Fresh Express Conference
To Unveil Research Findings
It was back in January of 2007 that we published a piece entitled, Fresh Express Gives $2 Million: But Its Food Safety System May Be a Bigger Gift. In that piece we featured an announcement from Fresh Express: Fresh Express, the No. 1 producer of value-added salads in North America and an industry leader in […]
Resource Guide On Food Safety
With the House of Representatives hearings going hot and heavy this week, we have been getting a lot of calls looking for resources. We wanted to remind readers that we maintain a variety of “Hot Topics” buttons to allow you to review and update yourself on many subjects. For example, related to food safety, on […]
Will Colorado Salmonella Sickness Case Lead To Texas Pepper?
High profile food safety attorney Bill Marler has sent along word that one of his clients was the first person to fall ill of Salmonella Saintpaul after having eaten jalapenos. This person actually had jalapenos left over from his purchase and the jalapenos and the client’s illness were a genetic match — two enzymes — […]
Three Congressional Hearings
Focus On Salmonella Saintpaul
There are three hearings in the House of Representatives this week, all related to the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak. The first is focused solely on traceability, the second is dedicated to how the FDA has spent a special supplemental appropriation it had been given, and the third, more generally, to the “lessons learned” for both public […]
Perishable Thoughts
As attention turns to Capitol Hill and these hearings while simultaneously, in this election season, we rely on our congressional representatives to solve the many problems illustrated in the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, we ought to remember some comic lines from Aristophanes: If we withdraw the confidence we placedIn these our present statesmen, and transfer itTo […]
Recommendations, Information
And Public Health
The proposal to impose federal regulation on the industry is unobjectionable to most — at least in those commodities where there is known risk. If the government regulates fresh herbs, green onions, cantaloupes, leafy greens and tomatoes… and if the regulation is effective… it will at least eliminate the issue of sub-standard operations endangering public […]
PMA’s Town Hall Meeting
On Salmonella Saintpaul
Raised More Questions Than Answers
At its annual Foodservice Conference, PMA conducted a “town hall meeting” on the Salmonella Saintpaul crisis. Facilitated by Bryan Silbermann, President of PMA, on the stage was a large panel made up of a PMA executive, an FDA official, one domestic tomato grower, a Mexican tomato grower, two regional tomato associations, an executive from the […]
All In Favor Of Regulation Say ‘Aye’
The industry is all set to practically demand regulation in Washington, DC. This may be a wise policy. It is a weakness of democratic politics that people are prone to believe that passing a law against something will accomplish something. So just as it was once believed that the Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the […]
Congressional Hearings
Should Pave Path For Public Health
What is a reasonable position for the industry to take in the upcoming Congressional hearings? We have to start with the realization that any proposal must, above all, enhance public health. A plea to help the produce industry will seem self-interested and is unlikely to sway many votes in Congress. It is also true that […]
Pundit’s Mailbag — Free Baja Take 2
When the focus of the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak was tomatoes, we ran two pieces related to Baja. The first was entitled, Free Baja, and urged the FDA to add Baja to the “safe list” since the same logic that applied to northern Florida applied to Baja. The other piece was entitled, Andrew & Williamson Hit […]
