Educational Sessions, Day 2

April 21, 2010

The educational sessions have wrapped up for the day at United Fresh 2010. This year, there were four educational session areas on the trade show floor – fresh-cut processor, wholesale distributor, grower/shipper and foodservice/retail – plus a traceability demonstration center and a food safety demonstration center.

At the first session at the fresh-cut processor track, Drew McDonald from Taylor Farms and Trevor Suslow from the University of California-Davis, discussed new rapid testing techniques and how having a plan that incorporates the right test method will help when a presumptive positive occurs.

“People tend to trust the negatives and question the positives, and that”s what we don”t want to do,” McDonald said.

At the retail/foodservice learning area, Kim Eifler, director of purchasing for Darden, discussed the regulatory pressures on the foodservice industry. Her advice for the industry was to offer all the information on what”s in a restaurant”s food, for example, through a website. Restaurants also cold offer alternative fresh options, practice portion size control, offer nutritionally balanced dishes that are flavor driven, focus development on health, be food allergy conscious and become involved in school nutrition and education.

Jim Gorny, senior advisor for produce food safety for FDA, spoke at the food safety demonstration center about FDA”s reportable food registry, which went online in September. From Sept. 8-Jan. 10, there were 651 actual reportable events through the portal, with the No. 1 cause being undeclared allergies. Only 7 percent of the reports were for produce items in the very limited sample, Gorny said.

Finally, in the traceability demonstration center, a large gathering of attendees heard from suppliers and buyers about GS1 traceability implementation. The deadline for turning G10 numbers over to buyers has passed, but retailers are finding suppliers aren”t ready, and some suppliers have found their retail partners aren”t ready. The industry needs to work together to implement the Produce Traceability Initiative, because if businesses don”t move on to the next milestone, there”s the chance that traceability will become a federally mandated issue, instead of a voluntary, industry-led program.

The final hours of the trade show today feature beer and wine on the show floor for a networking happy hour. Stop by the Fresh Cut booth to meet managing editor Scott Christie, advertising manager Marnie Draper or publisher Matt McCallum.






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