Leafy greens audits start July 23

They ensure growers, handlers meet standards
By JAKE HENSHAW
The Salinas Californian Capitol Bureau

SACRAMENTO - After months of preparation, mandatory food-safety audits will begin July 23 for leafy greens handlers and their growers participating in a special marketing agreement. The board of the Leafy Green Products Marketing Agreement approved the start date at its meeting June 29 in Santa Maria.

"Beginning July 23, we will begin to certify to our customers that California lettuce, spinach and other leafy greens have been grown to the highest food safety standards available," said Joe Pezzini, chairman of the marketing agreement board and vice president of operations for Ocean Mist Farms in Castroville.

The board also re-opened for the rest of the year the sign-up period for membership in the marketing agreement that was created in response to the E. coli outbreak last year that was linked to spinach grown on a San Benito County ranch.
That outbreak caused at least three deaths and more than 200 illnesses among consumers nationwide.

The board oversees an industry-designed, state-supervised marketing agreement that requires all handlers who voluntarily sign up to accept spinach, lettuce and other leafy greens only from growers who follow new growing standards. Participants who violate the marketing agreement would be temporarily or permanently suspended from the program.

Inspectors from the state Department of Food and Agriculture have been visiting handlers and growers for "informational audits" both to assess how the new growing standards match field conditions and to educate participants on the rules. The new food-safety drive also calls for handlers to use a "service mark" on paperwork delivered by handlers to their grocery and restaurant customers to certify that the produce meets the new standards.

The marketing agreement board still is considering what's called a "certification mark" that could go on cartons and packages for the public to see. But for now, the board primarily is counting on grocers and restaurants to educate consumers on the new standards, marketing agreement CEO Scott Horsfall has said.

The $4.5 million-a-year program is funded by a two-cent per carton assessment, and includes an estimated 99 percent of the industry.

The program has been criticized by some legislators and consumer and labor advocates as too industry-controlled, and they have urged a greater role for state health officials. But agricultural industry officials have argued that the marketing agreement has led to state-of-the-art growing standards that will be readily updated to meet new scientific data and enforced by independent state inspectors.

Contact Jake Henshaw at jhenshaw@gannett.com.

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