Headline roundup 7/28

Still no answers on contamination of local firm's onions Passed on by the Food Safety Networkd at K-State..From the Ventura County Star:
No one seems to know what happened at an Oxnard onion processing plant last month to cause a recall of 30,000 pounds of diced yellow onions.
The company, Gills Onions LLC, doesn't know: "We don't have a smoking gun to say where it came from," said Nelia Alamo, the company's vice president of marketing and customer relations.
The California Department of Public Health conducted an inspection with the federal Food and Drug Administration, but did not determine a cause.
"We don't know the exact source of this specific contamination," said spokeswoman Norma Arceo. The state's investigation, she said, was inconclusive.

Restoring confidence in food TK: FDA is having media outreach on food safety topic, proposing a breakfast chat next week. Meanwhile, this is past on by K-State's Food Safety Network: From Dallas Morning News:

Dozens of bulbous heads of iceberg lettuce glided along a conveyor belt at a Dallas processing plant Friday, headed for a chlorinated water bath, a plastic bag and eventually the plate of a diner in Texas or beyond.
But on this day, in addition to the watchful eyes of the hair-netted inspectors at Taylor Farms Texas Inc., the trek of the leafy greens was monitored by two top Bush administration officials – U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt and FDA Commissioner Andrew von Eschenbach.
Presidential mission
They were here on a mission from President Bush, seeking both to improve the safety of imported products and to assure consumers that produce in the U.S. is safe. It was the first stop in a multicity fact-finding tour.
"I feel better about the salad I'll eat tonight," Mr. Leavitt said after listening to a discussion of field inspections and grower specifications at the operation on Cockrell Hill Road. "I find it very satisfying to see this."
Last week, Mr. Bush asked the secretary to chair a working group focused on promoting the safety of imported products – everything from food and pottery to medical devices – from a variety of countries. The task force is expected to survey the import scene over the next 60 days and help develop "an agenda for improvement," Mr. Leavitt said.
The move comes after consumer confidence was shaken by missteps such as last September's tainted spinach from California and the more recent poisoned pet food from China.
Food industry experts said they do not know how many incidents of food-borne illness are linked to imported products vs. domestic. But they stressed that nearly all produce imported into the U.S. by major shippers and processors is grown to strict U.S. standards.
"They don't just take any old lettuce from Mexico," said Tom Stenzel, president of the United Fresh Produce Association. "For the most part, imported produce comes from the major production regions of [for example] Mexico or Chile. It's being grown to a standard that's far above just what you would find in the wholesale markets there."
John McClung, president of the Texas Produce Association, noted that Texas – once a major agricultural producer – is now a major importer. Just over half of the produce sold by Texas-based processors and shippers is imported, and up to 97 percent of it comes from Mexico, he said.
But that does not mean Texans consume more produce imported from Mexico, just because of its proximity, he added.
"Distance comes into play on the cost," he explained, adding that lettuce imported from Mexico to say, Minnesota, might cost more. But it does not dictate where the produce winds up.
Taylor Farms gets about 80 percent of its produce from within the United States, company officials said. About 80 percent of the product is then sold to food service operators, including major restaurants.
"We approve that supply prior to shipping [into the U.S.]," said Drew McDonald, vice president of national quality systems for the parent company, Salinas, Calif.-based Taylor Fresh Foods Inc. "In the normal situation, it wouldn't get harvested if it didn't meet the specifications."
Quick processing
In the company's 64,000-square-foot Dallas plant, built in 2003 and one of nine operated by the company, millions of pounds of lettuce, cabbage, carrots and other vegetables are processed each week within hours of their arrival.
On Friday, in a production room chilled to a nippy 34 degrees, hair-netted, gloved and smocked workers chopped heads of romaine and iceberg lettuce as Mr. Leavitt and Dr. von Eschenbach looked on.
The FDA is responsible for ensuring the safety of all fresh and fresh-cut fruits and vegetables consumed in the United States. It shares inspection duties at the border with the Customs and Border Protection Unit of the Department of Homeland Security.
On the water-slick production floor at Taylor Farms, spotters looked for discolored leaves and other imperfections. Other workers relieved the lettuce heads of their tips and cores. The lettuce was triple-washed and deposited into drum-sized porous "spin dry" baskets that hold up to 400 pounds of the leafy greens.
The Dallas plant produces 26,000 cases of produce a night.
The FDA picked the Taylor Farms location to kick off the fact-finding tour after inspectors were impressed with results from a routine audit last month, according to an HHS spokesman and company officials.
After the tour, Mr. Leavitt nodded, called the operation impressive, and dispensed with his bright yellow galoshes and hard hat.
Then, after vowing before TV cameras to have salad for dinner, he was off to a cargo facility in El Paso to focus on spices and pottery (a potential lead paint hazard).
He is expected to report back to the president by Sept. 17.

Taxpayers for Common Sense: New farm bill, same as old

TK; Not much traction for sweeping farm bill reform in the House, but the fresh produce industry appreciates the substantial changes in mandatory funding for their priorities. It's not so much if it is $1 billion or $3 billion, but a baseline is there. Taxpayers for Common Sense disagree:


Washington, D.C. – The following is a statement from Ms. Ryan Alexander, President, Taxpayers for Common Sense, on passage of H.R. 2419, The Farm, Nutrition, and Bioenergy Act of 2007.
Meet the new Farm Bill, same as the old Farm Bill. Today, the House forced through a Farm Bill that retains a hefty safety net for millionaire farmers.

Corporate agribusiness special interests will be celebrating the bill’s passage, which guarantees buckets of money to farmers who don’t need it, while taxpayers across the country get the slop bucket once again.

What Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) refers to as “a landmark achievement” is a carbon copy of the 2002 DeLay-Combest corporate farm bill that suckered taxpayers to the tune of tens of billions of dollars a year. Multi-millionaire “farmers” living in the heart of San Francisco, New York City, and Washington, D.C. will continue to receive government handouts and insurance companies will continue to get hundreds of millions of dollars in profits directly from Uncle Sam courtesy of this legislation.

Chairman Collin Peterson’s (D-MN) “landmark farm bill” continues to promote protectionism, over-production, and market interference.

It’s a shame that the new Congress sent to reform Washington couldn’t even pass legislation to cut off the subsidy spigot for millionaires.