Food Safety is Critically Important for Consumers

Safe Food Alliance’s Big Lab in Kingsburg Will Serve Ag Industry

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

California Ag Today recently spoke with Tom Jones, senior director of analytical services with the Safe Food Alliance, about the new state of the art food safety lab in Kingsburg.

“We have laboratories, not only here but also in Kerman, Winters, as well as Yuba City,” Jones said. “But this is a big lab; our main lab that will provide plenty of space for research and testing.”

Tom Jones Sr. Director of Analytic Services for Safe Food Alliance

“We were in a laboratory in downtown Fresno that … was less than 8,000 square feet. We’re now in more than 20,000 square feet, and it’s made a tremendous difference—a lot more space and capacity for us to do our work,” Jones explained.

There is adequate room for additional sample storage, more instrumentation as the business grows and more people doing more work.

“We also have room for additional incubation of samples, so in the microbiological testing, that’s a big issue,” Jones said. “It is a much easier place to work in.”

“The first piece of instrumentation actually installed in the new lab before we officially moved in was our GC Mass Spectrometer Time of Flight system, and it’s a powerful system to be able to analyze for unknown compounds,” Jones said. “If you have a problem … you can take that sample, run it through the GC Mass Spectrometer and start getting data right away. Even if you don’t know what you’re exactly analyzing for, you can actually start the process there, so that’s really exciting.”

“You need qualified people to run that machine So, that’s a big part of the testing world as well. And the end goal of all of this new technology is to keep consumers safe,” Jones continued. “Our mission is to see a safe food supply from farm to fork, and we’re really excited to have this facility because we can test to a wider range of food products, using a wider range of analysis. We are here to help support our agricultural community as well as the food processing community as we export to the world.”

(Additional Photo is of the Open House at the new lab in Kingsburg.)

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:11-07:00June 22nd, 2018|

Safe Food Alliance Helps Keep Food Safe

Standard is Parts Per Billion Today

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

California Ag Today recently spoke with Mark Mariani, executive chairman of the Mariani Packing Company in Vacaville and outgoing chairman of the Safe Food Alliance, which recently opened a new laboratory in Kingsburg to provide further research into food safety.

Mark Mariani

“We’ve been members since 1946, and the fact that the produce industry is self-policing is very unique,” Mariani said.

“The reason why we enjoyed the DFA and now the SFA is the fact that we are very concerned about food safety and so we are in a very unique industry in the sense that we self-police ourselves and so this is not something new. We’ve been doing it for over 100 years,” he explained.

“It’s not the new trend, and so being part of the DFA and SFA gives us the opportunity to not only look at the way we do our practices in our manufacturing practices, but also it gives us an opportunity to look at how we test our products,” Mariani said. “And back in the day, we used to be happy with one part per million detections of something. Today, we’re insisting on one part per billion.”

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:05:11-07:00June 14th, 2018|

The Need to Harmonize Maximum Residue Levels

Nearly All Produce Has Zero Residues of Crop Protection Products

By Mikenzi Meyers, Associate Editor

It can be tempting to grab a piece of produce right off the shelf and take a bite. We have the California Specialty Crops Council and the MRL Workshop to thank for this! MRL stands for the Maximum Residue Level on any agricultural produce.

Now, the words “residue level on produce” may be alarming, but it is important to note that we are talking about parts per billion that are far below the unhealthy level. In fact, nearly all produce has zero residues!

Gary Van Sickle, Specialty Crops Council

The MRL Workshop is an event that has been held for the past 12 years in San Francisco, where experts from around the world come together to discuss new findings and challenges.

Gary Van Sickle, executive director of the California Specialty Crops Council, explained that a significant issue within the industry is the lack of harmonization amongst the countries.

“You’ve gone from a situation where many countries that used to use the Codex Food Safety Standard are now moving forward with setting their own, and every one of these standards is a little different,” Van Sickle said. “This creates problems for agriculture producers trying to export produce to countries with their standard.”

The MRL Workshop helps to identify these problems and recognize how to start solving them. According to Van Sickle, the keys are transparency and regulations that are reasonable.

When considering the number of specialty crops California exports across the world, the importance of this workshop becomes more and more evident.

California Ag Today2018-06-12T16:41:06-07:00June 12th, 2018|

Mariani Packing Co. Puts Food Safety Top Priority

Mariani Served as Chair of the Safe Food Alliance

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Editor

The Mariani Packing Company is one of the largest specialty crop growers and handlers in the state, packing many different types of fruit on a massive scale. California Ag Today recently spoke with Mark Mariani, executive chairman of the Mariani packing company in Vacaville and the outgoing chairman of the Safe Food Alliance (SFA), an organization specializing in food safety among growers, packers, and processers to maintain high standards of food safety and prevent consumer illness.

“Our four major specialty crops areas is that we’re the second largest cranberry growers (with operations back east) and packers, (with operations back east), and we also grow and pack mangoes out of Mexico, Mariani said. “And we are probably the third-largest raisin grower/packer in California. We also repack prunes for the world market.”

Mariani said that the products that they bring in from Mexico are held to the same standard as produce grown inside the United States. Consumers always look back at the supplier when it comes to food safety, so they ensure that standards meet or exceed the U.S. standards.

Mariani reflected on his part in the Safe Food Alliance organization.

“It’s an exciting time for DFA (which still stands as an entity as it’s being morphed into the Safe Food Alliance) because of the growth and the fact that it is offering so many more services to our members. We recognize that for us to move forward as an industry, we have to be better than anyone else and especially foreign competition,” he said. “And you do that because you can create trust, and I think there’s a solid brand with SFA ,if you’ve been approved and a member … that you are operating within the SFA conditions.”

As the former chairman of SFA, Mariani enjoyed working with passionate people.

“The individuals in the DFA and SFA are passionate people that want to do and exceed the expectations or their members. And most importantly, you want to provide safe food for consumers,” Mariani said.

The new Chair of Safe Food Alliance is Dane Lance, President and CEO of Sunsweet Growers, the world’s largest and most famous brand of dried tree fruits including prunes, apricots, and mangos.

California Ag Today2018-06-06T16:17:06-07:00June 6th, 2018|

Importance of Recall Insurance

Brokers Can help Growers Minimize Losses

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

California Ag Today recently met with Caitlin McGrath, the national product recall and contamination risk consultant with Lockton Insurance Brokers. Insurance is needed for California growers in case of recalls and contaminations. Lockton feels the most important part of finding the right recall insurance is the consulting element.

Caitlin McGrath, Lockton Insurance Brokers

“Now, what I think is the most important part of insurance coverage is the consulting element,” McGrath said.

These are consulting services that are available if you are a recall or contamination insurance purchaser that allows you access to specialists during and before incidents. One of the struggles that McGrath is noticing is that the quality assurance folks she speaks to are not insurance buyers.

“They are the ones finding out the information about all these services that are available, and it’s not always getting down into the field,” she said.

Preparation in the case of recalls or contamination is important.

“Fan Favorite, as I call them, do a lot of really great work on behalf of a lot of our clients,” McGrath said.

Some of that work can be Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) training and mock recalls. Financial costs are rising due to the increasing number of recalls.

“We believe that that’s the effect of [the Federal Information Security Management Act or] FISMA. They are getting larger in financial cost, and that has to do with the amount that is being recalled and the implications in terms of publicity,” McGrath said.

Recall plans need to cover all of the elements, not just mock recalls.

“The internal message is just as important and knowing who is going to handle what within an organization. Planning and practicing that is really critical to help mitigate if there is a problem,” McGrath explained.

“Having directives around the use of social media as an employee of an organization is very important, but just one department not talking to another is going to have a huge part in this,” she said.

Buying product contamination insurance is expensive, but necessary. Since McGrath started, the number of brokers has nearly tripled.

“I think that not having insurance is now the outlier, so I think the majority of folks are still buying,” she said.

California Ag Today2018-05-23T16:37:56-07:00May 23rd, 2018|

Higher Caution Will Be Required when Spraying Near Schools

New Regs on Pesticide Spraying Near Schools Begin Jan. 1

By Brianne Boyett, Associate Editor

Starting Jan. 1, new regulations will prohibit pesticide spraying near schools and licensed child day-care facilities within a quarter mile Monday through Friday between the hours of 6:00 AM and 6:00 PM.

In addition, most dust and powder pesticide applications, such as sulfur, will also be prohibited during this time.

California Ag Today spoke with Milton O’Haire, Ag Commissioner for Stanislaus County, about these new regulations.

“With these new regulations and even with our permit conditions, growers have been restricted as far as spraying around schools,” O’Haire said. “It’s making it harder for growers to actually practice agriculture because their windows for applying crop protection has shrunk even more.”

Milton O’Haire

“Previously, a grower could actually start spraying at 5:00 p.m. if school’s out already, or if the school was on a half-day, an operator could start spraying in the afternoon. These new regulation will prohibit that,” O’Haire said.

“The new regulations are slightly different than what we’ve had in place for a number of years. Since 2010, we’ve had permit conditions on all of our restricted materials permits, which are more acute or toxic materials where there was already a one-quarter mile restriction around schools. And during that time, we really haven’t had any violations or any incidents, so the growers have been following that very well,” O’Haire explained.

The new regulations target all crop protection materials, both restricted or not.

Growers will have to be more diligent about their pesticide applications and continue to monitor the spray operation to prevent drift.

“They have to be on top of the pests so they catch them very quickly, because if you have a pest infestation where before you might have been able to go out and start spraying the next day, you may not be able to do that,” O’Haire said.

“If you’re near a K-12 school, and it’s Monday for instance, now you’re going to have to wait for a window to open or come in at nighttime to actually spray,” he explained. “It is going to affect those growers that have crops near schools, and we have more than 200 growers that are going to be affected in our county.”

Previous drafts of these new regulations required parents to be notified anytime a grower would be spraying pesticides near K-12 schools or licensed daycare centers.

“There was a modification of that. What has changed in the draft regulations: now the grower must notify the school annually with a list of what would be applied during the year,” O’Haire said.

If a material is to be used that was not on the list, then the school must be notified 48 hours before application. The material must be added to the list at the school as well as notifying the Ag Commissioner.

California Ag Today2021-05-12T11:01:57-07:00December 27th, 2017|

Farmers Appreciate Leafy Green Marketing Agreement

Leafy Green Marketing Agreement Raises Bar

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

The Leafy Green Marketing Agreement took huge steps in the advancement of food safety.

Scott Horsfall, CEO of the California of the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, said, “In 2007, there had never been government inspectors on the farm on a routine basis related to food safety.”

Many other regulators such as the Department of Public Health would often check in on businesses. However, there had never been a routine food safety oversight program on the farm.

Farmers joined this agreement voluntarily. “All of these companies that have joined, and been in the program since 2007, they do so voluntarily, and they pay the freight,” Horsfall said. This raises the bar for food safety and provides value to the industry.

Farmers, who were wary at first, came back to Horsfall saying, “They sleep better at night knowing that they’ve got this program in place, that the auditors are going to be there.”

The California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement continues to improve. Every year, the numbers are studied to see what areas have a continuing problem.

“We have used that to decide what to create in a training program. We hope that we’re helping the industry to better comply with these standards as we go along too, by offering the training,” Horsfall said.

For more information, visit the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement web page.

California Ag Today2017-09-14T16:03:16-07:00September 14th, 2017|

Expert Talks Protecting Our Food Supply And Industry

Maintaining Food Safety – Part 2

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

Continuing our series on food safety in the state of California, we spoke with Jon Kimble, Operations Business Development Manager at Safe Food Alliance, and he explained the need for worker awareness when it comes to protecting our food supply.

“Too often, we see these recalls on foods where people are getting ill. Many times, it gets tracked back to an employee. Somebody’s got a virus, somebody’s got a bacteria, they’re sick,” Kimble said. “They come in contact with the food while they’re ill, and that translates back to getting out in the food supply and making people sick.”

“That’s what we’re trying to minimize. In a practical sense, in cases where we’ve observed people getting sick from things, we track that back, see what the source is, and try and share that information with everybody so that they can minimize that from happening in the future,” Kimble explained.

There are economic implications to consider as well.

“It is really paramount to prevent not only economic damage to your own farm and your own business, but also an entire industry,” Kimble said. “We see [that] one bad apple affects the whole industry.”

“We’ve even seen situations, such as a few years ago ,where there were some contaminated peppers, but they suspected tomatoes initially. It impacted an entire year’s harvest of tomatoes,” Kimble said. “We want to minimize the damage to the industry, and how people protect their businesses legally, by doing the right thing.”

Buyers are also setting a higher standard of quality, in light of the new rule.

“The regulation does set a minimum requirement, but buyers, customers, purchasers are setting a higher standard,” Kimble said.

“We’re seeing that trickle down effect as a result of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), that even folks who aren’t necessarily required to do certain things in their operation are being asked by their customers to do above and beyond what the regulation requires, and even in advance of their compliance dates for the regulation.”

“We’ve seen it both on the processing side and on the growing side, that customers are starting to raise their expectations for growers,” he said.

This is Part 2 of a 3 Part Series.

California Ag Today2017-09-02T23:13:09-07:00August 23rd, 2017|

A Great Time to Be in Agriculture

Lowell Catlett On Ag, Part One

Agriculture Is Primed to Provide Different Food to Masses

By Jessica Theisman, Associate Editor

Lowell Catlett says California agriculture is in a good place.

Lowell Catlett, a former professor at New Mexico State University who continues to lecture with a style that keeps the audience engaged, shared with us what a great time it is to be in agriculture. “I think it is the best time because we have never had a period in history where we have had so many people, worldwide, rising out of abject poverty into middle class” he explained.

“They become consumers, and they want things, and they want a lot of things. They want the things that they see other people have. That means they want California pistachios, almonds and walnuts, and all the bounty that California produces, including its milk and eggs and cheeses, and everything else,” Catlett said.

“Once someone earns more money, one of the first things they change is their diets, and they like to get things that are unusual and unique. And California is the breadbasket of the world in terms of its ability to produce different things, and you’re seeing that translate into best time ever to be in agriculture,” he said.

Not only does current agriculture have the products, but there is plenty of money to buy those products. “There is so much money. The net worth of the United States right now over 123 million households is $94 trillion. The world’s output last year was $73 trillion, so we have $20 trillion more in household net worth than the whole world combined, The consumers want organic, or they want certified to the source. We have to certify those things to the source. They want all kinds of different food choices,” Catlett said.

“Before, people just wanted food, and they now want all these other foods. They may want gluten free, and they many not even have celiac disease. And it all helps the farmers to have markets we never had before, and that is fabulous,” Catlett said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-04-20T13:54:41-07:00March 22nd, 2017|

FSMA Requirements Must Be Addressed

FSMA Requirements Must be Understood and Documented

By Patrick Cavanaugh, Farm News Director

When it comes to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), there are now some big changes for food processors, farmers and farm employees.

“One of the things we’re seeing that has changed as of recently, mainly due to the Food Safety Modernization Act, is there are standardized curriculum requirements within what we call the food processor rule, or the preventive controls rule, but now that’s going back to the farm in what’s called the produce safety rule,” said Jeremiah Szabo, vice president of operations for Safe Food Alliance, a division of DFA of California.

“These rules are actually regulations that have been published and finalized by the Food & Drug Administration, and there are federal regulations, of which the states are going to adopt and manage and regulate,” Szabo said.

“One of the things we’ve been doing, and what our organization has been preparing for, is really beefing up the number of trainers we have on staff, their qualifications, sending them to lead instructor courses as we did, actually, starting about a year ago,” he said.

“We were involved with becoming lead instructors, and we have lead instructors on staff, to offer the preventive controls qualified individual training for food processors, which is a mandatory requirement when it comes to education requirements for those individuals at every food processor site that will manage their food safety system,” Szabo said.

The training includes documentation, record-keeping and education of staff working at those facilities, as well as their supply chain management and sanitation practice management.

Szabo said that the two-and-a-half day training has been successful. “As of March of 2016, we’ve conducted about 20 of those food processor trainings in California and other states.”

“They’ve been really successful,” he said. “I think the practicality that comes with those courses is really important for the industry to hone in and to learn about how regulators are going to be expecting food facilities to document their food safety plan, as well as implement their food safety plan in their facilities.

Szabo noted that as the Safe Food Alliance was rolling out the preventive controls for qualified individual training, there were FDA and state regulators present in the training to learn about the preventive controls along with the industry. “This was good because the industry could hear from both sides of the aisle,” Szabo said.

On the farm side of the FSMA rule, farms not exempted from that rule will require eight hours of standardized training. “It involves things that are mentioned in the regulations, such as employee qualifications and education when it comes to personal hygiene for those employees that are interacting with the harvest activities, as well as the produce itself,” Szabo said.

For farms, there are eight modules of training, including worker health and hygiene and soil amendments, as well as agricultural production and post-harvest water quality.

“We’ve also partnered with the California Farm Bureau and their Farm Employee Labor Services Association to offer the training to farm supervisors and farm managers, as well as anybody else on the farm who are managing farm food safety plans and training and education,” Szabo said.

Patrick Cavanaugh2017-02-01T19:33:27-08:00February 1st, 2017|

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