Opinion: Charles Sweat in USA Today

Here is the link to the letter sent Charles Sweat, president, Natural Selection Foods - San Juan Bautista, Calif., to USA Today. Here is the text:

For everyone here at Natural Selection Foods, USA TODAY's story about E. coli in spinach was a reminder of how deeply saddened we are by the human toll of last year's outbreak ("Spinach recall: 5 faces. 5 agonizing deaths. 1 year later," Cover story, Money, Sept. 21).
The people whom USA TODAY profiled are not just names and photos to us; I have met with many of their families. They, and all of those affected, are in our thoughts and prayers.
At the request of USA TODAY, we spent hours with one of its reporters explaining the details of our food safety program and the changes we and the industry have made over the past year. Unfortunately, much of that information was not included in the story:
Within hours of the recall, we turned to food safety experts from outside of our industry.
We learned that scientists in the beef industry had developed a credible system of testing for raw product and finished goods that had significantly reduced the number of illnesses associated with beef.
We learned that this program could be implemented for leafy greens, and leading scientists were eager to help us do it.
Today, we lab test all lots of greens twice — once when they arrive from the fields and again before we send them out — and we hold them in place until test results show no presence of pathogens.
We have also instituted enhanced preventative measures in the fields.
As terrible as the outbreak's impact has been, we believe that it can catalyze positive change — that as a country and as an industry we must share a renewed focus on food safety and an unrelenting commitment to find solutions to this difficult problem.

TK: Failing a kill step that would prevent pathogens on produce, it is hard to argue with the approach of Natural Selection Foods to "lab test all lots of greens twice, and hold them in place until test results show no presence of pathogens."