Fresh Produce Discussion Blog

Created by The Packer's National Editor Tom Karst

Friday, July 4, 2008

Lying about your vegetables

"Approval bias" dogs research efforts to find out what people really eat. How much more do people in the f/v business overestimate their produce consumption? This insightful NYT blog entry looks at the topic. From the post:

It’s long been known that people claim to eat far less than they really do. Some studies suggest people underreport their caloric intake by 30 percent or more.
But when it comes to fruits and vegetables, it appears people lie in the other direction — vowing that they consume far more than they really do. The finding, reported in the current
Nutrition Journal, suggests the data the health community has collected on fruit and vegetable consumption are tainted by “approval bias.” We know we are expected to eat five or more servings of fruits and vegetables a day, so that’s what we say when we are asked, and we may even really believe it


Researchers from the University of Colorado in Denver randomly selected 163 women who were recruited by telephone and told they would be taking part in a general health survey. Half the women were sent a letter describing the survey as a study of fruit and vegetable intake. The letter included a brief statement of the benefits of fruits and vegetables, a Five-A-Day sticker and a Five-a-Day refrigerator magnet. The rest of the group received a general letter, without mention of fruits, vegetables, stickers or magnets.


Within 10 days of receiving the letters, the study subjects answered a food frequency questionnaire and were asked to recall how many fruits and vegetables they had eaten in the past 24 hours.
Because the two groups were randomly selected, average fruit and vegetable consumption should have been similar. However, the group that had seen the five-a-day promotional material reported far higher consumption, 5.2 servings per day, compared to 3.7 per day in the other group. And 61 percent of the five-a-day group reported eating fruits and vegetables on three or more occasions the prior day, compared to just 32 percent in the other group.





TK: Lesson to the industry; don't trust research results when consumers surveyed readily know that the questions are being asked on behalf of a produce group.

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CSPI, CFA: Emergency produce regs needed

If the tomato traceback investigation would have been solved in 10 days, we never would have seen this press release. As it is, the industry may well have to deal with new realities that only a month ago would have seemed far fetched. What's more, will "commodity specific" measures get lost in the rush? This news release from CSPI outlines the case for emergency produce traceability regulations. From the release:


Food safety and consumer watchdogs at the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Consumer Federation of America are today making an urgent plea to Dr. Andrew von Eschenbach, commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration: Protect Americans from unsafe food by implementing emergency regulations requiring traceability for produce. The groups say that if fruits and vegetables can be tracked back up through the supply chain back to the farm, investigators would have an easier time nailing down the source of outbreaks of Salmonella, E. coli, and other dangerous pathogens.
“Effective traceability labeling must encompass the multiple steps along the path from farm to table, including farm-of-origin, packer, distributor, and retailer,” the groups wrote in a letter to von Eschenbach. “Such a system should use a standardized code for all FDA-regulated items to streamline investigations and ensure effective record-keeping by all entities along the production chain.”
Major players in the produce business already know how to use the basic technology needed for traceability: little stickers on fruits and vegetables. The industry already has standard price look-up codes, or PLUs, that retailers can use at the register. Tomatoes that bear a sticker with the number 4087 are red Roma tomatoes, for instance. But similar standardized codes could let retailers, food safety investigators, or even curious consumers know exactly what farm a given bunch of asparagus or bag of spinach hails from.

“Each outbreak causes huge losses, both for the consumers who become severely ill and for the growers, who often can’t sell their products,” said CSPI food safety director Caroline Smith DeWaal. “Unfortunately, as this investigation has dragged on, the produce industry is reaping what it sowed when it sought and received special exemptions that allowed the industry to avoid the country of origin labeling requirements Congress passed in 2002. While new requirements are scheduled to go into effect later this year, FDA needs to go beyond country of origin labeling and give public health officials the ability to trace produce from the fork back to the farm.”
Although the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control are casting a wider net to locate the food source responsible for the current Salmonella outbreak, CSPI says the public should still follow the FDA’s
current advice which tomatoes to eat and which to avoid.
“If FDA had put a traceability system in place two years ago following the spinach outbreak, this current investigation might be moving more quickly,” said Chris Waldrop, Director of the Food Policy Institute at Consumer Federation of America. “This latest outbreak demonstrates very clearly the need for the federal government to quickly and easily trace an implicated food to its source.”
The letter from CFA and CSPI also urges the agency to require growers and packers to implement written food safety plans, similar to the hazard control plans that have proved successful in reducing bacterial contamination of fresh meat and poultry. CSPI has been encouraging the FDA to require such plans since 2006.
“Traceability is essential to a 21st century food safety system,” said House Energy and Commerce Committee Vice Chair Diana DeGette (D-CO). “It is possible to trace the origins of our foods. Most of our food products already have labels, many companies already know their suppliers, and the technology already exists. Unfortunately, we have a broken food safety system in this country that cannot determine the source of tainted foods while consumers continue to get sick. Traceability will allow us to quickly identify the source of contamination while protecting the American consumer and industry’s bottom-line.”
When distributors mix and match produce from different sources, a practice called “repacking” in the industry, they should be required to maintain the identifying marks or labels that would allow FDA to determine the origin, according to the food safety groups.
Since 1990, CSPI has tracked over 700 outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to produce items, including two dozen outbreaks linked to tomatoes that have caused more than 3,000 illnesses.
While 869 have been sickened in the current outbreak, foodborne illness is dramatically underreported, so the actual number of illnesses is likely many times higher. Today’s letter to von Eschenbach is signed by DeWaal, Waldrop, and CSPI executive director Michael F. Jacobson.

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Retail report - July 4

From the USDA's National Retail Report:




July 4th Ads Highlight Fresh Produce
Ads this week were centered on the July 4th holiday mainly with features for typical picnic and barbeque items. These ads prominently featured fresh produce and meats for grilling. The produce ads were concentrated heavily on berries, corn, stone fruits and watermelon. Fruits continued to dominate the produce ads this week, comprising 63% of the total ads. Overall fresh produce ad activity increased by 15% with a 19% increase on fruits and 8% on vegetables. Despite the overwhelming majority of fruit ads, corn was the most often featured produce item this week and represented 22% of the total vegetable ads and more than 8% of the ads overall. Corn was followed by seedless watermelons, peaches, nectarines, and strawberries. In all regions, some retailers made an effort to inform customers about which products were locally grown. Several states’ products were featured including California stone fruits and berries, Florida avocados, a variety of fruits and vegetables from New Jersey, and Texas watermelons.



Fruits as Percentage of Total Fruit Ads - July 04, 2008
Bananas, organic 0%
Bananas 0%
Avocadoes,hass 7%
Honeydew 1%

Limes 3%
Lemons 1%
Grapefruit, red 0%
Blueberries 0%
Cantaloupe 7%
Cherries 7%
Grapes, green/red 10%
Mangoes 4%
Apples, red delicious 1%
Watermelon, seedless 12%
Watermelon, mini 1%
Strawberries, organic 3%
Strawberries 10%
Plums 6%
Pineapple 3%
Nectarines 11%
Peaches 11%





Vegetables as Percentage of Total Vegetable Ads - July 04, 2008
Broccoli, organic 0%
Broccoli 1%
Beans, round green 2%
Tomatoes on the vine 10%
Tomatoes 2%

Cabbage 0%
Carrots, baby organic 2%
Carrots, baby 8%
Asparagus 2%
Tomatoes, grape organic 2%
Tomatoes, grape 4%
Celery 0%
Corn 22%
Cucumbers 2%
Lettuce, iceberg 2%

Lettuce, romaine 1%
Mushrooms, white 6%
Onions, yellow 2%
Sweet Potatoes 1%
Squash, zucchini 4%
Potatoes, russet 1%
Peppers, bell red 4%
Peppers, bell green 5%
Onions, sweet 14%


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Follow up: United and PMA ask for meeting (again)

The industry's posture toward the FDA is evolving, especially with the apparent unresponsiveness by the agency to the industry's concerns and initial request for a meeting. Note this communication from July 3:


Dear Produce Industry Members,

As you know, on June 17, United Fresh and PMA sent a joint letter to Secretary Michael Leavitt, Health and Human Services, requesting a meeting to discuss lessons learned specific to the current Salmonella saintpaul outbreak and ways to improve outbreak management in general. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services oversees both the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Food & Drug Administration (FDA).
To date, we have not yet heard back from Secretary Leavitt. So today, United Fresh and PMA sent a
follow up letter to Secretary Leavitt again requesting a meeting to discuss these issues.
As always, we will keep you updated as
new information becomes available. In the meantime, feel free to contact
Amy Philpott,
Vice President, Communications, 202-303-3400 ext. 425
United Fresh Produce Association
1901 Pennsylvania Avenue
NW, Ste 1100
Washington, DC 20006

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