety of storage,” says Strawn, the study’s principal investigator, adding that “wrapping of the pears significantly reduced Listeria monocytogenes levels.”

Objectives, Purpose and Findings

The study had three main objectives:

Identify what kinds of microbial communities are present on whole, intact pears prior to storage. D’Anjou pears were used in the study.
Identify and quantify what microbial communities are present on marketable (whole, intact) and unmarketable (mechanically damaged) pears in bulk bins and individually wrapped in storage for three, six and nine months under industry-standard environments, and track the changes over those storage times.
Track what happens to listeria colonies across storage conditions and lengths when applied to pears individually and in combination with other microbes that could be found on pears

“We really wanted to characterize the microbiota of these pears under different storage practices and provide evidence-based recommendations for both food safety and then also a little bit of quality management if possible,” Strawn says of the motivation behind the study. She adds that other tree fruit, especially apples, have benefited from similar investigations.

“But we really didn’t have those strong science-backed recommendations for our pear industry, and this was a really wonderful opportunity to do it,” she says.

On the first objective, the study found that the types of microbes on pears — the microbial communities — at harvest and after running through the packing line didn’t change much. But the number of microbes decreased significantly after passing through the packing line, “confirming the value of postharvest handling,” the report reads.

Strawn also notes that listeria was not found natively on pears in the study. Though another part of the study involved inoculating pears with listeria to see what happened under different conditions, they did not find the microbe on uninoculated pears.

On the second objective, the study made the surprising finding that the microbial communities were very similar between intact marketable pears and mechanically damaged unmarketable pears. However, wrapping pears in antimicrobial wrapping had a noticeable impact, both reducing the number of microbes present and decreasing the variety of microbes.

Finally, on objective three, the study found that listeria just didn’t grow on pears across storage. Large volumes of listeria and other co-inoculate microbes were applied to the study’s pears, and while listeria was still observable on the pears by seven months of storage, there was never any growth. Instead, volumes declined from inoculation levels under all tested conditions.

Impact for Industry

While all the findings were valuable to the pear industry, Strawn characterizes the finding that listeria didn’t grow on pears through storage as especially important.

She says it means the pear industry needs to “stay focused and vigilant on our food safety programs to prevent that initial contamination because we were able to show that if you have no contamination, it’s not going to be a supportive environment.”

She points to the large-scale outbreaks of listeria from produce, noting that such outbreaks stem from high levels of initial contamination followed by microbial growth, or “amplification.”

“So, being able to show that your commodity, under your operation and whatnot, doesn’t grow or ever show that amplification — it’s really important,” she says. “Because then you can say, ‘OK, good, we’re not getting any amplification. Now let’s really focus in on our good agricultural practice programs or good manufacturing practices. All the things we do around sanitation and worker health and hygiene, all that stuff and make sure that we’re not getting any kind of potential contamination.’”

Strawn also points to the findings that wrapped pears in storage showed less varied and reduced microbial loads compared to bulk-stored pears as useful to industry. She acknowledges that wrapping pears is labor-intensive and comes with a big cost, so moving the industry to wrapping is not desirable. But she adds that it could be a quality-preserving strategy “if you did have a lot come in that you were particularly concerned about or you thought might be more prone to disease.”

GS1 US Survey Shows Generational Divide on Food Safety Recalls

Tue, 09 Sep 2025 19:21:55 GMT

A new survey commissioned by nonprofit information standards organization GS1 US shows that while 85% of Americans believe food recalls are effective at protecting public health, 93% of consumers are concerned about the frequency of food recalls.

About 60% of consumers say they have avoided an entire food category, such as lettuce, following a recall and 59% report a hesitancy to purchase the same product or brand again after a recall. But that hesitancy to purchase again shows a generational divide among younger generations. Millennials (65%) and Gen Z (64%) show a higher reluctance to purchase the same product or brand again after a food recall, compared to 53% of baby boomers.

Melanie Nuce-Hilton, senior vice president of innovation and partnerships at GS1 US, says this disparity between generations could be due to younger shoppers becoming accustomed to having data at their fingertips, and if food safety recall isn’t readily available, they may be less likely to trust the safety of the brand and category.

But she says, this data shows a strong need for more modern traceability information.

“That UPC barcode is really designed to identify the product, but at a bagged lettuce level, that same UPC identifies all bagged lettuce of this type from this brand,” she says. “What we’re saying with improved traceability regulation and improved traceability data sharing now, batch lot information gathered at the farm and also the source of the farm is part of that data.”

And this will help the fresh produce industry better track a product to a farm, date of harvest and batch lot.

Other things that stood out to Nuce-Hilton is how strongly consumers, 85%, see food recalls as effective, but consumers also have a high level of concern about the frequency of food safety recalls, 93%.

“The root process of a recall seems to resonate with the consumer,” she says. “Improving transparency means the data has to be available, and it has to be captured, and it has to be shared.”

Nuce-Hilton says the industry needs to focus on transparency through data, and while GS1 US has some tools that can help growers better prepare for FSMA 204, she says the industry should expect a future with data.

“It’s going to be data driven,” she says of the future. “That, to me, is a little bit where some of the generational responses showed up is, ‘Give me more data. Give me the data I need to make a confident decision.’ And that’s, to me, also why FSMA 204 was extended. The hope now, and in the conversations we’re having with in the industry, is that the extension is going to give us the opportunity to provide the transparency we think consumers want.”

GS1 US’s full survey results can be found at gs1us.org/foodrecall .

How Changes in Foodborne Illness Tracking Could Impact Fresh Produce

Mon, 08 Sep 2025 23:13:57 GMT

Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reduced the required surveillance in its Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network (FoodNet). The CDC works with the Food and Drug Administration and USDA, as well as select state health departments, to track foodborne illnesses.

Frank Yiannas, former FDA deputy commissioner, says that these cuts, which reduce the number of illnesses tracked from campylobacter, cyclospora, listeria, salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing E. coli (STEC), shigella, vibrio and yersinia to only STEC and salmonella, could have lasting effects on the fresh produce industry.

With FoodNet, the CDC checks in with laboratories in select areas weekly. These laboratories in Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Maryland, Minnesota, New Mexico, Oregon, Tennessee and select counties in California and New York equate to about 16% of the population. From there, FoodNet tracks the incidents of foodborne illness per 100,000 people, which Yiannas says helps stabilize the data, because FoodNet tracks the rates of incidents as they happen.

This active surveillance is different than passive reporting, where health departments and the CDC report foodborne illnesses, Yiannas explains. Oftentimes, passive reporting can lead to underreporting of foodborne illnesses due to delays in processing.

“Without this kind of work, we really don’t know what the incidence of foodborne disease is,” he says. “You don’t want to just count cases of foodborne disease. You don’t want to count outbreaks of foodborne disease. You want an incidence per 100,000 population, because then you have a rate that you can compare to year after year.”

But with the cuts, the CDC will now only track salmonella and STEC.

“That means, going forward, the only thing we’ll have good data on in terms of what the true incidence of these pathogens in our country will be salmonella and STEC,” Yiannas says. “The industry won’t really know long-term trends on whether these pathogens are increasing or the illnesses are decreasing. No. 1, it’ll be hard for us to know whether we’re making progress. It’s the ultimate measuring stick, if you will. We won’t know whether we’re making progress. We won’t know whether our food system is getting safer or less safe because of climate change, because of imports or because of rules. We won’t be able to rate whether our interventions or rules are working or not, because we just won’t have confidence in the numbers.”

He says these cuts directly conflict with both the interest in the “gold standard” of science as well as a desire for radical transparency.

“I can’t imagine you’d find an epidemiologist who would say passive surveillance is the gold standard,” he says.

And Yiannas says this is a shame, because he thinks the U.S. has built one of the best foodborne surveillance systems thanks to the use of whole genome sequencing.

“I’ve worked with other nations, and our ability to do surveillance and detect cases of foodborne illness is really, really good, and that was largely because of the CDC and the states in programs such as FoodNet and technologies just such as whole genome sequencing,” he says. “The thing that has advanced food safety the most into the 21st century is foodborne disease surveillance; the fact that we can detect foodborne illnesses sometimes makes the invisible visible.”

And this also comes at a time when he says the food industry has not bent the curve of foodborne illness in two decades. Some of that, he says, can be attributed to the challenges of those last-mile issues of tracing the foodborne illness all the way back to the producer.

“When you start fighting these battles, it’s kind of like you pick the low-hanging fruit off the tree, and now the fruit is a little bit higher up, and it’s harder to reach,” he says. “So, these last-mile problems that we’re battling, these are harder.”

It’s likely that there will be less reporting of smaller foodborne illness cases, only outbreaks, Yiannas says. With these cuts, it will set up a system only able to detect larger outbreaks.

“You want to find out the spread in low-number cases too, to see what you can learn about them and to prevent a big outbreak,” he says. “I use the analogy of the airplane industry of near misses. You want everything to be investigated. You don’t want to wait until there’s a catastrophic failure in a big airplane.”

And from here, he says he hopes that the private sector will step in and help fill the place of FoodNet’s reduced reporting. But, he adds, the important thing to remember is this is not a partisan issue; this is an issue that impacts all Americans.

“The reality is this is a public sector function, because the industry can’t do this,” he says of FoodNet. “We do expect our government to do basic things that keep the American people safe. Maintaining the safety of the American consumer is a government responsibility and clearly a private sector responsibility, but foodborne illness surveillance is a public sector responsibility.”

And for those concerned about the impacts of these cuts, Yiannas encourages the industry to contact their representatives and legislators, as well as the CDC and the Department of Health and Human Services.

“Advocate with political leaders ... about the concern that what we’ll know about foodborne illnesses — other than the two that they’re tracking aggressively — will be less than what we’ve known for decades past, and we won’t really know whether our food system is getting safer,” he says.

Your next read: Former FDA Deputy Commissioner Talks FSMA Delay and Compliance Challenges

Former FDA Deputy Commissioner Talks FSMA Delay and Compliance Challenges

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 10:28:22 GMT

Earlier this summer, the Food and Drug Administration announced it would delay the compliance date for the Food Traceability Rule, colloquially known as FSMA 204, by 30 months .

Frank Yiannas, former deputy commissioner of the FDA, joined The Packer podcast to share his insights into why traceability is a critical step for the fresh produce industry and why it’s needed for the entire supply chain.

“It’s necessary, because in every big outbreak that happens, oftentimes we see that a lack of traceability is what I call an Achilles heel,” he says.

While the industry had been working to prepare for FSMA 204, which he says is a big undertaking, Yiannas expressed some disappointment that the FDA decided to delay compliance outright instead of moving forward with the Jan. 20, 2026, compliance date but with delayed enforcement, taking an educate before enforce approach.

“Had I been there, I would have been advocating strongly, for ‘Let’s provide the industry more time with something that we call enforcement discretion,’” he says. “The compliance date goes into effect, but you stay true to that FSMA mandate of educating before and while we regulate and give the industry certainty, maybe even in written form, that we would grant enforcement discretion for a period of time afterwards, and so you could have given them more time.”

Yiannis says the risk in delaying outright is that some companies within the fresh produce industry may stop progress toward compliance. There may be a thought that the FDA could delay enforcement again or even change the rule, but the FDA has said repeatedly that the agency has no intention of changing the rule.

“The good news is that industry has a little bit more time, and I strongly advocate that they use that time and don’t stop what they’re doing and work on it, because July of 2028 will be here before you know it,” he says.

Yiannis says he did an exercise a few weeks ago, looking at the outbreaks the FDA investigated and closed for this year. He says he discovered that 60% of those outbreaks were closed without identifying the food responsible for the outbreak.

“We live in a day and age where we have whole genome sequence, and the analogy I use is we can find needles-in-the-haystack cases of foodborne illness across the country; we know they’re linked because they have the same genetic match, which is a good thing, and I hope we continue to invest and make advancements in public health surveillance so we can find the needles in the haystack,” he says. “But we can’t find the haystacks — the foods from which these pathogens came from. We can’t delay this any longer than July of 2028, and if you say that you’re for radical transparency, as we hear a lot of leaders say these days, you can’t be for radical transparency and against food traceability. That’s an oxymoron.”

He says while FSMA 204 is a signficiant change, one of the biggest barriers to compliance is that many produce industry businesses don’t understand the true value of better traceability.

“We did a cost-benefit analysis, and on balance, we believe the rule will save the nation, the food system, our society at large, dollars, because we’ll be able to solve outbreaks quicker, prevent outbreaks, prevent these overly broad recalls that we’ve all seen over the course of the past decade,” he says. “We’ve seen repeatedly in these outbreaks. When you trace them back, it’s a source, yet everybody who grew the commodity got damaged.”

Yiannis says a challenge to implementing FSMA 204 across the entire fresh produce supply chain is what he calls the “last mile” at the distribution center and then shipping to a point of service such as a retailer or restaurant.

“I can tell you that in so many outbreaks, it was that last mile,” he says. “We couldn’t get good data on what was actually received at a restaurant or at a grocery store. There were always these estimates. And that’s why I say to those people who say that you don’t require capturing a traceability lot code at point of service, just don’t know. I hate to be so blunt, but they just don’t know, because they really haven’t tried to do this work.”

How Inteligistics' Tech is Aiding FSMA 204 Compliance

Wed, 03 Sep 2025 18:37:53 GMT

Lawrence Mallia, vice president of digital transformation of Inteligistics, sat down with The Packer to share the highlights of the company’s high-tech solutions for optimizing cold chain and supply chain management in the perishable food industry.

Despite the Food and Drug Administration’s delay in implementing the Food Traceability Rule, known as FSMA 204, the gathering and sharing of data is a critical step in preparation. Mallia says Inteligistics’ InteliView has its own applications and a mobile app that it can customize to help fresh produce industry businesses gather data.

InteliView works with systems such as GAC (Grower Accounting Systems), ERP, API and WMS, he adds.

“You can have data in one place, and then you can make actionable decisions,” Mallia says. “And that, of course, also enables, FSMA traceability, and being able to share that data and keep that data, you know, in case of any recalls.”

Mallia says Inteligistics also offers a 1-Click end-to-end solution which takes a GTIN number or a case and lot number to create a FSMA-compliant report. he says this will help produce industry become FSMA compliant while also getting some additional insights.

“We’re already collecting all that data, whether it’s through our system, whether it’s through ASNs, and if you’re a distributor, then you need that grow or shipper data,” he says. “We can grab that data, but whatever it is, once we have it, we can parse it.”

These additional insights include dwell times and sell-through reports, Mallia says.

Mallia says pairing the insights Inteligistics gathers from its cooling data and other key data elements (KDEs) can help users track any critical tracking events needed for FSMA 204.

And in terms of produce industry businesses’ interest in FSMA 204 readiness, he says he’s noticed a slight step back, but many retailers are already moving forward with the need for compliance, regardless of when FSMA 204 will go into effect.

While some produce industry businesses rely on paper tracking of warehouse management, there’s a need to digitize those records moving forward. Mallia says companies he’s talked with have begun the FSMA 204 journey with a warehouse management system first. He says other companies, though, still see the time between now and 2028 as an exercise in preparedness.

“For a lot of those companies, it’s an eye-opener to say, ‘This isn’t just a couple-of-months project, this might be a yearlong or even a two-year effort to fully, you know, get us compliant again,” he says.

And while some grower-shippers already use PTI and GS1 standards, Mallia says he sees a strong need for education.

“Our methodology has always been we’re willing to share the data with them as long as the customer comes in and says, ‘We want you to share the data,’” he says.

Taylor Farms Recalls Salad Kit Due to Dressing

Thu, 28 Aug 2025 17:31:12 GMT

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says Taylor Fresh Foods is voluntarily recalling the Taylor Farms Honey Balsamic Salad Kit 6/8.3oz. because it may contain undeclared sesame and soy allergens. FDA says this voluntary recall in response to a recall initiated by Latitude 36 Foods.

FDA says master packs — individual packets of dressing and toppings supplied by Latitude 36 Foods and included in Taylor Farms salad kits — incorrectly included Asian sesame ginger dressing rather than the intended honey balsamic vinaigrette dressing, leading to the possibility of undeclared sesame and soy allergens in some Taylor Farms Honey Balsamic Salad Kits.

The Taylor Farms Honey Balsamic Salad Kit involved in the recall was distributed in Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia and has code dates starting with “TFRS” and “Best If Used By” date up to and including Sept. 4, 2025. The product code can be found in the upper right-hand corner of the packaging.

FDA says there have been no illnesses reported to Taylor Farms in connection with the recalled product, and this recall does not apply to any other Taylor Farms products or brands.