Hi I'm Chad Booth welcome to The County Seat.
Got a question for you. You go down to the
produce stand you peaches, lettuce and you
take it home what makes you think it's safe.
Well you are counting on the fact that there are
regulations to make sure that produce grower
got it to the field correctly. That's what our
show is about today food safety modernization
act. We are going to start by looking at the
history of food regulation to get our discussion
going.
Utahans, just like most Americans, love their
food. It's estimated that the average person
eats around 4 pounds of food in a day. And over
the course of the year the average American
eats almost a ton of food. Yes you heard that
right a ton.
On a daily basis we are consuming all kinds of
foods, from breads and meats, to fruits and
vegetables but how much thought do you put
into how safe that food is?
The honest answer for most of us would be
none. It's because we trust that food retailers
and restaurants are checking your food for
safety. It's all thanks to food safety laws that
have been in place for years at this point.
Food safety laws in the United States got their
start in 1906 after a novel published that year
inadvertently brought attention to food safety
and sanitization in the Chicago meat packing
industry. After reading the novel President
Theodore Roosevelt called on congress to pass
the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Federal
Meat Inspection Act, the first food safety laws
the nation had ever seen.
The two laws helped to address food safety by
regulating food additives for the first time and
were the first steps for truth in labeling. More
small acts would be created over the next few
decades to regulate food coloration additives,
chemical preservatives and food marketing and
in 1969 sanitization programs for shellfish and
milk were added.
The next big change in food safety wouldn't
happen for several decades.
"The good safety modernization act is the most
sweeping reform of our food safety regulations
in more than 70 years. It was signed into law
back in 2011."
What made this new law notable was the shift
from laws that were reactive to proactive.
Instead of waiting for things to happen the Food
and Drug Administration is now taking direct
action to made food consumption safer for
American's everywhere.
"The purpose or the reason for the food safety
modernization act was as a result of several
factors including globalization, more people
consuming produce than ever before and new
found science."
That new found safety won't be easy or cheap
to come by. In our panel discussion we'll discuss
how the latest steps in implementing the law
will affect both consumers and food producers
in Utah counties. For the County Seat I'm Malia
Stringham.
And that brings us to our conversation of the
day the food safety modernization act how is it
going to implement in Utah. We will pick that
conversation up with our panel of experts when
we come back on the County Seat.
Welcome back to The County Seat we are
talking today on food safety in Utah and we
have gone through some background on the
food safety modernization act and some of the
acts that have gotten us here and joining us for
our discussion about food safety Karen Allen
who is the food quality specialist with USU
extension we have Thane Tagge a veteran of
County Seat who is the chief farming officer of
Tagge's fruits LLC and David Basinger who is a
program manager for the Utah Dept. of Ag and
Food. Thank you all for joining us today. So we
have a law that was passed 5-6 years ago it's
been in the process of being implemented its
almost all the way through and now it's going to
start to take effect on modernization of food
and it broadly expands the obligations of food
inspections interactions between food makers
processors and consumers so I want to start by
talking about how these implementation
particularly in the areas of produce are
changing the game for inspectors. What kind of
obligations or what do you have to do now that
you did not have to do before?
Some background just on the law there are
seven separate parts that affect everything
from produce growing through manufacturing
transportation and warehousing in addition to
imports and we are seeing some compliance
states that have already started others that will
be coming through the next several years and
this is a huge law that is designed to make
recalls more effective have them occur more
quickly before an outbreak has a chance to
spread. But this does put an increased burden
on our inspectors those people that are working
for regulatory enforcement and the Utah Dept.
of Ag and food is going to be taking the lead for
that in the state of Utah especially for the
produce portion.
So let me ask what a compliance state is. Is
Utah a compliance state and Colorado is not or
does that mean something different?
So what it means is when the FDA passes a final
rule and says okay this regulation now has to be
met our producers our growers our importers
do not have to meet it on that day they may
have 1, 2, 3 or even more years depending on
the specific regulations to actually get to the
point where they are complying with that new
rule. So we will see different compliance dates
for different parts of FSMA and also within the
produce safety rule there will be different
compliance dates for example a date when
someone might have to make sure all these
workers are trained versus when they have to
start doing testing of the water that they use for
irrigation purposes.
So is this applied the same all the way across
the board? FSMA I like that acronym it passes
and then all of the sudden the neighborhood
garden around the corner now has to come into
compliance?
Not necessarily that depends on the size of the
grower very small farms that are doing under
25,000 dollars a year in total produce sales will
not have to comply the only thing they will have
to do is keep financial records just to document
that they are below that $25,000 a year
threshold. For farms that a little larger doing up
to 500,000 dollars a year they may still be
exempt from many parts of the rule they could
qualify for what the FDA has termed a qualified
exemption. And that depends on who they are
selling to how much they are selling in total
food not just produce but then for anyone who
is above that 500,000 a year threshold or who is
selling to large warehouses or grocery stores
they will have to comply with the full part of
that produce safety rule.
So everybody has seen the Tagge fruit stands
around nice handmade signs in that process are
you big enough that this is going to be a
compliance issue for a guy like you.
Yes we meet the above 500,000 dollar amount
so we are going to be subject to FSMA and we
knew that was coming down the road and we
have been preparing ourselves for it as we
know it going to be there and going to stick
around.
So are there a lot of things that now have to
come under compliance under inspection that
did not before?
So a lot of the larger growers like Thane have
already been participating in other programs
such as USDA gap or harmonized gap or global
gap and these are voluntary programs that
came about in the early 2000 around 2001 in an
effort for retail operations to make sure that
they were receiving good quality healthy
produce. Thane participates in that program
where he has been doing that it's very similar to
what this FSMA law is and so for someone like
Thane it's really not going to be a large
adjustment for him. For these growers that do
not participate in it it may be something that is
a real game changer for them.
I am thinking more in terms of what is going to
be required for you guys. From the inspection
side for from not necessarily for extension but
Ag and food you know the FDA who is going to
be or this sounds like there are going to have to
be a lot more boots on the ground then before,
right?
So luckily in the state of Utah we have gone
forward and we have decided as a state to
adopt this rule and therefore it will be our
inspectors from the Utah Dept. of Ag and Food
doing the actual inspections instead of FDA and
so that will require us to do more inspections
from our standpoint on these farmers.
am seeing right now?
Right now we do have a grant from the FDA to
actually go through and help with education of
the farmers and also conduct the inspections
right now. So what we are hoping to do is to
have money available and go through our
farmers and do these inspections and on farm
readiness reviews to get them ready and then
as time goes by there won't be nearly as much
for us to actually inspect once we go through
and do the initial inspection at each operation.
So do you feel that the farmers are basically
willing to be in this compliance?
Well how this works is this rule is to make
produce safer for people in the U.S. so not only
for the farmers here in the US have to abide by
this but also international farmers so Mexico
and India other places where we have to get
food also have to abide by these rules in order
to sell their produce in the states.
I have a question as you describe this to me it
just looks like a huge thing that you have to
inspect. Does it apply to the same thing if you
are growing sugar peas as to whether you are
growing alfalfa or growing something else are
all the foods under the same set of laws?
So this specific part of this produce safety rule
applies to produce. That does not cover
anything that would be considered animal feed
or alfalfa. It also does not cover grains and
wheat this applies to those commodities that
we think have typically as produce. Potatoes
corn berries fruits and other vegetables. Now
there are certain types of produce that are
exempted under this law by the FDA because
the FDA conducted an analysis the food
consumption patterns and anything that they
determined was rarely consumed raw by the
average consumer is exempt. So exempted
produce included things like potatoes sweet
corn and winter squash things where they
would normally be cooked before they are
consumed.
Okay that reigns it in just a little bit. We are
going to take a quick break here on The County
Seat when we come back we will pick up and
talk about the impact on farmers when we
come back on the new FSMA law.
Welcome back to The County Seat we are
talking about food safety here in Utah with
federal regulations we kind of covered the
regulatory side of it and but now we want to
turn our attention to what it means for guys
that grow produce. I guess Thane the first
question I would have is do you see this as
making a peck of peaches more expensive for
me next year than it was last year?
Let me tell you so we have been anticipating
this for quite a while kind of dragged our feet
but we knew we had to pull the trigger this last
year so 2 years ago we were doing some
planning and there are 2 groups of farmers a
group that started down south and now up
north about 16 of us and associated put
together a great program that reduced our
costs helped us design a program to get started
on this so we have to go through and access our
risks as part of the farm. Like we talked behind
the scenes here what are the issues involved
with my farm that would cause some problems.
We address all those and then we write
programs for them then we train our
employees. Everybody that works for us how to
handle the fruit how to keep an earring out of
fruit it goes all the way down to the delivery
trucks to getting it to market. Let me just tell
you it was a lot of work and stress. I know that
some of these farmers are not going to like this
because it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks.
But we did it and we had 2 internal audits had
to make some adjustments Dave was actually
one of my inspectors he came out and had to
make more adjustments things that we just did
not even know yet and we see their point and
we make those adjustments corrective actions
and we move on from there so this is not very
fun for us but I see the benefits in it and its
great. I feel like I am a better and safer farmer
and feel really good about what we are
delivering to the public and its good.
You are intimating that this is not just across the
board thing that it is almost farm specific.
I think so.
So what makes your peach orchard different
than the guy down the road by the dairy farm?
Exactly. I do not have a dairy farm next to me I
don't have water issues by me I am straight out
of Pine View. However I do have raccoons
getting into the corn. So I have to address that
how am I going to handle the raccoons. That
can cause problems.
Carefully they bite
All these different issues associated with what
we are doing and how we are approaching our
farming. Its great way to approach its smart
and I think it is valuable.
This is going to cost you isn't it?
Yes its money and time and stress and effort. I
have spent a lot of time and I mean a lot of time
doing this and implementing this I bought a new
pesticide storage shed to secure those
pesticides even better than I have in the past
and I am buying plastic bins for my corn now
instead of wood bins just to relieve an issue of
contamination with wood act. Getting into the
product there are all these different things
going to plastic then more other by products
that would hold contamination. All these things
we have address you are looking at more
money.
I am going to miss the wood bushel baskets at
the stand.
Hey wood is not good. Do you know it's better
to pick with clean hands no gloves as gloves can
get contaminated there are all these things that
we are learning and things we can control and
things that we cannot control with our pickers
etc. that we have had to address and take care
and Dave is an expert on this and he help me
realize some things we were doing wrong that
we needed to correct.
Was he a good student?
Yes he was very good.
Some of the people that you have to go in and
help get ready for this new process and
inspection do they resist.
I think they do at first until you explain to them
and show them it is a benefit to them. So by
them being able to produce produce that does
not have contamination is good business sense
for them.
If a contaminated produce goes out is the
farmer liable for the people that get sick?
We have seen cases in past for example the
cantaloupe outbreak from several years ago
where those farms were bankrupted because of
the lawsuits that were brought against them.
There is the possibility for there to be civil
penalties they can be held responsible for
medical bills in addition to the potential for
them to actually do prison time yes it is a huge
issue that farmers need take seriously.
Well we have covered the problem with
farmers we have covered the challenges to
regulators and now we are going to find out
what it means to customers and the consumers
when we get back here on The County Seat.
We will be right back.
Welcome back to The County Seat we have
been talking about the food safety act and what
it means for people here in Utah. We have
covered the regulatory and impact to the
farmer. Now what does it mean to you and I? I
will have to admit in full guilt there is a Tagge
fruit stand right near my house and it
convenient for me on my way to work to pop in
there and get stuff. That had nothing to do with
picking you to be on the show. What does this
mean to guy like me that buys from a stand or
from Ream's which is a local grower that has a
tendency to buy a lot of locally grown produce
and I shop for stuff. Am I in a much better
world than I was before?
That is the hope and point of this whole piece of
regulation is that we are providing safer food
and in the event that there is a problem that is
will be easier for us to recall that food so the
problem does not spread. As far as what you
would see walking into a grocery store there
will not be a whole lot of difference in what you
physically see displayed won't be labeling
changes so you will see things very similar as to
what they were before?
You actually bring up a good point. It sounds
like there are 2 components here one is making
food safer all the stuff that you went through to
be a better farmer but you are talking about
recalls. How do these regulations affect recalls?
So these regulations require that everyone keep
very careful and clear records showing where
ingredients or foods were purchased from how
they were used when they were used and what
result in products that went into transporters
have to keep those records show where they
picked food up where they delivered it so if
there is a recall the FDA should be able to go
back through that entire record keeping trail to
figure out where the problem started where
that food was distributed afterwards so that it
can be recalled very quickly and efficiently.
We talked about this liability thing if you have
some of your mango peach salsa that goes bad
the recall is going to cost you money do you
actually want it recalled?
Absolutely we don't want you to get sick. We
don't want you to get sick like she said these
farmers down in Colorado are out of business
and we want everything safe too. Our product
only gets sold in Utah we feel like we are safe.
Utah products in general there is not a lot of
processing when you start doing the processing
water and adding cleaning and that is when you
start getting into trouble and generally speaking
a lot of it is just picked from the tree right to the
consumer which is what you try to do to
eliminate problems and then we have our lot
numbers. Our lot numbers are the day we pick
so if we do have a problem we are going to shut
it down we don't want anybody to get sick.
Excellent. Thank you all this has been a very
good conversation unfortunately far too short.
Remember local government is where your life
happens the efforts of people like these folks
right here and obviously Thayne for his fruit is
what makes living in Utah such a good place
remember the county seat is inviting you to
watch us on social media and also get involved
in local government. See you next week on The
County Seat.
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