Push for food bills renewed

Spinach recall highlights both sides of safety issues
By MARIE VASARI
Herald Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 08/31/2007 01:32:48 AM PDT

Depending on whom you ask, the recall this week of 8,118 cases of Metz Fresh bagged spinach is either an indication that the safeguards in the nation's food chain are solidly in place or dismally lacking.

No illnesses have been reported in the recall, which centers around 68,000 pounds of spinach grown and shipped by King City-based Metz Fresh LLC.

But several lawmakers point to the recall as evidence that voluntary compliance measures on the part of the industry are inadequate.

State Sen. Dean Florez, D-Shafter, and U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, issued statements Thursday calling for legislative action to regulate growers.

Harkin, chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, said he would introduce legislation to establish more federal oversight of food safety practices to reduce food-borne illnesses.

"With the memory of last summer's massive E. coli outbreak in spinach still fresh in our minds, Americans are once again being hit by a large-scale recall of bagged spinach," he said. "This is a food safety concern for consumers who wonder if it is OK to serve this produce to their families and an agricultural concern for growers who face another blow to sales of their product."

Kate Cyrul, a spokesman for the senator, said he is drafting legislation similar to a bill he introduced in 1996 calling for a national framework for produce oversight, shifting the responsibility from growers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. That legislation could be introduced as early as next month, she said.
Sen. Florez also weighed in, drafting a letter to A.G. Kawamura, secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.

As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Food-borne Illness, Florez introduced legislation following last year's spinach recall, when an E. coli outbreak killed three people and sickened hundreds.

His legislation would have mandated what his office described as an improved inspection process and efficient traceback system, but the bill was shelved by the Assembly Agriculture Committee, which opted to wait and see how the industry fared in its attempts to self-regulate.

Florez cited what he called "the industry's previous lack of response to repeated outbreaks and calls for action from the federal Food and Drug Administration."
In his letter, he questioned the effectiveness of a voluntary system that allowed leafy greens contaminated with salmonella to make it to store shelves, despite the fact that Metz Fresh was a signatory to the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement program, under the jurisdiction of the state Department of Food and Agriculture.

"This raises serious questions regarding the effectiveness of the current food safety program and signals the need for stronger regulation on the part of government," he wrote.

He called upon Kawamura and Metz Fresh to better explain how contaminated spinach was not identified prior to distribution, whether the company had been inspected pursuant to the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement and what penalties its board would take in light of the incident.

"I guess the biggest question anybody should have is this: Are we any better than we were last year?" said Florez by phone from Sacramento. "This sounds very reminiscent of last year, so really nothing has changed other than what we call a catch-up policy."

He questions how a member of the marketing agreement could allow contaminated product, in any amount, to get into consumers' hands and said he wants the marketing agreement's stamp to provide an iron-clad guarantee that the product is safe.
"The choice really is about a mandatory approach that says when we put the seal of approval on it, it means that when you open the bag, it means it is ready to eat and not contaminated," he said.

"The question is, what's the penalty, and where is the Department of Health Services in this process?" he said. "Let's face it: These guys didn't want regulators in their fields."

The only guarantee, according to Florez, is to increase public accountability by changing voluntary practices into statute. Florez said he'd call a hearing to address the food safety issue within the next 10 days.

But Scott Horsfal, CEO of the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement, said the government already oversees the industry's practices.

"The inspections are done by California Department of Food and Agriculture inspectors, under the auspices of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, so it is government inspectors," he said. "This program was designed so that it does have government involvement."

While the industry provides funding for the program, its 10 inspectors are California Department of Food and Agriculture employees, trained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, he said.

Metz Fresh, as a produce handler, had already been inspected several times and its practices audited for conformity, he said.

Jim Bogart, president and general counsel for the Grower-Shipper Association of Central California, also dismissed the criticism as misguided.

"To assert that indicates to me that they are uninformed, or misinformed as to how this marketing agreement works," said Bogart, "because it is the government, not the industry, that conducts the audits and implements the verification process for compliance with the standards."

State and federal officials spent much of Thursday at Watsonville Produce, Inc., the Moss Landing processing plant Metz Fresh contracts with for production. The state health agency was contacted Tuesday when Metz Fresh received confirmation of its test results, she said.

Suann Buggy, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Public Health, said public health inspectors conducted an investigation of the processing plant Thursday and found no violations. Officials will continue with the verification of test results and examination of company records, she said.

Sold under the Metz Fresh label, the spinach was sold to retail outlets and food service providers in 48 states and Canada in 10-ounce and 16-ounce bags, as well as in 4-pound cartons and in 2.5-pound four-pack cartons, with tracking codes 12208114, 12208214 and 12208314.

Metz Fresh did not release information on the value of the recalled spinach.
But the losses from those 8,118 recalled cases, amounting to 68,000 pounds of spinach, pales in comparison to last year's spinach recall. Spinach production values for the county dropped 41 percent — a loss of $77 million — according to the Monterey County Agricultural Commissioner's 2006 Crop Report as compared to the previous year.

Metz Fresh grows and packages fresh spinach primarily for food service consumers, including wholesalers, with about 25 percent of its bagged spinach products shipped directly to retail establishments.

Routine testing by an independent lab, BSK Food and Diary, detected the presence of salmonella bacteria in one of three production lines Aug. 24 at a contracted processing facility in Watsonville. Further testing confirmed those results late Tuesday.

More than 90 percent of that spinach was held back before it reached consumers, according to company spokesman Greg Larsen, and the company's labeling and tracking systems allowed the company to keep the vast majority of the spinach out of the hands of the public.

Spinach grower Dick Peixoto said the calls for more government oversight were unnecessary. In his opinion, the measures growers are taking under the Leafy Green Marketing Agreement work just fine.

"They're trying to make an issue where there is no issue," said Peixoto, who grows organic spinach in Watsonville.

"All I can say is, I don't know why they're calling for more regulation when the system worked," he said. "Nobody got any tainted spinach, nobody got sick. They found it in the plant."

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