United Fresh to produce white paper on listeria

United Fresh Produce Association’s senior vice president of food safety and technology Dave Gombas has been charged with writing a white paper on listeria – and soon, he said.

United Fresh’s Food Safety Technology Council long ago came to the conclusion that listeria was not a fresh produce pathogen because it hadn’t been linked to illnesses or outbreaks in fresh produce.

No more.

“When the listeriosis outbreak linked to fresh-cut celery (occurred) in 2010, we thought about it then and decided it was due to contamination in the processing,” Gombas said.

Then came last fall’s listeria outbreak in whole cantaloupes grown by Jensen Farms in Holly, Colo.  – the first documented listeriosis outbreak associated with fresh, whole cantaloupe in the U.S. An FDA investigation attributed the outbreak to several factors including pooled water and sanitation issues in the packing house.

“That was the first time anyone had considered packing houses as being vulnerable to listeria harborage,” Gombas said. “When that occurred, a number of produce-buying organizations began to require their suppliers to do product testing for listeria.

“That’s an added cost, it’s going to have consequences to shelf life and we don’t believe that it’s really of value to improving food safety. Again, the FDA concluded the contamination occurred in the packing house, not in the fields, so finding listeria on the outside rind of a cantaloupe should not be a reason for immediate action.

“Rather than continue to leave this issue to the speculation of customers or anyone else, the group decided to put together this white paper talking about listeria controls.”

In the paper, Gombas will be taking a look at the types of facilities that are vulnerable. And of those that are, he said, the paper will explore what can be done about it.

An operation that doesn’t use water is not vulnerable, he explained. Conversely, those that do – think fresh-cut – could be, he said, adding that  “water with antimicrobial in it is not going to be as vulnerable … as opposed to watering it down with a hose.”

Ideally, the paper will be used to educate both packers as well as buyers.

“It’s nothing we have to reinvent,” Gombas said. “There’s been a lot of good work done over the last 20 years by a number of good microbiologists.

“I would not anticipate it being a thorough guidance document – that would just take far too much. But it would lead folks to other resources they could use.”

Gombas said he hopes to have a draft in time for United Fresh’s Washington Public Policy Conference this October. The final paper will be included in the council’s book of fresh-cut food safety guidelines, currently being updated.

“This would be one chapter in that book,” he said, noting that the council hopes to have a draft copy of the final book ready for public viewing by next May’s United Fresh conference in San Diego.

                                                                                                     –Kathy Gibbons, editorial director