Posts from the "Latest News" category
US: Faster listeria tests start hitting the market
Food Safety News: Once food manufacturers begin looking for Listeria more often, it’s only natural that they will begin to look for faster tests. Traditional means of detecting Listeria involve techniques and processes that take several days to complete while waiting for the return of laboratory results.
But new options are emerging. Here are a couple of examples…
Read Article →AU: Pesticide residue report not cause for health safety concern: department of health
ABC Rural: A report on the management of pesticides in Western Australia has found residue on fruit and vegetables grown locally is more than ten times the national average.
An Auditor-General’s report has found residues exceeded acceptable levels on 11 per cent of some WA-grown produce lines tested in some years. The national average is 1 per cent.
“The safety numbers that they are talking about are not an immediate public health safety issue,” said Jim Dodds, environmental health director at the WA Health Department.
He explained that the 11 per cent figure was skewed because the WA survey targeted “high risk” foods.
“We’ve gone in and sampled a totally different group of foods that we knew would have a higher risk of having pesticides on them, so it’s a totally different group so we could help agricultural businesses to get better use of pesticides on their farm.”
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US: ProducePro campaign launched to help consumers safely prepare and enjoy fresh produce
Kathy Means, PMA: Consumers are the last line of defense in preventing foodborne illness.That’s why PMA supports the Partnership for Food Safety Education, which educates consumers through science-based, consumer-tested messaging.
The Partnership, with support from the Food Marketing Institute Foundation and PMA, introduced ProducePro, a new campaign to help consumers safely prepare and enjoy fresh produce with simple home safety practices.
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US: Survey of food safety practices – Small farms and farmers markets
Journal of Food Protection: This study evaluated current food safety practices used by farmers on small to medium-sized farms and managers of farmers markets in Georgia, Virginia, and South Carolina based on responses to surveys. Data were collected from 226 farmers and 45 market managers. Responses from farmers indicated that more than 56% of them use manures. Of those who use manures, 34% use raw or mixtures of raw and composted manure, and over 26% wait fewer than 90 days between application of raw manure and harvest. Over 27% use water sources that have not been tested for safety for irrigation, and 16% use such water sources for washing produce. Over 43% do not sanitize surfaces that touch produce at the farm. Only 33% of farmers always clean transport containers between uses.
Read Article →US: PMA Comments on FSMA Implementation Work Plans
Jim Gorny, PMA: In written comments submitted May 26 to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) proposed Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) implementation work plans (Focus on Implementation Strategy for Prevention-Oriented Food Safety Standards), Produce Marketing Association (PMA) again supported the need for increased funding for FDA’s food safety budget, including the appropriation of an additional $109.5 million in new budget authority. However, PMA clearly outlined its opposition to funding FSMA implementation through the imposition of user fees, inspection fees or registration fees by Federal or State governments.
The comments highlighted three areas of most concern to members…
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US: Ice cream as a catalyst for change in the produce industry? By Dr Bob Whitaker
Dr Bob Whitaker, PMA: You are probably thinking that is an odd title unless you have been monitoring the Blue Bell ice cream recall in recent weeks. Blue Bell hit the news back in mid-March when they recalled ice cream products from one of their production lines owing to contamination with Listeria monocytogenes (Lm). Flashing forward to the end of April, Blue Bell has recalled all of its products currently in the market made at all of its facilities due to potential contamination with Lm. It turns out that arriving at where this case is today has been the result of a long and complex, multi-state outbreak investigation that may reach back as far as 2010. There are currently 10 people sickened by this incident across four states (Arizona, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas) with three deaths (all in Kansas). All of the victims were elderly and had other underlying health issues and were hospitalized before developing listeriosis.
While this is a tragedy that we can all relate to, you may still be asking, what does this have to do with produce?
Read Article →US: PMA members respond to draft FSMA implementation strategy
Dr Jim Gorny, PMA: With the first five final rules for the Food and Drug Administration’s Food Safety Modernization Act regulations anticipated this August and October, and with the recent call for comments on FDA’s proposed FSMA implementation work plans, we’re shifting focus toward implementation of the final rules that are set to transform food safety for our industry.
Read Article →AU: Educate your staff with this free food safety video
Amanda Evans, HACCP Mentor: The World Health Organization celebrated “World Health Day 2015†last week so I am dedicating week 12 of the Food Safety HACCP Challenge to global threats posed by unsafe foods. As part of promoting a global view on Food Safety, a fantastic educational food safety video was released by WHO.
Read Article →AU: Online Chinese ‘mall’ for Australian food
The Australian: Billionaire Richard Liu has further opened Australian food producers to the massive Chinese consumer market, launching an “Australia Mall†channel on China’s biggest online trading platform, JD.com.
The 40-year-old Mr Liu, China’s 11th-richest man, was in Melbourne today launching the new platform and announcing a deal with Treasury Wines to use the system, under which a2 milk is already sold.
“We believe it’s important to market the country first and then its product and we want to promote Australia as a very clean, very natural and very beautiful country,†he told The Australian.
“We also want to make Chinese people aware of how straight and stringent Australian regulations are in regards to food safety and security.â€
Read Article →NZ: Technology helps pinpoint fakes
Northland Age:Â The risk of suspect fruit being used to piggy-back on Hawke’s Bay’s global pipfruit reputation has moved one company into cutting-edge science to thwart the pretenders, using what are effectively horticulture’s own forms of fingerprinting and DNA testing.
Leading orchardist and Bay View-based family operation Taylor Corporation has engaged Otago company Oritain to come up with the tools to prove their produce is the real thing.
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