Smoke & Mirrors...and Sweet Corn

And for something completely different from Tom Karst et al covering the PMA Foodservice Conference in idyllic Monterey, home of the greatest fish tacos known to mankind. Psst, Tom--if memory serves...from the merry-go-round arcade, walk across Foam Street up the hill to the next parallel avenue, and turn right. A few doors down is a nondescript storefront, your destination. You can thank me later...

...I'm back from the surface of the sun, otherwise known as Las Vegas, Nevada, where we celebrated daughter's 21st birthday. My colleagues' stock-in-trade response to my visiting Sin City in July was, 'it's a dry heat'. Well, after it spit a little rain upon our arrival Sunday, it was a wet, hot, blinding synapse-fusing torpor that made me want to applaud any service worker out there than could form a coherent sentence without passing out, tongue lolling to the side.

The casinoes, of course, were 72 degrees & hopping, no recession here. Those with proper ventilation could hide the cigarette smoke with constantly-pumped oxygen and disinfectant. The others? The 'old Vegas' casinoes, including most of the Fremont Street properties, were in deep olfactory lockdown with low ceilings, a nasty human sweat-funk and a cloud of smoke reminiscent of a 1973 Foghat concert. Even with the allure of low minimums at the dice tables there, I couldn't bring myself to gamble at those locations for many reasons, most of them health-related.

I did come to the realization, however, that Vegas has morphed over the last ten years or so into a completely world-class culinary mecca. When I first encountered this town for the 1985 United Fresh Fruit & Vegetable Association convention, there was no Wolfgang Puck, no Emeril Lagasse, no Bobby Flay, no Todd English. There also has never been a UFFVA convention in Vegas since then---wait, there's not even a UFFVA anymore---because in '85 it was impossible to schedule a one-on-one meeting in that there were no portable cell phones back then & every produce salesman I knew was at the tables gambling.

But seeing that I've been sucked into the hype vortex of these celebrity chefs, for our splurge meal we dined at MGM's Craftsteak, brainchild of TV's Top Chef moderator/judge Tom Colicchio. It was quite an experience, especially coupled with the per course wine pairing. 'Kobe-style' beef. Marinated roasted quail. Our waiter Edgar was a font of knowledge, from the subtleties of fresh shiitake mushrooms, to the marriage of aged balsamic vinegar and watercress.

But he went a little over the edge when he started waxing poetic about the roasted sweet corn kernels that the buyers for Craftsteak only pick at the peak of the season. I thought to myself, which season? The Florida season? Georgia? Illinois? For my money, the absolute best sweet corn is around Iowa State Fair time in mid-August, right out of the field, so dynamic that it can be eaten raw, but a two-minute boil makes it perfect.

Poor Edgar didn't know that he had a produce man in his midst that at any moment could let loose & burst his bullroar bubble, but I chose to stay silent and let him go, realizing that out here, the style is as important as the substance.

I have to admit it was good corn. Copious amounts of butter and sea salt will make it so.

Later, with Congressional hearings on the horizon---

Jay

FDA clears U.S. jalapenos

MONTEREY, Calif. -- As we arrived in Monterey for the annual Produce Marketing Association Foodservice Expo today, we were greeted with good news on the salmonella front. Below is the notice the United Fresh Produce Association notice sent to its members Friday afternoon.

Meanwhile, read Fresh Talk all weekend as I, sections editor Dan Galbraith, and Salinas-area staff writer John Chadwell cover the PMA Foodservice show.

Stay tuned Sunday morning as The Packer reveals its 7th Annual Foodservice Achievement Award winner.

---
FDA has announced this afternoon that it is revising its consumer advice to indicate that all fresh jalapeno and Serrano peppers grown in the United States are not associated with the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, and are thus safe to consume. Retailers and restaurants are advised that they may sell U.S. grown peppers without concern about this outbreak.

FDA is continuing its investigation and has confirmed that the jalapeño peppers distributed by Agricola Zaragoza of McAllen, Texas, were grown in Mexico, and that the contamination did not originate at the wholesaler’s facility. FDA said it could not yet narrow its consumer advisory to a specific producer or any specific region of the country, but is working to do so. It is taking environmental samples from several jalapeño pepper farms.

CDC also updated its website today, reporting that more than 1280 persons infected with Salmonella saintpaul with the same genetic fingerprint have been identified in 43 states and the District of Columbia. The onset of illness dates now range from April 10 to July 10. CDC considers this an ongoing outbreak.

GJ: It looks like FDA may be starting to listen to the many critics, both inside and outside the produce industry. There was no reason for, say, a North Carolina hot pepper shipper to be under an FDA advisory following the find in south Texas.

A message from Stenzel

TK: This across the inbox this afternoon, United Fresh president Tom Stenzel previews not only next week's hearings but the continuing debate over government interaction with the trade:


A Message from President Tom Stenzel


Dear United Fresh Members,

Last week, Chairman of the Board Tom Lovelace wrote to tell you of our association’s commitment to driving change in the way government addresses foodborne disease outbreaks, and to seek compensation for those unfairly harmed by this investigation. There’s been so much going on in these areas, let me update you on our progress.

Consumer Warnings/Investigation
First, we’re continuing daily to push government authorities to narrow the current investigation and bring it to a close as quickly as possible. The finding of a sample of jalapeño peppers in a distribution facility in McAllen, TX with the identical DNA fingerprint as the outbreak is an important step toward closure. Yet, the government’s warning not to consume any peppers is destroying markets for hundreds of jalapeño growers and suppliers unrelated to the outbreak, and we’re urging government to lift this total supply chain warning.

Congressional Hearings
Next week three separate Congressional hearings are scheduled to look at this outbreak investigation, what went wrong, and what lessons we can learn for the future. Robert Guenther and Dr. Dave Gombas on our staff have worked hard to brief each committee’s staff in advance of each hearing, providing detailed background on where we see things went wrong and what needs to be done in the future. I’m pleased with the strong slate of industry experts called to testify, along with government officials, academics, consumer groups and others. I’ll be focusing on overall lessons learned in my testimony at two of the hearings, and others will focus on everything from damages to the tomato industry to the loss of consumer confidence in food safety and government.

Legislation to Compensate Tomato Industry
There’s good news here with the introduction of legislation by Rep. Tim Mahoney of Florida to provide up to $100 million in compensation to the tomato industry for losses incurred through the misidentification of tomatoes and blanket consumer warnings. Congressman Mahoney gets it, and we’re working with him and Congressional allies to build the case, despite what are frankly some pretty big odds. Even with an uphill fight, we need to drive home the message that government warnings have huge impact, with major financial consequences on those totally unassociated with the outbreak. There simply must be greater recognition of the damage these broad brush actions have. The entire tomato industry suffered here, and we’ve got to make sure that growers, shippers, repackers and fresh-cut tomato processors are fairly compensated. A number of us will advocate strongly in support of this effort in next week’s hearings.

FDA/CDC/HHS Actions
We’re also continuing direct dialogue with FDA about clearing all tomato production regions for the future, as well as broader questions of what went wrong in this investigation, and ways that the system must change in the future. You’ll remember that our association and PMA have asked the Secretary of Health and Human Services for a top-level meeting and ongoing dialogue about these issues, and government staff members are now working to set that up.

National News Media
Media coverage continues to be frustrating, but we’re breaking through here and there. From the Wall Street Journal and Washington Post to USA Today, CNN, ABC, etc., our communications VP Amy Philpott is getting our views in every story we possibly can. Our general assessment is that most media have realized that tomatoes are highly unlikely to have caused any illness whatsoever.

Media stories are now turning to follow-up coverage, focused a lot on what happens next. Many in the consumer advocacy community and Congress are using this outbreak as a means to drive food safety legislation, or prescriptive traceability schemes. Ironically, the major problem in this outbreak investigation was identifying the wrong cause and chasing ghosts far longer than needed. You know that United Fresh supports commodity-specific, risk based regulation that is fair and equitable across an entire commodity. And, we’re working hard to increase efficiencies across our supply chain in traceability. But neither of those topics has anything to do with the failures in this outbreak. Drawing those distinctions for the news media is a challenge, though.

Industry Traceability
Finally, let me add a word about industry traceability, a topic likely to dominate next week’s Congressional hearings. We believe the vast majority of produce companies and their supply chain partners are in compliance with the Bioterrorism Act and its “one-step-up; one-step back” requirements. Industry members take that responsibility seriously. While produce often changes hands between farm and table, industry members are able to track a majority of produce from retail back to farm source. While FDA continues to report major problems in doing tracebacks, others such as Minnesota health officials have said it takes “a few phone calls and you can work it fairly quickly back to the grower.” That is the experience that I hear as well from many of our members across the industry. We believe that when FDA tracks produce, it is more dependent upon a legal trail of paperwork, seeking to make sure that all the details correlate exactly on invoices, bills of lading, etc. This can lead to bogging down in understanding the different ways companies use to track produce within their own operations. It may be confusing to an outsider who is examining hundreds of pages of records in an unfamiliar business, but to most industry members, each part in the distribution chain can effectively determine where it received produce, and keep tracking back to the farm.

Nevertheless, the produce industry understands better than anyone that we need the most efficient and quickest traceability systems possible. We have the most to gain from isolating produce that may be part of a problem as quickly as possible, and a similar incentive to rule out concerns about produce that is clearly not related to a problem. That’s why United Fresh joined with PMA and CPMA last year to launch an initiative to build better transparency, a common framework and nomenclature for case labeling, and streamlined connectivity across the supply chain. That initiative is guided by a Steering Committee of more than 50 produce retailers, wholesalers, distributors, packer-shippers and growers. The committee has met four times this year and is now finalizing action plans and timelines for industry adoption. That’s the best example I know of an industry committed to constant improvement in traceability, not one that requires more government regulation to get the job done.

As you can tell, there’s a lot going on. We’re getting lots of member questions, so I wanted to answer as many of them here as I could. Let’s look forward to clearer days ahead.

Tom Stenzel
President
United Fresh Produce Association

Jalapeno market sliding

One south Texas handler of Mexican jalapenos told me today the market there had slumped from about $18 to $20 per carton (38-pound net) at the beginning of the week to about $14-15 per carton today. What peppers that have been coming from Mexico are having trouble moving, and buyers are looking to deals in California, Georgia and North Carolina.

He said there are still some jalapenos coming across the border and the FDA is not necessarily stopping every shipment for sampling and the requisite 7-day holding period.

As far as the investigation, the source had heard the lone pepper which sampled positive for salmonella Saintpaul may have come from Michoacan. FDA officials were reportedly looking at all aspects of the market in McAllen where the pepper was found.

Meanwhile, there is also speculation about whether a Monterrey, Mexico distribution center tied to the McAllen, Texas-based Agricola Zaragoza (where the positive pepper sample was taken) may have played a role in the long outbreak.

Meanwhile Reuters has reported FDA is narrowing its advisory to only raw jalapeno peppers from Mexico. The CDC says the latest salmonella illness was reported July 10.

National Retail Report - July 25

The USDA's July 25 National Retail Report can be found here. The summary of the report:



Grapes and Stone Fruits Dominate Produce Ads
Retailers this week were running a wide variety of promotions to draw customers into stores. These included “buy-oneget- one-free”, “12 for $12”, and “10 for $10”, and “Dollar Days” type sales. In addition, many retailers were offering extra savings when purchasing a number of specific products. Still, others were luring customers by offering gas savings programs.
Overall, fresh produce ad activity was down nearly 15% this week with declines of almost 19% on fruit ads and more than 8% on vegetable ads. Fruits, especially grapes and stone fruits, continued to be the leading produce items featured. The top 5 items were: grapes, peaches, nectarines, cherries, and plums. These 5 items accounted for nearly 60% of all fruit
ads and more than 34% of total produce ads. Grapes were featured prominently in ads this week with many retailers highlighting them in front page space. The effort by most retailers to highlight locally grown produce continued this week. Vegetables were often the highlight of
these locally grown features. Most often noted were: peppers, yellow squash, zucchini, eggplant, green beans, and green onions.



Fruits as Percentage of Total Fruit Ads - July 25, 2008
Bananas 1%
Avocadoes, hass 2%
Apples, red delicious 0%
Bananas, organic 0%
Watermelon,seedless 3%
Watermelon, mini 1%
Blueberries 0%
Cantaloupe 7%
Honeydew 1%
Grapefruit, red 0%
Grapes,green/red 13%
Clementines 0%
Cherries 11%
Strawberries, organic 4%
Strawberries 8%
Plums 10%
Pineapple 2%
Limes 1%
Lemons 0%
Oranges
navel 0%
Peaches 13%
Pears, bartlett 2%



Vegetables as Percentage of Total Vegetable Ads - July 25, 2008
Broccoli, organic 0%
Broccoli 2%
Beans, round green 3%
Tomatoes on the vine 7%
Tomatoes on the vine 8%
Tomatoes 5%
Cabbage 3%
Carrots, baby organic 3%
Carrots, baby 8%
Asparagus 3%
Tomatoes, grape 2%
Celery 2%
Corn 6%
Cucumbers 5%
Lettuce, iceberg 3%
Lettuce, romaine 4%
Mushrooms, white 4%
Onions, yellow 3%
Sweet Potatoes 0%
Squash, zucchini 9%
Potatoes, russet 1%
Peppers, bell red 5%
Peppers, bell green 6%
Onions, sweet 7%

Victim of their own success

Luis of the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group first linked to this AP story reads "Food industry bitten by its lobbying success"


One of the worst outbreaks of foodborne illness in the U.S. is teaching the food industry the truth of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because you might get it."
The industry pressured the Bush administration years ago to limit the paperwork companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers, according to interviews and government reports reviewed by The Associated Press.
The White House also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak's source. Companies complained the proposals were too burdensome and costly, and warned they could disrupt the availability of consumers' favorite foods.
The apparent but unintended consequences of the lobbying success: a paper record-keeping system that has slowed investigators, with estimated business losses of $250 million. So far, nearly 1,300 people in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada have been sickened by salmonella since April.

Later....

The FDA official in charge of the current salmonella investigation, David Acheson, said the agency slowly is reviewing paper records to help trace tainted produce. But Acheson disputed arguments that an electronic records system would necessarily have helped investigators.

TK: One of the intriguing sidebars to the Congressional hearings upcoming will be the debate about traceability and what more needs to be done. Lawmakers will say the industry is "clamoring for regulation" but industry may not agree. Check this story for another report on traceability: "Tracing tomatoes from field to fork" From that AP story:

My impression is that before this tomato-pepper outbreak, the industry really didn't want traceback, because if they had a problem they didn't want it traced to a specific grower," said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. "Now, seeing that what can happen can shut down the whole industry, I would think it's to their advantage to enable traceback investigations to focus on the source."
Even if the government doesn't require tracing, some major retailers do.
"We like to get back to the dirt, or in the case of tomatoes, the hothouse," said Craig Wilson, assistant vice president for food safety and quality at Costco. Verifying the supply chain is a specification, just as freshness would be. Vendors are required to maintain records, which Costco audits at least annually.

Later in the story....

For Canadian cattle, FoodLogiQ's system works through a radio frequency ID tag put on every calf's ear at birth so its movements can be recorded. The system got its first emergency workout when mad cow disease was discovered in a Canadian cow in 2003, requiring traceback to the farm of origin before U.S. trade could resume, Kennedy said.
For produce, his company would assign an identifying tag to each case or pallet, rather than to an individual tomato or other item. It costs roughly 25 cents a tag, Kennedy said in a cell phone interview this week from a field belonging to Eastern Carolina Organics, a co-op implementing his system.
If the produce case is repacked into different boxes along the way to the grocery store or restaurant, the tag identifier would be added to the new container, much like drug companies today track their ingredients, Kennedy said.

Who's up for Rosa

From the office of Rep. Rosa DeLauro this afternoon:


HEARING NOTICE
The House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration and Related Agencies will hold an oversight hearing on food safety that will examine the problems that were highlighted during the recent salmonella outbreak and analyze the critical components that are necessary for an effective food safety system, Wednesday, July 30, 2008 at 1:30 PM in room 2362-A of the Rayburn House Office Building. Congresswoman Rosa L. DeLauro (Conn.-3) chairs the subcommittee.


WITNESSES

Dr. Stephen Sundlof
Director of the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN)
Food and Drug Administration

Michael R. Taylor
Research Professor for Health Policy
The George Washington University

Jeffrey Levi
Executive Director
Trust for America’s Health

Gibbs Patrick, Jr.
Gibbs Patrick Farms, Inc.
Omega, GA

Tomato compensation and searching for the jalapeno king

It is going to be tough to set a dollar amount on the damages incurred by the tomato industry as a result of the salmonella outbreak advisories. Factors such as acreage and weather conditions play into the level of shipments and the market price. One would assume that figures will be put forward in next week's Congressional hearings that attempt to estimate the cost. In fact, here is an AP video on the compensation issues can be found:






Further, here is a press release from Rep. Tim Mahoney of Florida about legislation he has already introduced to address the problem:

Following the Food & Drug Administration's (FDA) announcement that tomatoes were not the likely source of a recent salmonella outbreak, Congressman Tim Mahoney (FL-16) has introduced a bill, H.R. 6581, to compensate tomato growers and packers nationwide for their losses due to the salmonella scare, which according to the Florida Tomato Exchange's estimates could be close to $100 million.
Congressman Mahoney, who is Florida's only representative on the House Agriculture Committee, also called on the Committee to hold field hearings in his district to examine what reforms are needed to ensure food safety. The Agriculture Committee plans to schedule a hearing in mid-September.
"The FDA's warnings about tomatoes devastated the $1.3 billion tomato industry. Due to the timing of the salmonella outbreak, Florida was hit hard. We need to ensure that all impacted tomato growers and packers are compensated for their losses to protect domestic food production," said Congressman Mahoney. "With unfortunate events like this, Americans are becoming aware that food safety and national security are synonymous. We clearly need to examine and overhaul our food safety system to ensure that the food we grow and import is safe."
In April, the FDA issued a nationwide warning that tomatoes were a possible source of a salmonella outbreak that made 1,220 people ill in 42 states, the District of Columbia and Canada. After a long investigation, the FDA recently determined that fresh tomatoes now available in the domestic market are not associated with the current outbreak and the agency has rescinded its warning against eating certain types of red raw tomatoes.
The Mahoney Bill, which is also cosponsored by U.S. Representatives Allen Boyd, Adam Putnam, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and Vern Buchanan, directs the Secretary of Agriculture to make payments to tomato growers and first handlers that were unable to market tomato crops as a result of the Food and Drug Administration's Public Health Advisory issued in June 2008 due to the salmonella outbreak. The U.S. Department of Agriculture will be responsible for issuing regulations and determining eligibility for compensation, as they have in other disaster programs.
"The tomato industry in our state has unfairly suffered enough," Rep. Wasserman Schultz (FL-20) said. "The FDA must reform their trace-back programs so that growers and consumers do not have to go through the same nightmare during future outbreaks."


TK: Don't expect smooth sailing for the bill. In this coverage of Mahoney's bill, the WSJ reported that consumer groups had some "pushback" on the issue.

Consumer advocates oppose the bill. Sarah Klein, a staff attorney at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, said the food-industry lobby over the years has weakened federal food-safety oversight, and consumers shouldn't foot the bill now. "We'd like to see the industry focusing on how to prevent these outbreaks for the future to protect consumers and their bottom line," she said.
Tom Stenzel, president of United Fresh Produce Association, said the fresh-produce industry has sought tougher FDA regulation of tomatoes and other items. In recent years, Florida tomato growers and California leafy-green growers pushed through tougher measures in their own states, including mandatory inspections and training.
But the industry disagrees on who should benefit from the bill. Mr. Mahoney said it covers farmers and shippers, which were hit the hardest by the FDA warning. Mr. Stenzel, said it also should cover those further up the supply chain, such as packers and repackers, who suffered damages, too.
It is uncertain whether the bill will pass Congress. There isn't similar legislation in the Senate, and there is little time for lawmakers to act before the November election. Last year, spinach growers unsuccessfully pushed a similar measure to compensate for losses after the government's 2006 recall of fresh spinach after an outbreak of E. coli.







Meanwhile, Luis provided this post at the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group, adding some perspective as to the size and scope of the jalapeno production and exports to the U.S.:



Exports, most of them to the United States, have risen between 10 and 15 percent every year over the last decade and now over 100,000 hectares (247,000 acres) of peppers are grown in Mexico, 80 percent of them jalapenos.
Dozens of varieties of chiles, some which provoke sweating and crying, have become a cooking trend in the United States. Food writer and spice expert Dave DeWitt describes the fad as "culinary bungee jumping."
"Very rarely do you ever hear someone say, 'I used to eat hot and spicy food but now I'm back to bland,'" said DeWitt, the author of over 30 books on chiles like "The Spicy Food Lover's Bible" and "The Chile Pepper Encyclopedia."
Inspectors are holding up truck loads of the some 100 tons of peppers crossing into the United States from Mexico every day, raising the risk of produce being left to rot before it reaches stores, Gochicoa said.

TK: Gary Lucier of the USDA Economic Research reports that imports of fresh chili peppers from Mexico during the first four months of the year - assumed to be mostly jalapenos - were up 25% compared with the same period a year ago. Shipments through the first four months of the year translated to about one pound of fresh chili peppers per person in the U.S.


Developing...I'm on the scout for a few shippers of fresh jalapenos for a market update...If there is a "jalapeno king," I will find him....