Tomato Safety Setting New Standards
Florida: it’s the country’s leader for tomato safety standard. Through the efforts of industry leaders, joined by elected officials, state agencies and the University of Florida’s Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences and Food Science and Human Nutrition department, the state recently enacted laws requiring tomatoes to be grown and handled according to a best-practices manual.
This compliance became mandatory July 1 of 2008; the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS) will conduct inspections to make sure the best practices are followed. The new laws will reduce the risk of Florida tomatoes being affected by pathogens such as Salmonella bacteria. They will also reassure consumers that Florida tomatoes are a safe product.
Although many growers had been voluntarily following similar practices for 10 years or more, the push for legislation began in 2004, after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition notified the state’s tomato growers, packers and shippers that they needed to do more on food safety.
Food-safety expert Keith Schneider, Associate Professor of Food Science and Human Nutrition, and Steve Sargent, a Professor of Horticultural Sciences, are presenting live workshops around the state, some of which are being videotaped and will soon be available online. Schneider is also developing a presentation to aid training at Extension offices.
Another initiative is promoting better food-safety standards for other Florida crops. Blueberries, melons and leafy greens are expected to get their own sets of mandatory best practices in 2009. IFAS experts are already working on training materials specific to those crops, a task made easier by their experience with tomatoes.
And IFAS is taking steps to enhance its overall food-safety program. Three new faculty members will soon come onboard, all of them appointed to both the Emerging Pathogens Institute and the College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.
There are also numerous IFAS projects focusing specifically on tomato safety. Researchers are developing better ways to eliminate surface pathogens on tomatoes, pinpoint locations of bacteria that are likely to grow in plants, and trace shipped tomatoes back to where they were grown.
- Original Story by Tom Nordlie
featured on the IFAS Impact Magazine
Vol. 24 No. 2 Fall 2008
