July 9 to July 15 HvVee Produce Ad

Here is a nice produce ad this week from Hy-Vee.

New life for 'Frankenfoods?'

Europeans' skepticism toward genetically modified crops and food products is well documented.

However, The International Herald Tribune reports rising food prices worldwide have European Union officials rethinking their position on GMOs:

"Climate change and increasing concern about fresh water supplies are helping to fuel interest in new seed varieties likely to be more resistant to drought and able to produce reasonable yields with significantly less water. GM technology still has many opponents, who fear that genetically modified crops can create health problems for animals and humans, wreak havoc on the environment, and give far-reaching control over the world's food to a few corporate masters."

The article goes on to report the average European's view of GMOs hasn't changed -- well, actually it has: for the worse.

"In a Eurobarometer opinion poll in March, ... 58 percent were apprehensive about the use of such crop technology and just 21 percent were in favor, down from 26 percent in a 2006 Eurobarometer survey on biotechnology."

GMOs haven't been much of factor in fresh produce yet. Few remember the Flavr Savr tomato and its ill-fated short run on U.S. grocers' shelves.

Americans eat GM food products daily (often corn or soy in processed foods), most without knowing it.

Marketed correctly, GMO seeds and foods hold potential to alleviate hunger and ensure food security.

GMO marketers should stand by their products, spelling out the benefits and dispelling misconceptions.

I don't envy them having to educate a public that is largely ignorant concerning food science and safety in a 24-hour media environment where scare stories that are short on facts receive all too much attention.

New consumer advice: jalapenos and serranos

There was a press conference after all, today with CDC and FDA officials. Not many real answers, unfortunately. The number of victims has risen to over 1,000 and new consumer advice was issued. Now, higher risk populations - the very young, the old and the immune-compromised - are advised to avoid jalapenos and serrano peppers. No change to the tomato guidance. Here is the CDC Web page:

Here is the advice to consumers:

Until health officials know that the contaminated product or products are no longer on the market, persons with increased risk of severe infection, including infants, elderly persons, and those with impaired immune systems, should not eat raw jalapeño peppers or raw serrano peppers. They should also only eat raw tomatoes that are on the FDA safe list. Produce grown at home is not part of this warning. Other persons who are concerned and who want to reduce their risk of Salmonella infection can take similar precautions. Consumers should be aware that raw jalapeño peppers are often used in the fresh preparation of salsa, pico de gallo, and other dishes.

At this time, FDA is advising U.S. consumers to limit their tomato consumption to specific types and specific sources. These include cherry tomatoes; grape tomatoes; tomatoes sold with the vine still attached; tomatoes grown at home; and red plum, red Roma, and round red tomatoes from specific sources listed at: http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/tomatoes.html*. Consumers should be aware that raw tomatoes are often used in the preparation of fresh salsa, guacamole, and pico de gallo, are part of fillings for tortillas, and are used in many other dishes.

Produce Pricing May 2008 - Perishables Group

With bananas and onions at opposite ends of the spectrum, Steve Lutz of The Perishables Group passes on information on retail produce pricing in May. From Steve:


Attached is the latest retail price information through the end of May 2008. I pulled the four week average for May compared to the same period last year. As you can see, the average retail for total produce is about 3% higher….with a lot of variation.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Steve Lutz
Executive Vice President
Perishables Group

When 1,000 people get sick and tiny tracking documents

Doug Powell of the Food Safety Network passes along this link to a New York Times editorial about - of course - the FDA and the salmonella outbreak. The industry may be weighed down with many new tasks because of this outbreak. From the piece:


The government officials who are supposed to protect America’s food supply are not certain what has made almost 1,000 people ill in the last three months. At first it was raw tomatoes that appeared to be tainted with a rare form of salmonella. So, consumers avoided tomatoes, and the tomato business suffered mightily. Health officials are still worried about tomatoes, but they’ve also raised concerns about jalapeño peppers. Or perhaps cilantro. Or maybe some brands of salsa. Somewhere. Meanwhile, people keep getting sick.
This failure is an urgent reminder that the country needs an effective system to track food from the farm to the table. If health officials could find tainted items and quickly trace them back to their tainted source, it would save consumers their health and businesses profits.
After last year’s problems with contaminated peanut butter, spinach and imported seafood, Congress and the White House pledged to take swift action to ensure the safety of the nation’s food.
Both houses of Congress are still working on food-safety bills, and the Food and Drug Administration — understaffed and ill equipped — unveiled a food-safety plan in November but has yet to implement it. There can be no more delay. The F.D.A. commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach, should use his emergency powers now to impose new rules to improve food safety.
Last week, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and the Consumer Federation of America called on Dr. von Eschenbach to use his authority to require the food industry to put in place a detailed tracking system to follow produce from farm to fork. This is a good idea.
Some food producers already track their products. Others could add information to the stickers already on many fruits and vegetables to identify where they are grown and how they are distributed. Those stickers could act as tiny tracking documents allowing investigators to see quickly how the nation’s produce moves from field to final destination.
The consumer organizations also called for another promising idea — that each producer or processor create a detailed and written safety plan to help the F.D.A. identify and prevent such problems as contaminated water or lack of proper sanitation facilities for workers.
If the cluelessness about this latest salmonella outbreak offers one lesson, it is that health officials need to know exactly where the nation’s fruits and vegetables have been. And they need to know it before even more people fall ill.

Truck rate report - July 8

Generally, truck rates were stable to softer for the week ending July 8. From the USDA's Truck Rate Report, published here.

A shortage of trucks was reported for the following commodities and regions: sweet potatoes from Eastern North Carolina. A slight shortage of trucks was reported for the following commodities and regions: onions from San Joaquin Valley California and Southern New Mexico, potatoes from Upper Valley Twin Falls-Burley District Idaho and Columbia Basin Washington. Upper Valley, Twin Falls-Burley District Idaho noted a shortage to northeastern destinations with a slight shortage to all other destinations for potatoes. LAST REPORT was issued for grapes from Coachella Valley California. FIRST REPORT was issued for blueberries, celery & cucumbers from Michigan. All other districts reported an adequate supply of trucks.

Litttle news but more communication

David Mitchell, the lead reporter for The Packer on the salmonella story, tells me that there is no FDA call again today. Here are a couple of industry communications, first from the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas and the second from United Fresh.


For Immediate Release Contact: Allison Moore
July 8, 2008 520-287-2707

FPAA Continues to Work with FDA on Salmonella Saintpaul Investigation

In early June our industry along with consumers in the United States learned from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that there was a possible link between certain types of tomatoes and an outbreak of Salmonella Saintpaul. Since that first announcement, the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas (FPAA) has devoted our resources to helping the FDA determine the source of contamination and to learn what may have gone wrong in the supply chain so that these events do not happen in the future.
While the FDA says that they continue their traceback of tomatoes to determine where in the supply chain that contamination may have occurred, the FDA says they are also increasing domestic and import samples of certain commodities commonly served with tomatoes. The FDA informed the industry that these items include serrano peppers, jalapeño pepper, and cilantro.
The industry saw the same increase in sampling for domestic and imported tomatoes at the onset of the FDA investigation in June. In addition to their traceback investigation, the increase in sampling is another tool the FDA is using to conduct a thorough investigation into the possible sources of contamination.
There were several inaccurate media reports over the weekend concerning the FDA’s decision to increase sampling of additional commodities served with tomatoes. All imported products, including those being sampled at an increased rate, are STILL CLEARED to enter the United States. The integrity of the shipments with sample results pending from the FDA is being maintained until those sample results are completed.
The day to day standard operating procedure for imports requires that information on every single imported produce shipment is submitted to the FDA. This is required by law. The FDA reviews the information of every single shipment before that shipment is cleared to enter U.S. commerce. During the initial review of this information, the FDA decides, based on their selection criteria, whether or not to sample a product.


From United Fresh last night.......


Dear United Fresh Members,
Over the past 24 hours we have received a number of questions from members regarding the FDA’s and CDC’s official advice to consumers and the industry regarding potential actions related to the Salmonella saintpaul outbreak. We have been talking with a number of you to answer these questions individually, but also recognize the need to provide a collective message for all of you that you can use with your customers and suppliers.
We also recognize that this entire outbreak investigation has been the most frustrating and costly food safety event ever for many of you. United Fresh Produce Association is committed to wholesale change in the way government manages future outbreak situations, and we have previously shared our communications with the senior level of the Bush Administration. We are now engaged extensively with FDA, CDC, Members of Congress, and other country governments in discussing these issues, to both drive immediate action now and long-term fundamental reform for the future. Once this outbreak is over and we finally determine its cause, we also are committed to working with Congress and the Administration on compensation for those who have been harmed by the flawed process of this outbreak investigation.
However, we also have to recognize that the illnesses caused by this strain of Salmonella saintpaul have not ended, and government health officials must continue to try aggressively to pinpoint the source. While there is tremendous speculation and growing evidence that tomatoes of any kind may not be the source, neither CDC nor FDA are willing to rule this out at this time. At the same time, these agencies are not clinging to what may have been a mistaken first conclusion, but are also examining the possibility that a different food source may be causing the ongoing illnesses. Many media reports have cited certain chile peppers and cilantro as commodities of interest, but a wide range of other food products is also being studied. That is a proper step.
For the fresh produce supply chain, it is critical to note that neither CDC nor FDA have provided any consumer cautions about any other produce items. It would be unwise for industry to begin following speculation about these commodities as reason for any change in the marketplace, when CDC and FDA will clearly announce their concerns if they rise to that level. We advise all industry members to continue to review the specific advice on the CDC and FDA websites in making all product decisions. That advice can be summarized as follows:
FDA has published an extensive list of production regions from which all tomatoes can be freely sourced. These include production regions in both the United States and Mexico, and those areas are identified on the FDA website here.
Consumers are advised to avoid any raw Roma, Plum and red round tomatoes from areas that are not on the “cleared list.” We know of no tomatoes from these regions that are now on the market, but supply chain partners should be sure of that in their own operations.
All cherry tomatoes, grape tomatoes, and tomatoes with the vine still attached have been officially cleared by FDA and can also be consumed freely.
Neither FDA nor CDC have issued any consumer or industry advisories with regard to any other produce or food item, including chile peppers, cilantro or other commodities. We have full confidence that if these agencies determine that there is a substantive risk associated with any other commodity, from any particular source, they will issue such information immediately and we will update you.
We hope this information is helpful in making your own business plans. If you have any additional questions, please contact me at aphilpott@unitedfresh.org or call me at 202-303-3400 ext. 425.

TK: United mentions the topic of compensation in their communication, and that issue must surely be a part of any Congressional deliberations.

Approaching 1,000

There has been little drop off in coverage of the salmonella outbreak, and one trade source indicated that he expects the media to pay even more attention when the number of salmonella victims passes 1,000.

Meanwhile, the most stubborn fact about the outbreak is that victims keep showing up. If this was not an ongoing outbreak, the FDA could drop its consumer advisories and media attention would die down. The agency might or might not find the source and when it did, the media would pay scant attention.

The FDA now is forced to recast consumer advisories that have done little good so far or doggedly maintain them to save face. And the industry continues to suffer....

Meanwhile, an interesting point is whether produce traceability systems in place now bear any blame for the FDA's lack of success.

One leading industry official said the answer is no. He writes in an email:

In tomato investigation, we are NOT dealing with failure of traceability. We are dealing with the fact that the traceback did not support the single point of contamination hypothesis. Tracebacks of tomatoes from this wide geographic distribution went back to multiple producers, regions and even multiple repackers. FDA in it frustration said tracebacks were too complicated and not working, when in reality, tracebacks to multiple sources were signally the unlikelihood that a single point of contamination had affected all these tomatoes and tomatoes from a common source likely did not cause these illnesses. I would submit that traceback worked, we (govt) just weren't listening carefully enough to what it was telling us.

A failed FDA

Another Lou Dobbs report from a couple of days ago:

A critical eye for perfect produce regulations

To put a fine point on it, what's the point of regulations that dictate produce quality when the world is facing food shortages? Europe is considering that question, and this report in The Washington Post reviews the terms of the debate. Why must a cucumber be straight and a peach be sweet?


Had enough? So has the European Commission's agriculture commissioner, Mariann Fischer Boel of Denmark. She proposes scrapping all but 10 of the regulations, arguing that they are needlessly cumbersome and bureaucratic, and that they lead to people throwing away perfectly edible fruits and vegetables for cosmetic reasons at a time when the world is suffering food shortages and rapid price increases. She hopes representatives from the 27-nation bloc will vote to streamline the regulations at a meeting this month.
"We don't need 34 regulations to decide how round an artichoke should be or how thin a cucumber can be," said Boel's spokesman, Michael Mann, noting that such rules give the E.U. its reputation as an out-of-control bureaucracy. "A bent cucumber is as good as a straight one," he declared. "Let the shopper decide."


But as you might guess, the produce trade in Europe isn't sold on the idea. Many marketers of fresh produce in the U.S. also insist that mandatory quality controls are needed to preserve consumer acceptance. From the story:

But Boel has a fight on her hands, European officials say, because as many as 19 E.U. countries apparently oppose the simplification scheme. A note to the European Commission from the Spanish and Italian delegations, backed by France and Hungary, argued that "marketing standards play an important role in facilitating and ensuring transparency in market operations while protecting customers at the same time."
The regulations are particularly ridiculed in Britain, where, according to a recent article in the Independent newspaper, "the bent cucumber -- beside its maligned compatriot, the straight banana -- has been wielded by Eurosceptics eager to clobber the European Union." London's Daily Mail gushed that "bendy cucumbers, nobbly strawberries and apples the wrong shade of red are to make a comeback in our supermarkets."


TK: The obvious take is that quality regulations should be ditched. Yet, as some voices in Europe say, regulations help define how produce is sold and bring order to marketing. Not so simple as a bent or straight cucumber.