Arizona Leafy Greens adds to food-safety training kit
Arizona Leafy Greens adds to food-safety training kit
The Arizona Leafy Greens Food Safety Training Kit has a new component specifically designed for supervisory roles and personnel who conduct daily field assessments. Module 4: Pre-Harvest & Daily Harvest Environmental Assessments addresses the industry’s need to train those responsible for monitoring potential environmental contaminants.
“The development of this particular module was probably the most complex of all of our efforts,” Vicki-Lynne Scott, technical subcommittee chairperson and board member of the Arizona Leafy Greens Food Safety Committee, said in a press release. “It’s highly technical and covers a lot of ‘what-ifs’ as well as provides templates to encourage uniformity in monitoring.”
To beta-test the module, the Arizona Leafy Greens Food Safety Committee engaged agriculture students from Arizona Western College in Yuma, AZ. The students sat through training sessions and offered feedback that was incorporated in the final product.
“We’re fortunate to have this group as a resource, in our own backyard, and their insights were invaluable in the development of the final product,” Scott said.
More than 150 people have been trained in the new module so far, in bilingual training sessions that took place in late 2014 in both Phoenix and Yuma. The additional module is free to members of Arizona Leafy Greens Food Safety Committee and is available for purchase in either English or Spanish.
The Food Safety Training Kit is a comprehensive training tool that addresses safe food handling practices in the field. The bilingual program has been widely used by the leafy greens industry and serves as a model for creating uniform standards and practices. Since its inception, the organization has enhanced the program with new training tools such as workplace posters, tailgate flip charts and most recently a video series that was named a Best New Food Safety Solution finalist at United Fresh. The program was designed to ensure compliance with federal regulations for food safety, including anticipated Food Safety Modernization Act standards.
The Arizona Leafy Greens is a consortium of shippers of Arizona leafy greens produce that have put in place protective controls to ensure the integrity of leafy greens products grown and shipped from Arizona. Arizona's Leafy Greens industry provides 75 percent of the leafy greens produce consumed in the United States and Canada for the months of November through March. The $1 billion industry employs approximately 20,000 workers.