Stenzel testimony

This testimony by Tom Stenzel was expected to delivered this afternoon before the House Agricultural Appropriations Subcommittee.

Amy Philpott reported in an email that the hearing will focus on the "broken food safety system" and begins with testimony from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) on its latest report recommending comprehensive reform to food safety.

Philpott notes others before the committee: The American Meat Institute, Consumer Federation of America, and a former USDA/FDA official now at the University of Maryland.


What did Stenzel say? He says a ton, and it is well reasoned. For me, the following is an important point that Stenzel makes about the risk of federal authorities overreaching and overregulating in this earnest push for food safety legislation.

This will be an extremely important point moving forward. The FDA has to be careful that broad strokes do not result in requirements that should not apply to specific commodities, and do nothing to enhance safety. Taking a general approach would be far too easy to add regulatory costs and burdens to sectors where those requirements are unneeded, without doing anything to enhance safety where most critical.


Meanwhile, subcommittee chair woman Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. gave her remarks here.

In all, there have been 10 GAO reports on serious problems in our food safety system since 2000 alone. We have seen this problem coming.
“But this hearing will not be about assigning blame. Rather, our goal here is simple – oversight. And as you can see from the chart behind us, with 15 different agencies operating under 30 separate laws responsible for regulating the safety of our food— with 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations, and 5,000 deaths from food-related illnesses each year—the need for meticulous congressional oversight is clear.

What's happening to our bees?

This story raises alarm about the status of pollinators so important to the fruit and vegetable industry. Apparently a mystery killer is causing the collapse of many commercial bee hives.
From The Philadelphia Inquirer:

"Every day, you hear of another operator," said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, acting state apiarist with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture. "It's just causing so much death so quickly that it's startling."At stake is the work the honeybees do, pollinating more than $15 billion worth of U.S. crops, including Pennsylvania's apple harvest, the fourth-largest in the nation, worth $45 million, and New Jersey's cranberries and blueberries. While a few crops, such as corn and wheat, are pollinated by the wind, most need bees. Without these insects, crop yields would fall dramatically. Agronomists estimate Americans owe one in three bites of food to bees.The problem caps 20 years of honeybee woes, including two mites that killed the valuable insect and a predatory beetle that attacked the honeycombs of weak or dead colonies.

PMA calls for GTIN standard

The Produce Marketing Association is in the news with this report about its efforts to move the the industry toward GTIN standards.
From the story:

“Simply put, the produce industry cannot effectively participate in supply chain technologies such as electronic commerce, barcoding, reduced space symbology (RSS), radio frequency identification (RFID), and data synchronization without adopting the GTIN,” the PMA report stated.
GTIN is a globally recognized protocol for assigning items numbers. It is used in at least 26 different industries in about 100 countries.

State okays marketing agreement

This report from the AP reflects the latest developments concerning the California state marketing agreement on leafy greens. Look for more industry perspective in The Packer in this week's coverage.

Bottom line, state agriculture officials gave the industry the go ahead to proceed with the voluntary marketing agreement designed to restore consumer confidence in Calfornia leafy greens.

The Department of Food and Agriculture approved the plan after 24 handlers that wash, package and ship about 70 percent of the leafy greens processed in the state agreed to take part. The program was put forward by the produce industry after the spinach-related E. coli scare that sickened people coast to coast last year.


TK: The 24 companies represent most of the biggest handlers/processors of leafy greens out of a pool of about 140, state officials said. Seventy percent of the volume is a substantial majority, but a little shy of my expectations. Where are the 116 handlers that didn't sign on? Predictably, the gap in participation leaves room for critics to argue for state regulation.

State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, who has introduced a bill that would set more stringent, mandatory production standards for leafy greens and put the responsibility for overseeing California-grown produce under the state health department, said the agriculture department's approval of the industry plan does not obviate the need for his legislation.
Even though the largest processors have agreed to participate, Florez said he was concerned the number of companies who signed on means the industry is not serious about policing itself.
"This industry still doesn't believe there is a problem out there, even though they say they do," Florez said.

TK: Here is a report about a lawsuit trial date set related to the spinach outbreak.

A new light

Trolling the Web this morning, this caught my eye about a new lighting system for fresh produce at retail.

Using the latest in warm white LED technology, the NuaLight CryoLED solution has been designed to minimize electrical energy consumption and maximize the shelf life of fresh salad produce, through the elimination of ultra violet light and radiated heat.


A straightforward reminder there is always something new to talk about at the next trade show.