Retail apple prices

A compromise in NC

Here is a follow up to an earlier story about the controversy over the delivery charges for the farm to school program in North Carolina. From Tne News Observer:

State agriculture officials announced a cost-saving compromise Monday aimed at salvaging a popular program that purchases fresh, North Carolina-grown produce for school lunch programs from the mountains to the coast.
Under the agreement, Foster-Caviness Foodservices, a Guilford County produce company and U.S. Department of Defense contractor, agreed to slash its delivery fee from $4.30 a case to $1.65 for fresh fruit and vegetables delivered to schools by state agriculture trucks.

FDA weighing options

Is the FDA about to get more vocal about produce safety? Here is an article that provides some clarity on where the FDA is at in the examination of their role in produce safety. From the Center for Infectious Disease Research & Policy:

Despite widespread concern over contaminated produce, federal officials have not increased their inspections of leafy greens, according to a Sep 12 Associated Press (AP) report. A review of data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act showed that the FDA inspects salad-green growers and processors only once every 3.9 years, the AP said.
California public health inspectors do not have the authority to spot-test processing plants that handle fresh greens, the story said.
Many of the FDA's efforts in the wake of recent disease outbreaks linked to fresh greens and tomatoes have been aimed at fact-finding. The agency held two public hearings on fresh produce safety—one in Oakland, Calif., in March and one in College Park, Md., in April—to solicit feedback from consumers and produce industry representatives.
FDA sifts public commentsFDA officials are still reviewing all of the public hearing comments and submissions as they weigh regulatory options, a produce expert from CFSAN, who requested anonymity, told CIDRAP News. She said some industry officials called for government mandates and produce standards, while others preferred that the FDA continue providing guidance on good agricultural practices (GAP) while monitoring growers' use of those practices.
The produce expert said the FDA is still working with California officials to determine how the spinach in last year's outbreak became contaminated. Also, she said the FDA is looking at where research gaps exist, which could help officials focus their prevention efforts on high-risk practices.

Retail roundup 9/18

How to save money at Wal-Mart or anywhere else From The Street:
Research by Wal-Mart consultant Global Insight indicates that the retailer saves the average U.S. family $2,500 a year, an increase of $171, or 7.3%, from an estimated $2,329 that Wal-Mart saved families in a 2004 survey.
Savings at Wal-Mart stores -- or any other retailer -- can be found in a number of places, as long as you're willing to commit the time to find them. Here are some simple steps you can take to save even more money when shopping:
Wal-Mart as savior? From Ad Week;
The new strategy is based on data from an updated Global Insight study that contends an average American family saves $2,500 a year by shopping at Wal-Mart.
Why personalized marketing may work better upside down From The Wise Marketer
The long term benefit of personalised marketing is customer loyalty, in the form of an increased overall lifetime revenue value of the customer. The term "loyalty" has been defined and redefined by a wide range of books and articles, many of which actually object to the term because "customer loyalty" is not the same as "family loyalty" or "sports fan loyalty". But, ignoring the other uses of the word, for many retailers customer loyalty means keeping the customers they have and increasing the spending of each.
Because the grocery retailer cannot induce a household to eat more, the only way to extract higher revenues from existing customers is to increase the number of visits to the retailer's store at the expense of visits to competing stores. Personalised marketing can entice the customer to stop at store A instead of store B for the sake of even one interesting discount offer, where all else is equal. The assumption that seems to be holding true for Pay By Touch's early adopters is that, while at store A, the customer purchases the rest of the basket that would have been purchased at store B. The long term benefit is therefore in attracting a larger portion of the household budget through more frequent visits.

Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns addresses U.S. Partnership for Food Safety Education

Here are excerpts from the transcript, provided by the USDA of Ag Secretary Mike Johanns to the U.S. Partnership for Food Safety Education

Washington D.C. - September 18, 2007
SEC. MIKE JOHANNS: Well, thank you very much, Bryan [Silbermann, for that nice introduction. You know ladies and gentlemen, this partnership is really a great example of how the public and the private sectors can work together very effectively for the public good. With this "Be Food Safe" campaign, the Partnership has taken materials that were first developed at the USDA, wrapped them up in a new, outstanding graphics package that makes them simple and easy to remember, and enlisted food retailers to make sure that these safety messages get to consumers right on time. And that is when they are shopping for food and thinking how they might or what they might prepare for dinner, that is also when reminding them of what they can do at home to protect themselves can make the most difference.
Applying the simple rules of "clean, cook, separate and chill" provides a very, very effective layer of protection against pathogens, in addition to all the inspection efforts than government and industry undertake throughout the food supply chain.
The Partnership's own research has shown that while many people today are concerned about the threat of food borne illness, really not enough of them are following basic safety rules on food handling at home where a real difference can be made. It may just be that they need a little reminding until the principles become kind of a second nature in food preparation. And that is what the "Be Food Safe" campaign will deliver.
The battle against pathogens in our food supply is an ongoing battle, and I might add it's a complex battle. When we make progress on one front, it seems like a new pathogen often crops up elsewhere in the food chain. But whatever happens at ports of entry, in processing plants, retail stores, the final line of defense really is in our kitchens, it's at home, and that is where the Partnership is appropriately aiming its efforts.

In this public health effort, prevention is clearly a great strategy. I've been giving a great deal of thought to our entire food chain over the last months as a result of my service on the President's Inter Agency Working Group in Import Safety. The President asked this group, as you know – and it's being chaired by a good friend--Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt – the President asked us to look at all of our current practices and regulations regarding import safety and report back to him as to what we thought and what could be done to improve it.
Now the job of keeping on top of import safety has gotten a lot bigger in recent years; it's a gigantic task. Some $2 trillion worth of goods will flow into this country this year, nearly double the volume of just four years ago, and we expect the value of that trade to triple in a few short years, by 2015. Food imports are a growing part of this flow. Consumers are seeking more variety in their diets, more options, are taking advantage of the availability and affordability of imported food products. They have been especially receptive to imported fruits, vegetables that are available outside the standard domestic growing season here in the United States.
When more imports are a part of the food supply, it becomes important to focus on their entire life cycle and not just the condition that they are in when they reach the port. We must make certain that we focus our inspection efforts on those points where risks of contamination are highest and that we use the most effective science available and technology. The Interagency Working Group will be delivering a report to the President later this year on what we believe should be done to ensure greater import safety. I'm confident that we'll be able to take a system that is already a great system, one of the best in the world, but most importantly we want to make it better.

Lettuce f.o.b. look in

No Okra Queen?

The little town of Irmo, South Carolina, is proud of its okra the same way Gilroy, Calif., is of its garlic.

The Okra Strut, as the festival is known, has its roots in a radio dee-jay joke.

"It started in 1973, the punch line of a local radio personality who mused on-air about a hardware shop in town, the Ancient Irmese General Store. He wondered: Who were these so-called Irmese?

"Probably a short tribe of farmers who subsisted on okra, figured the DJ, Gene McKay, who died earlier this year. And that fall the festival was born, a quaint arts-and-crafts show, with plenty of okra to eat, staged in a park by a local women's club."

For the real okra-lovers out there, here is information about the Sept. 28-29 festival: http://www.irmookrastrut.com

New retail column on www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.com

This was an email passed on by Lance Jungmeyer of The Packer, from Bryant Wynes of PBH. The first retail column on the site is by Rosanne Toroian, Food Editor & Information Specialist for Schnuck Markets, Inc.
From Bryant Wynes:

Just wanted to let you know that the new retailer feature, “Insider’s Viewpoint,” went live today on www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org. This is the feature we talked about a few weeks ago (and you reported in the Packer). The link below will take you directly to the first column. We will be adding a new column every 2 weeks for the remainder of 2007 – then shifting to a weekly column in 2008 due to the tremendous response from the retailers. All columns feature a retail dietitian, consumer affairs advisor or other fruit and veggie “expert” with tips and suggestions for site visitors. The columns are archived on the site, so visitors can access the entire library of columns as time goes on.

http://www.fruitsandveggiesmorematters.org/?page_id=1020

Bryant Wynes
Senior Executive of Retail Marketing
Produce for Better Health Foundation

New online database by CSPI

A new online database is offered by CSPI: It is part of the group's continuing quest to "modernize" food safety laws, raise awareness of foodborne illness, add funding and inspection capacity to the FDA. From the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest has tracked foodborne illness outbreaks -- events where two or more people become ill from eating the same food -- since 1997. The Outbreak Alert! database includes only outbreaks where both the food and pathogen have been identified and currently has information on 5,000 outbreaks that occurred between 1990 to 2004. For a summary of the outbreak data, see our latest Outbreak Alert! report.

Harkin and DeLauro statements

Just wrapped up the morning meetings here at the FFVA. Round table discussion with John McClung, Mike Stuart, Tom Nassif and Emanuel Lazopoulos illustrated many points of agreement on food safety, the farm bill, pest issues and immigration. The industry is still not totally in sync on where to next on food safety, whether that means federal marketing order, FDA regulation, legislation or state-based program. There are many uncertainties, to be sure. Meanwhile, the Dole lettuce recall prompted this statement today from Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa.
Here is the statement:


Harkin: Latest American Recall
Has International Implications

Senate legislation to be introduced later this week

Washington, D.C. – Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, today issued the following statement on the recall of Dole's Hearts Delight bagged salad due to E. coli O157:H7 contamination. Eighty-eight cases - or 528 bags – of the bagged salad were distributed in Canada and 755 cases containing 4,530 bags in the U.S., according to Dole.

“From bagged salad with E. coli to spinach that contains Salmonella, food safety is increasingly becoming a concern for American consumers as they visit the produce aisle,” said Harkin. “Not only is this a concern for domestic producers and consumers, but now we’re seeing American produce recalls have international implications. It is long past time for Congress to act and later this week, I intend to introduce legislation to restore confidence in American produce and the agency that regulates it.”

Harkin is preparing to reintroduce legislation he has previously proposed to set up a national program that would require food safety practices for growing and processing fresh produce at most risk of causing foodborne illness.



And from Rep. Rosa DeLauro

DeLauro Welcomes Additional Voice in Supporting
Stronger Food Safety System
Announces Upcoming Hearing to Address Import Safety

Washington, D.C. – Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.-3) issued the following statement welcoming the proposal for improved food safety from the Grocery Manufacturers Association.

The proposal, as well as the federal government’s ability to ensure the safety of food imports, will be addressed at an oversight hearing on food imports Tuesday, September 25, 2007 at 10:30 AM in Room 2362A of the Rayburn Building (witness list forthcoming). DeLauro chairs the House Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration Appropriations Subcommittee, with jurisdiction and oversight responsibilities of food safety operations and its budget.

“Momentum is clearly growing for strengthening and modernizing our nation’s food safety system. I welcome the Grocery Manufacturers Association’s proposal to improve the inspection of imported foods and ingredients and look forward to closely reviewing the details of the proposal during the hearing next week.

“Given the major recalls this year, their announcement today sends a very strong message that the industry recognizes the inadequacy of voluntary measures to protect public health and reassure American consumers that their food is safe. It is yet one more voice highlighting the need to change our system to one that seeks to minimize hazards by applying science based controls and focus our system on preventing food-borne illness not just reacting when outbreaks occur.”