Glades Crop Care, Inc. began its involvement in Food Safety audits in the fall of 2000, when we received a call from one of our valued vegetable clients. One of his major buyers sent a letter demanding that he meet certain standards so the buyer could continue doing business with him. The concerns of that buyer and many others since that initial call stem from a higher awareness among the buying public in the number of food-borne illnesses in recent years associated with fresh fruit and vegetables. This awareness prompted the FDA Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition and the USDA to publish their "Guidance for Industry - Guide to Minimize Microbial Food Safety Hazards for Fresh Fruit and Vegetables". (See website www.cfsan.fda.gov for more.)
This guidance document addresses microbial food safety hazards and good agricultural management practices to grow, harvest, wash, sort, pack and transport fruit and vegetables sold to consumers in an unprocessed or minimally processed form. The program is voluntary and can be used by both domestic and foreign producers to help ensure the safety of their products.
Several organizations perform food safety-related testing and certification. Primus Labs, Scientific Certification Systems and others have developed food safety programs designed for produce suppliers and buyers to address the FDA/USDA guidelines. Topics addressed include various testing, consulting , education, training, certification, document development and auditing services for produce suppliers and buyers. These cover Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), Sanitation SOPs, Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) Programs, Field Auditing Program and a Certification Program. Primus Labs' website provides retailers, food service and institutional buyers accessibility to specific food safety information regarding participating produce suppliers for a fee.
As part of the food safety program, suppliers are required to submit to audits. Trained auditors conduct these audits on behalf of suppliers or can be hired by buyers to conduct audits. Auditors must have a background in the industry, pass preliminary tests and complete training.
Glades Crop Care, Inc. initiated its Food Safety Program following the format of Primus Labs. This system is set up to assist growers in their efforts to comply with Food Safety standards, primarily as set up in "The Guide". The Primus Food Safety Program encompasses several phases of inspection at various points along the produce production process. The first starts with Farm/Ranch Audits that assess the land and the agricultural practices used to produce fruit and vegetables. The aim is to identify potential areas for risk of microbial and chemical contamination and to provide ideas/practices/procedures to reduce that risk. The second deals with Harvest Crew Audits. These audits are conducted periodically throughout the harvest season to ensure employee safety, hygiene and harvest practices reduce the potential for microbial hazards to infect produce. These two phases of the program can be particularly critical for produce that is field packed, or which is destined for a fresh-cut operation. Contamination of such produce at the farm site or by harvest crew activities can be magnified many-fold inside a processing facility.
Indeed, the importance of farm site issues, especially worker sanitation and hygiene, is so high that some of our clients have initiated strict guidelines - complete with monetary penalties or termination for non-compliance. We have been asked to report during our twice per week routine scouting operation signs of improper toilet facilities, worker conduct or other potential sources of contamination by one of our clients.
Once the farm site and harvest crews have been audited, the next critical stage in the food chain is the cooling and packing facilities. Auditing these facilities is challenging. Many factors, such as the physical condition of the building, the cleanliness of the machinery, worker sanitation, insect and rodent control, must all be evaluated and documented. When the physical plant inspection has been completed, internal documents, such as cleaning logs, employee training records and specimen labels for chemicals used in cleaning must be inspected. An audit of a single facility usually requires three to four hours to complete. Entering the data into the Primus Labs database takes one to two hours for a packinghouse, depending on the size and purpose.
