Guest blogger's last day

If any of you didn't see from Thepacker.com or the carbon-based Packer from June 30, today is the final day for Packer Editor and FreshTalk guest blogger Lance Jungmeyer.

Lance's travels as Packer editor and writer took him all over the country, into Canada and Mexico yearly, and as far away as China, Cuba and Berlin. He even visited some capitalist foreign countries.

Feel free to wish him well today at ljungmeyer@thepacker.com or after today at ljungmeyer72@yahoo.com.

Greg Johnson
Editor
The Packer

FDA investigation: Shattered confidence

The USA Today article published yesterday is a must read, and it confirms that any confidence the public had in the agency is slipping away. From the story:

Three weeks after the Food and Drug Administration warned consumers to avoid certain types of tomatoes linked to the salmonella outbreak, people are still falling ill, says Robert Tauxe with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The latest numbers as of Monday afternoon were 851 cases, some of whom fell ill as recently as June 20, says Tauxe, deputy director of the CDC's division of foodborne diseases.
The CDC launched a new round of interviews over the weekend. "We're broadening the investigation to be sure it encompasses food items that are commonly consumed with tomatoes," Tauxe says.
If another food is found to be the culprit after tomatoes were recalled nationwide and the produce industry sustained losses of hundreds of millions of dollars, food safety experts say the public's trust in the government's ability to track foodborne illnesses will be shattered.

"It's going to fundamentally rewrite how we do outbreak investigations in this country," says Michael Osterholm of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense at the University of Minnesota. "We can't let this investigation, however it might turn out, end with just the answer of 'What caused it?' We need to take a very in-depth look at foodborne disease investigation as we do it today."
At a news conference Friday, representatives of the FDA and the CDC were more forceful in saying that they aren't sure tainted tomatoes caused the outbreak of salmonella saintpaul, a fairly rare strain. Previous statements had been more vague.
Over the weekend, the tide of opinion among epidemiologists, produce companies and food safety officials also began to turn in that direction.
Tomatoes couldn't have caused an outbreak that has stretched from early April to late June, says Jim Prevor, editor of Produce Business magazine. "There's not a field in the world" that produces that long, he says.
If not tomatoes, what else? "Something that people find difficult to remember but which is always served with tomatoes," says Tauxe.

That would put salsa, jalapeño peppers, green onions and cilantro at the top of the list of potential culprits, says Doug Powell, director of the International Food Safety Network at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kan.
Food safety experts caution that outbreaks are very difficult to trace back to their source, especially tomatoes, which are often mixed and matched at the packing plant to get uniform sizes and ripeness.

TK: Follow the link to consumer comments on the USA Today site, revealing general disrespect for the agency's efforts.

Traceability: a market advantage

Mastronardi gets some love from CNN; from a Mastronardi news release:

International news agency CNN featured North American greenhouse tomato marketer Mastronardi Produce/SUNSET brand on Monday night during the Lou Dobbs Tonight show. With the focus of the produce industry centered around the Salmonella outbreak, CNN Correspondent Kitty Pilgrim, sitting in for Lou Dobbs, was quick to point out the key successes of Mastronardi’s traceability program.

“We ensure that we are able to track the fruit that we produce. We can walk into any store and pick up one of our Sunset labeled tomatoes and trace it back to the greenhouse where it was grown.” stated Paul Mastronardi, Executive Vice-President of Mastronardi Produce Ltd. Mastronardi’s has in place a fully comprehensive Food Safety Program that encompasses from farm to customer. Mastronardi was one of the first in the greenhouse industry to implement a robust traceability program that would require all produce packed under the Sunset label to contain the Product Origin as well as a Farm Code to trace back to which greenhouse it was grown in.

Ms. Pilgrim went on to praise Mastronardi Produce for their onsite laboratory as one of only a few in the industry. When Ms. Pilgrim asked Mr. Mastronardi how often were tests conducted on their vegetables, Mastronardi responded “daily”.