MONTEREY CALIF. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
Commenting on last summer’s Salmonella saintpaul outbreak, which finally was traced by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to raw, Mexican jalapeño and serrano peppers, PMA president Bryan Silbermann said when it comes to produce food safety, “frustrations have understandably reached a boiling point.” —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
“A wide net of blame is still being cast,” he added, speaking at the outset of “Trends Update” session. “Fingers [are] pointed at FDA, Centers for Disease Control, state departments of health, media and some growing areas,” and there are “calls for congressional investigations” and “threats of lawsuits.” —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
“While such rhetoric is satisfying and perhaps necessary,” Silbermann said, “in the short term, it will not protect our customers or your company from another outbreak, if we believe we are doing all we should. Blame is easy; finding lasting solutions is hard, and so are the questions we must ask ourselves.” —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
“Food safety obviously is a huge concern right now,” Ron Vasquez, director of culinary for 12-unit Uncle Julio’s Corp. of Irving, Texas, said during a panel session titled, “Explore Frontline Challenges with The Unit Operator.” “Safer food will come from this.” —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
A packed “Town Hall Meeting” on the Salmonella outbreak, included nine speakers representing produce growers, shippers, marketers, produce trade groups, regulators and elected officials. Several of the participants expressed frustration about the pace of progress in improving the system for tracking and handling food-borne illnesses tied to fresh produce, including Parker Booth, president of Ace Tomato Co. Inc. of Manteca, Calif. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
Despite food safety initiatives within Ace Tomato in recent years, Booth said his company suffered sales losses when the FDA’s “safe-list” approach advised against consumption of certain tomato types and product from certain regions without consideration of the practices or traceback capabilities of specific firms. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
However, most participants seemed to agree that the investigation and handling of the Salmonella outbreak demonstrated some improvements in the process since 2006’s E. coli O157:H7 epidemic tied to bagged spinach. They cited the improved traceback capabilities among some produce companies, as well as the FDA’s “unprecedented” efforts to communicate with and tap the expertise of the produce industry earlier in the process. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
Congressman Sam Farr, D-Calif., whose district includes the Salinas Valley, one of the nation’s prime agricultural regions, said the FDA, as well as the federal government, in general, does poorly at “crisis communications.” He said the tomato industry was “destroyed” by the manner in which the FDA notified consumers and business about the possible link of some fresh tomatoes to the Salmonella outbreak. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
FDA officials have defended that process as necessary to protect the public’s health in light of early investigatory findings. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
Farr advocated a national strategy for dealing with produce safety, as opposed to regional fixes, and suggested that the FDA may be distracted from food safety issues by the politics of regulating the pharmaceutical industry. For the purposes of crisis communications, he championed a system similar to the “incident command” strategy for fighting large-scale fires developed in California in the 1970s. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
While private and public procedures for dealing with foodborne-illness outbreaks have improved since the spinach problem two years ago, additional important changes are needed, said Kathy Means, vice president of government relations for Newark, Del.-based PMA. She mentioned the need for federal lawmakers to better fund the FDA, give that agency mandatory recall powers and to mandate the good agricultural practices developed by a consortium of produce industry groups in an effort to reduce the likelihood of produce contamination. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
PMA president Silbermann said in dealing with the industry’s food safety challenges and the government’s handling of outbreaks: “The answers will be difficult [and], some would argue, too costly. My response: ‘How much have these outbreaks cost us already? How many times must we face these summers of discontent in our industry?’ I ask you, ‘Can we afford not to have the courage to change?’” —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
During the “Update” educational session involving growers and distributors, operator attendees heard Bob Gray, chief executive of Duda Farms Fresh Foods Inc. of Oviedo, Fla., say production costs have risen just under 30 percent during the past three years and that his industry is “struggling with the cost side” to remain profitable. Rich Dachman, vice president of produce for distributor Sysco Corp. of Houston, said rising transportation expenses, such as for gasoline and diesel, are compounding the impact of increasing product costs. He indicated that it now costs his company an additional $2,000 to $3,000 to move a truck across the country, which, if directly recouped, would equal a $2 to $3 mark-up per case in a 1,000-case shipment. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
Dachman noted that rising transportation costs might accelerate the “locavore” trend, a growing preference among some consumers and restaurateurs to use produce from local or regional sources. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
“If we can save customers $2 per case by sourcing locally, you will kill two birds with one stone,” he said. —Restaurateurs at the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Conference & Exposition here heard that while progress is being made in preventing, tracking and publicizing foodborne illness outbreaks tied to fresh greens, vegetables and fruits, more needs to be done.
