Article 37 - Taylor Farms' Drew McDonald shares the importance of testing, learning

Article 37 - Taylor Farms' Drew McDonald shares the importance of testing, learning

This article originally appeared in Produce Processing, and is reprinted here with permission. © 2023 Produce Processing www.produceprocessing.net

by Drew McDonald, Taylor Farms for Center for Produce Safety

Drew McDonald is Taylor Farm’s senior vice president of food safety and quality. He is also on the  board of Center for Produce Safety and chairs the technical committee directing CPS’ produce-centric food safety research.

CPS recently called for new research proposals, so we talked to McDonald to get an update.

First off, how did you get into produce safety?
Drew McDonald (DM): It fell into my lap. My undergraduate advisor suggested I work in industry before graduate school. An internship opportunity came up at Dole Fresh Vegetables, in quality assurance. That turned into a job offer, and the start of my career. Back then food safety wasn’t necessarily a topic; Dole was focused on it based on their food operations, so I had an early introduction.

What continues to attract me to produce safety is, what wonderful foods we supply to American consumers. And we need to take care of our farmers, wonderful people with a true calling. Plus there’s still a lot of work to do. 

What does produce safety look like at Taylor Farms?
DM: We see produce safety as two worlds: compliance, and test and learn. Compliance confirms we are doing everything we say we’re doing – to meet regulatory requirements, customer requirements, audit requirements, etc.  We need that, but we can always do more.

So what does doing everything we can look like? It means we are always learning from our findings.

We’re always looking, measuring, changing, evolving.

Taylor Farms helped found CPS, and is one of its top contributors. You are a long-time volunteer leader. Why?  
DM: We can effect a lot of change on our own, but we can’t do it all. We look to CPS to go broader than we can, and to bring in academia; industry also has a lot to bring to academia.

CPS is unique in the interface industry has into designing and facilitating research.

What CPS research projects are you watching?
DM: We are at the mercy of the raw material we bring into our processing facilities. So I look at CPS projects for how can I use this, even if it’s not directly related to our business model.

Purdue University’s Mohit Verma, Ph.D., is working to develop a low-cost, easy way to monitor fecal contamination in the field. Perhaps we can use this to quantify risk for product we’re bringing in.

University of Georgia’s Jinru Chen, Ph.D., recently studied blueberry harvest-sanitation practices. Some factors she identified apply universally across fresh produce.

University of California, Davis’ Nitin Nitin, Ph.D.’s work on rechargeable, bio-based antimicrobial coatings for harvest containers is a potential mitigation we can incorporate into our processing.

Spain’s Ana Allende, Ph.D., is studying Listeria monocytogenes prevalence and interventions in processing facilities outside North America. Those findings will likely apply to all produce facility environmental monitoring and sanitation programs.

What’s key in CPS’s new research RFP?
DM: One of the priority focus areas of this year’s RFP is agricultural water. These projects could provide validated backup for what we will have to do to comply with FDA’s forthcoming produce ag water rule – and have an impact on food safety.

And we want to look at more integrated, multiple, co-dependent produce safety interactions. We know there are more dynamic interfaces going on than one-to-one food safety causations. I know that a herd of cattle five feet from a field is a risk; I want to know about risk when cattle are far away, or how that risk changes with weather or soil conditions.

CPS also continues to look at ways to communicate our research. How do we get all of industry to incorporate CPS findings into their best practices? Until that happens, CPS has work to do – and outbreaks may continue.

Our vision is when an industry member is asked why they are doing what they are doing, they answer, “Because we have science-backed, published CPS research.”  

*To learn more about these and other CPS research projects, visit www.centerforproducesafety.org/funded-research-projects.php.