By Lisa Lieberman - Staff Writer
| More retailers are asking about food safety programs, California table grape shippers say. But what these programs are going to look like and who is going to administer them remains to be seen. In November, Albertson's Inc., Boise, Idaho, sent letters to its produce suppliers requiring them to use third-party verification of good agricultural practices by April 30. Since then, Albertson's revise its initial mandate with a letter in February saying grower-shippers must have made "significant" changes toward acquiring third-party audits by April 30. Many shippers already say they have food safety programs in place and are fine-tuning them even further. Tony Fazio of Fazio Marketing, Fresno, Calif., said his company has developed an internal program that involves worker sanitation, cleaning procedures and maintenance procedures in the fields, packinghouse and cold storage facilities. This year, Fruit Patch Sales Co., Dinuba, Calif., has hired a specialist to document food safety practices and has implemented a food and worker safety program for its cold storage, said Anthony Balakian, co-owner. At Sunview Marketing International, Scott Boyajian, sales manager for Bakersfield, Calif., said his company has created a Web site to give retailers easier access to its own internal audits.
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While most shippers say they want to accommodate retailers, the challenge of using third-party audits or different food safety programs is that if one retailer wants one thing and another retailer wants something else, costs can quickly add up. Renney said his company has signed up with PrimusLabs.com for third-party audits this season, but he also was hoping for an industry standard so grower-shippers don't have to pay for several audits for different retailers. Richard Matoian, president of the California Grape & Tree Fruit League, Fresno, said many retailers, not just Albertson's, have raised concerns about food safety practices. The league has formed a subcommittee of industry experts and is truing to come up with a plan that will work for a variety of commodities, Matoian said. "This way we don't have a (program) for plums and another for grapes and another for peaches. We'll have something that works for grapes and a lot of tree fruit commodities that could even work for pears and apples," he said. The food safety program the subcommittee is working on would be implemented at the field level as well as in the packinghouses, he said. In terms of who would monitor these programs, Matoian said there are a number of options. One possibility is that a government agency could be a third-party verifier. Private labs are also an option, but a government agency could be less expensive in the long run, Matoian said. |
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