Category Archives: Food Safety Certification

Food Safety Certification, Health, Tomatoes

Mainland Salmonella Outbreak

There was an article in the Hawai‘i Tribune-Herald Wednesday about a salmonella outbreak on the mainland.

Hamakua Springs is food safety-certified, so we avoid such problems.

What that means is that we have annual inspections and keep detailed records on 60-odd specific points that address issues of food safety.

Salmonella most commonly spreads through contaminated wash water. We have heard of places in foreign countries that use field irrigation water for wash water, after it is used for irrigation and then run down to the ends of the rows. Clearly that should not be allowed.

We never wash our tomatoes in a tank, because there is just too much risk of contamination. What we do instead is use a spray rinse of county drinking water, in order to ensure sanitation. We never reuse wash water.

An email we received from the Produce Marketing Association

DATE: June 1, 2008
TO: All PMA Members
FROM: Kathy Means, PMA VP of Government Relations and Public Affairs
RE: Tomatoes linked to illness outbreak in the Western U.S. (Salmonella)

Today the New Mexico Department of Health announced that an outbreak of illness caused by Salmonella St. Paul is likely caused by eating uncooked tomatoes purchased from specific stores (Wal-Mart in Las Cruces or Farmington, Lowe’s in Las Cruces, or Bashas’ in Crownpoint). So far, 31 people in New Mexico have been sick. Several people have been hospitalized, and no one has died, according to the department. The agency is advising consumers and restaurants that bought tomatoes from those stores since May 3 not to eat them uncooked.

No other action is being requested by health authorities at this time.  PMA has learned that this outbreak linked to tomatoes likely extends to several states, mainly in the Western United States, and may have begun as early as late April. We expect information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration soon, as FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working on this issue, and we are working with them. We are seeking more information on the type(s) of tomatoes, source of tomatoes, numbers of illnesses, duration of the outbreak, and distribution channels.

The New Mexico information indicates exposures at both foodservice and retail are involved, but named only the four stores above.

Most people infected with Salmonella develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps 12 to 72 hours after infection. The illness usually lasts four to seven days, and most recover without treatment. Some people may need hospitalization due to severe diarrhea. The elderly, infants, and those with impaired immune systems are more likely to have a severe illness.

PMA members should know that they have resources – issue briefings on produce and pathogens, produce handling information for consumers, as well as a crisis management manual and recall manual.

PMA will continue to monitor this situation and will share with members any new developments as they become available. If you have questions, please contact Kathy Means or Dr. Bob Whitaker. If you need assistance with media inquiries, contact Julia Stewart.

This alert is a PMA member benefit; if it was forwarded to you, you can contact the PMA Solution Center at solutionctr@pma.com or +1 (302) 738-7100 to be added to the list of people at member companies who receive these alerts. You are receiving this message because PMA believes you will benefit from this information. If you have any concerns about mailings of this type, please contact PMA’s Solution Center.

About salmonella

Salmonella is a family of bacteria that can cause diarrheal illness in humans. The elderly, infants, and those with impaired immune systems are more likely to have severe illness. Salmonellosis is more common in summer than winter. Children are the most likely to get salmonellosis.

Salmonella bacteria are usually transmitted by eating foods contaminated with animal feces. Most people infected with Salmonella develop diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps, and most recover without treatment. However, sometimes the diarrhea may be so severe that the patient needs to be hospitalized. Rarely, the Salmonella infection may spread from the intestines to the blood stream, and then to other body sites; it can cause serious illness or death unless the person is treated promptly with antibiotics.

Food Safety Certification, Health, Hydroponics, Lettuce

Safe Salad

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An article in yesterday’s Honolulu Advertiser caught my eye. The headline was Produce We Eat May Not Be Safer. Its subheading: “Government has failed to increase inspections after deadly outbreak.”

Coincidentally, we just had our Food Safety inspection two weeks ago by Craig Bowden of Davis Fresh. We passed the inspection and Craig told us he is pleased that we continue to show constant improvement. Nearly five years ago we were one of the first producers in the state to voluntarily participate in an independent, third-party Food Safety Certification program.

A few months back, when CNN ran a special about the deadly E. coli outbreak in spinach, we wrote a post explaining what we do to prevent disease at Hamakua Springs. We planned our production systems from the beginning to prevent these problems from happening. We feel confident that we are on the right track.

Leafy greens are especially vulnerable to disease because, unlike with some other vegetables, people actually eat the leaves. The plant grows low to the ground and is vulnerable to contamination from rain splattering off contaminated soil, flooding, or improperly treated compost. It is also vulnerable to contaminated spray water, employee sanitation problems, sickness, rodents and more.

Large bagged salad processors “mow” the lettuce, catch leaves and move them along conveyors in the packing house, where the product tumbles through a sanitation process—but there is no way to decontaminate leafy green in the packing house once they’ve been contaminated in the field. Worse, the packing house process actually serves to mix and spread the contamination. So it is most important to have safe field operations.

At Hamakua Springs, our hydroponic operations always begin with chlorine-treated water. After we treat the water, we measure it for E. coli colony forming units (CFU), and we have always found it to be zero.

After that we plant. The plants get their nutrients from this treated water. Since we grow our produce hydroponically (without soil) in covered houses, there is no risk from rain splattering the plants or contaminated spray water. We address other possible contamination issues as a part of our food safety program. We are very comfortable with our safety methods and you can be, too.

Although we hope we don’t hear about any more E. coli-contaminated lettuce on the Mainland, we will not be surprised if it happens again.

Food Safety Certification

We Grow Our Own

Richard Ha writes:

Our banana farm and the packing house had their annual Food Safety inspections Monday. We are waiting on a lab analysis of our irrigation water and some residue tests of our bananas, but I’m confident we will pass.

We look forward to these Food Safety inspections because we always learn about trends in the industry. Then we expend a lot of effort to make sure we keep ahead of the curve. We strive to be good partners with our customers, so we try to make sure their future concerns are taken care of ahead of time. We want them to feel confident that we are on top of things and that we will do everything possible to ensure there will be no surprises.

For the first time, we sense a real crisis brewing in the leafy green vegetable industry. Many businesses were hurt badly during the recent spinach/E. coli problem. And now there is a lot of hand-wringing about what to do next and how to do it.

We saw this coming more than two years ago, and set out at that time to put ourselves in a position of safety—for ourselves, and for our customers. That is why we do hydroponic vegetable production: we believe this is the best system for us to ensure that we have the safest lettuces, green onions, herbs and watercress.

Our leafy greens are all grown indoors, so they are protected from the rain. We do not grow in soil or in compost because that can be a source of E. coli contamination. We use county water for any spraying we do. And we test our irrigation water for E. coli every month.

After our inspection Monday, I thought to myself that this is a “new day” in agriculture. I felt there was something going on that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Then Tracy told me about her lunch at Café Pesto. She, Kimo and Craig Bowden of Davis Fresh Technologies (the Food Safety Certification company) were preparing to order when they overheard a conversation at the next table. The customer asked where the spinach was grown, and said that if it came from California he didn’t want it.

That’s when it came to me. There is a crisis and it’s due to industrial agriculture.

Consumers can no longer be sure what farmer grew any particular crop. There is hardly a multi-national banana company out there with a third-party Food Safety Certification. This is because their fruit might be branded by a poor farmer barely making ends meet who is packing the bananas in a tub of river water and then driving it down to the docks. No one knows, because it all ends up under one large brand; one name. Same with lettuce and spinach grown under the large brands. Consumers don’t know the farmer.

So let me just reassure you by saying it straight out: We are the farmer who affixes that Hamakua Springs sticker. We grow every single piece of produce we sell!