PMA holds town hall meeting on Salmonella outbreak
PMA holds town hall meeting on Salmonella outbreak
MONTEREY, CA -- Hatched just three weeks before the start of the Produce Marketing Association's 27th annual Foodservice Conference & Exposition, held here July 25-27, the conference added a town hall meeting to discuss the recent Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak.
PMA President Bryan Silbermann credited Tim York, president of Salinas, CA- based Markon Cooperative Inc., with coming up with the idea for the Saturday afternoon meeting.
Mr. Silbermann served as moderator for the eight-member panel, which was comprised of Kathy Means, PMA's vice president of government relations; Scott Horsfall, chief executive officer of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement; Parker Booth, president of Ace Tomato Co. Inc.; Reggie Brown, manager of the Florida Tomato Committee and executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange; Ed Beckman, president of California Tomato Farmers; Martin Ley, vice president of Del Campo Supreme Inc.; Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA); and Sherri McGarry, emergency coordinator for the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition.
No clear path was agreed upon by the panel that absolutely would be in place the next time such a food-safety crisis occurs.
Mr. Silbermann also said that information from state and regional county health departments sent to CDC "has been flawed."
Several members of the panel were critical of the CDC's and the FDA's handling of the outbreak to date.
"This country's been governing in crisis for a long time, and that's the worst way to govern," Mr. Farr said.
He said that with the nation's three food-safety agencies -- the CDC, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FDA -- food safety takes a "second seat." "It's mostly open source," Mr. Farr said of the agency response to food-safety crises, adding that he is "very critical of the FDA."
Rep. Farr pointed to the "incident command system" response to the wildfire outbreaks throughout California as a model for the nation's three food-safety agencies to follow.
"The first responder is the commander because they got their first," Mr. Farr said.
He said that risk-firm lawyers are coming out with food-safety protocols. "We're losing the science on that," he said, adding that both the public and private sectors need to help with "good science."
Ms. McGarry said that CDC is involved in the human illness side of food- safety outbreaks. The agency will talk with ill people and do studies in the early part of an outbreak with state health departments on "food vehicles." The CDC then contacts the FDA, which traces back "points of service," she said.
Ms. McGarry said that the FDA did well with traceback coordination early in the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, but that repackaging and co-mingling of product "have been a challenge."
Mr. Booth said that Ace Tomato has documentation "regardless of where the product is from," including a circumstance where there might be two tomatoes from different locations in the same box.
Ms. Means said that everyone "needs to be able to do what Parker [Booth of Ace Tomato] can do."
Mr. Beckman said that the FDA needs to speed up its traceback efforts and that attention needs to be paid so that the FDA and industry together "can build traceback."
On a positive note, Mr. Beckman said that FDA's communication "was unprecedented." But he said that its confidentiality requirements prohibit the agency from responding more rapidly and effectively.
In speaking with The Produce News the day after the meeting, Mr. Beckman said that the FDA asked questions at separate points spread over weeks that he could have answered immediately had FDA better understood what questions to ask.
In the early days of the outbreak when tomatoes were the FDA's target, Mr. Beckman was in constant communication with the FDA. Except for one California tomato supplier, the outbreak preceded the California tomato harvest. Although the California supplier is not part of California Tomato Farmers, it readily provided data so that California as a state could be cleared of suspicion in the outbreak, Mr. Beckman said.
Food containers and packaging often have been thrown away before their function in traceback has been identified and determined. As a result, such code information "will have to be stored in a computer," Mr. Silbermann said. In foodservice, distributors will need to help with that data, he said.
PMA President Bryan Silbermann credited Tim York, president of Salinas, CA- based Markon Cooperative Inc., with coming up with the idea for the Saturday afternoon meeting.
Mr. Silbermann served as moderator for the eight-member panel, which was comprised of Kathy Means, PMA's vice president of government relations; Scott Horsfall, chief executive officer of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement; Parker Booth, president of Ace Tomato Co. Inc.; Reggie Brown, manager of the Florida Tomato Committee and executive vice president of the Florida Tomato Exchange; Ed Beckman, president of California Tomato Farmers; Martin Ley, vice president of Del Campo Supreme Inc.; Rep. Sam Farr (D-CA); and Sherri McGarry, emergency coordinator for the U.S. Food & Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition.
No clear path was agreed upon by the panel that absolutely would be in place the next time such a food-safety crisis occurs.
Mr. Silbermann also said that information from state and regional county health departments sent to CDC "has been flawed."
Several members of the panel were critical of the CDC's and the FDA's handling of the outbreak to date.
"This country's been governing in crisis for a long time, and that's the worst way to govern," Mr. Farr said.
He said that with the nation's three food-safety agencies -- the CDC, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the FDA -- food safety takes a "second seat." "It's mostly open source," Mr. Farr said of the agency response to food-safety crises, adding that he is "very critical of the FDA."
Rep. Farr pointed to the "incident command system" response to the wildfire outbreaks throughout California as a model for the nation's three food-safety agencies to follow.
"The first responder is the commander because they got their first," Mr. Farr said.
He said that risk-firm lawyers are coming out with food-safety protocols. "We're losing the science on that," he said, adding that both the public and private sectors need to help with "good science."
Ms. McGarry said that CDC is involved in the human illness side of food- safety outbreaks. The agency will talk with ill people and do studies in the early part of an outbreak with state health departments on "food vehicles." The CDC then contacts the FDA, which traces back "points of service," she said.
Ms. McGarry said that the FDA did well with traceback coordination early in the Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, but that repackaging and co-mingling of product "have been a challenge."
Mr. Booth said that Ace Tomato has documentation "regardless of where the product is from," including a circumstance where there might be two tomatoes from different locations in the same box.
Ms. Means said that everyone "needs to be able to do what Parker [Booth of Ace Tomato] can do."
Mr. Beckman said that the FDA needs to speed up its traceback efforts and that attention needs to be paid so that the FDA and industry together "can build traceback."
On a positive note, Mr. Beckman said that FDA's communication "was unprecedented." But he said that its confidentiality requirements prohibit the agency from responding more rapidly and effectively.
In speaking with The Produce News the day after the meeting, Mr. Beckman said that the FDA asked questions at separate points spread over weeks that he could have answered immediately had FDA better understood what questions to ask.
In the early days of the outbreak when tomatoes were the FDA's target, Mr. Beckman was in constant communication with the FDA. Except for one California tomato supplier, the outbreak preceded the California tomato harvest. Although the California supplier is not part of California Tomato Farmers, it readily provided data so that California as a state could be cleared of suspicion in the outbreak, Mr. Beckman said.
Food containers and packaging often have been thrown away before their function in traceback has been identified and determined. As a result, such code information "will have to be stored in a computer," Mr. Silbermann said. In foodservice, distributors will need to help with that data, he said.
