LGMA Taking Steps to Improve Food Safety

By Tim Hammerich with the Ag Information Network

The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement Board continues its efforts to assure safe leafy greens and confidence in food safety programs. Yesterday we reported on their endorsement of new pre-harvest testing guidance. CEO Tim York says this is just one step to continue improving overall food safety and avoiding future outbreaks.

“You know, this is just the first step in what we’re tackling that is the risk mitigation. Evaluating risks on their farm, whether it’s the adjacent land that we’ve talked about with cattle, whether it’s water, whether it’s soil, whether it’s the environment, harvest practices,” said York. “All those things we’re providing industry guidance on and working on metrics to help ensure and tighten up food safety requirements. Because we don’t want any more outbreaks. We don’t want any more sick consumers.”

“We don’t want any more impact on the industry. And so we have to accelerate what it is we’re doing address broader issues than just cattle, but starting somewhere, again because of FDA report started with cattle. But a number of different areas are under our purview that we’re working very quickly on within our technical committees to accelerate the guidance and accelerate the adoption of practices that would mitigate pathogen presence,” noted York

Learn more about these continued efforts on their website: https://lgma.ca.gov/.