Opening statements are up

Here is the link to the opening statements from today's hearing in the House by the subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture on the technological capacity for full traceability in fresh produce.


Here is what Tony DiMare's opening statement says about the outbreak:



Our industry was shaken to the core in June when the CDC announced that tomatoes were a suspected source of the salmonella outbreak, and the FDA issued a broad advisory for all consumers to avoid eating certain types of tomatoes.

Shipment ground to a halt. Tomatoes were left in the fields, in the packinghouses and on trucks that were turned away by our customers. More than a week went by before the FDA cleared 19 Florida counties to ship tomatoes. By then, however, consumers were too confused and were reluctant to resume buying tomatoes. Severe losses were incurred all along the distribution chain. Early on, our sales were down as much as 60 percent, and business has been slow to pick up. Today, our repack operations are still off by about 20 percent.

Adding to our frustration during the trace-back was the FDA and CDC’s reluctance to turn to industry for help understanding and identifying distribution channels – knowledge they clearly lacked. Tapping into industry expertise early on would have gone a long way in speeding up the trace-back. More cooperation is clearly needed in the future.


Conclusion
Even though the FDA has announced that all tomatoes are safe to eat and has focused its attention on other produce, we urge both the FDA and CDC to completely clear Florida tomatoes as a potential source of the outbreak.

In addition, we are calling on these agencies and others to sit down with industry to determine how the investigation and trace-back process can be improved. Hard questions need to be asked, and lessons must be learned from this outbreak so that a similar situation never happens again.

Looking ahead, we don’t know how long it will take for consumer confidence in fresh tomatoes to rebound. What has transpired over the past two months is sure to affect our business into next season. As an industry, we are strongly committed to taking whatever proactive steps are necessary to ensure Americans know they are consuming the safest, healthiest and most nutritious fresh produce possible.