Hollister
– San Benito County leafy vegetable growers and handlers are
meeting today in Monterey with state agriculture officials in hopes
of boosting the industry’s food safety guidelines and restoring
consumer confidence.
Hollister – San Benito County leafy vegetable growers and handlers are meeting today in Monterey with state agriculture officials in hopes of boosting the industry’s food safety guidelines and restoring consumer confidence.
The conference will produce a marketing agreement for state leafy green handlers to abide by new food safety guidelines, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. San Benito County Farm Bureau Vice President and row crop grower Richard Silva said the ultimate goal of the agreement is to create a safety standard by which California handlers can distinguish their leafy greens and assure the consumer of their safety.
“The goal is to put a mark, a medallion, a star, some type of differentiation of this product from other products,” Silva said.
In a county where leafy vegetables bring in more than $100 million annually to growers, many hope the conference will help begin restoring consumer confidence damaged by E. coli outbreaks in spinach and lettuce. In 2006, an E. coli outbreak that sickened more than 200 people nationwide was linked to San Juan Bautista packaging company Natural Selection Foods. San Benito County Agricultural Commissioner Paul Matulich estimated that the E. coli outbreak cost San Benito County growers $5 million to $6 million in the last few months of 2006.
Silva said the industry needs to put the marketing agreement together with care.
“We could jump through a lot of hoops here and not make any difference if we’re not careful,” Silva said.
He added that regulations need not only to be doable, but also affordable for handlers and growers to implement.
Some handlers have already begun to implement their own food safety measures.
Samantha Cabaluna, spokeswoman for Natural Selection, said the four-level food safety program implemented by Natural Selection has been received enthusiastically by its retail and food service buyers. Natural Selection safety measures include the testing and monitoring of produce for contamination at every stage of handling.
Although Cabaluna has not heard many of the proposed safety measures to be implemented under the marketing agreement, she said she supports the conference.
“We are very supportive of industry efforts to come together to work toward the best food safety standards possible,” Cabaluna said.
After the beef industry suffered from E. coli outbreaks in the early 1990s, it began to implement regulations to curtail such outbreaks. And as time passed, consumer confidence in beef rebounded. E. coli outbreaks from beef have become less frequent.
“I think that we are going to enjoy that same trend,” Silva said.
Silva said he would like to see the development of a stop-gap measure for fresh produce in which the possibility of contamination would be completely eliminated. The stop-gap measure for beef is cooking it to a proper internal temperature, Silva said.
Unfortunately, the majority of fresh produce is consumed raw.
And although an E. coli outbreak linked to lettuce sickened dozens of people who ate at fast food chains in November and December 2006, sales of lettuce varieties have not suffered like those of spinach, said Jim Gibson, owner of Hollister Super Inc.
Gibson said spinach sales remain down.
“I’d say it’s about one-fifth of what it was,” Gibson said. “We used to sell a lot of spinach. It didn’t come back as quickly as I thought.”
Gibson said he believes spinach sales will rebound, although he is not sure how long it will take.
Hollister resident Shirley Patton, who was shopping Thursday afternoon at Baler Market on Third Street in Hollister, said that although her spinach consumption slowed down after the E. coli outbreak, it is back to normal.
And growers like Silva hope the habits of all spinach consumers normalize soon. Even after consumer confidence rebounds, Silva said he is committed and has been committed to food safety.
“I think this has awakened us to dotting every ‘i’ and crossing every ‘t,'” Silva said.
Michael Van Cassell covers public safety for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 831-637-5566 ext. 335 or [email protected].
