News You Missed This Week
Leafy greens news was prevalent on the Web this week.
At the end of last week, Ippolito International of Salinas, Calif., recalled more than 1,700 cases of bunched spinach after a random sample detected salmonella. See Ippolito’s press release here.
The leafy green recall came just before USDA started hearings in Monterey, Calif., on expanding the California Leafy Green Marketing Agreement to a nationwide metrics program. The hearings, with testimony from processors and other groups, found some in favor of a federal program – including Ocean Mist Farms’ Joe Pezzini in this story– and others who said the program would hurt small-scale organic farmers, including the National Organic Coalition in this story.
A national leafy greens program would likely increase food safety costs for growers, and the Food Poison Journal posted a good summary of a University of California, Davis, study that found California grower food safety costs doubled after the metrics were implemented.
In recall news, The Food Marketing Institute and GS1 US introduced Rapid Recall Exchange , a system that updates the Product Recall Portal. The new system is FDA Reportable Food Registry-compliant and will improve communication among supermarkets and their suppliers in the event of a recall or product withdrawal.
California’s agricultural contributions are vital for feeding the United States and its export partners, but a King County newspaper, The Hanford Sentinel, had a story that said 100,000 acres went unplanted due to water-use restrictions, which resulted in the loss of 2,000 jobs.
Finally, in business news, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran a story on Monsanto’s seed business. The company is spending $75 million in California developing healthier and better-tasting fruit and vegetable varieties. And a meeting of vending machine operators in Chicago has generated a new market for Del Monte fresh-cuts, the company said in a release . Del Monte Fresh Produce will be selling 4-6 ounce fresh-cut fruit and vegetable items in vending machines beginning in 2010.
