The sixth annual Center for Produce Safety (CPS) Research Symposium was held in Atlanta, GA in June 2015. The symposium featured food safety research programs funded by CPS over the last few years, along with discussions by industry, academic and regulatory experts regarding the implications of the research for everyday produce growing, packing and processing operations and how that research might be used to improve company food safety programs. This summary is designed to capture “key learnings” from the 2015 CPS Symposium and offer our thoughts on why these results should matter as you examine your own food safety programs; especially in light of new FSMA regulations and our industry's ongoing efforts to improve food safety performance.
Key Learnings Executive Summary
- Human pathogens can persist in fruit and vegetable productionenvironments for extended periods of time. There are multiple variables that impact human pathogen survival in our production environments and these need to be considered when developing food safety plans.
- Mobile apps are currently in development to assist growers in making food safety-related decisions.
- Understanding of transference of human pathogens from various types of animals to crops has advanced significantly over the last several years. There really are no “risky” animals, just environments that bring animals into contact with human pathogens that might then be transferred to fruits or vegetables in specific instances.
- Our understanding of the organization and expression of human pathogen genomes is rapidly advancing the development of detection tools, revolutionizing public health investigations and shedding light on new strategies for future human pathogen control.
- Hazard analysis is still the most important tool in supply chain food safety program development.
- Validation of preventive controls and verification of practices is critical.
- Research is providing a better understanding of how sanitizers work biologically to next generation disinfectants for use in produce production.
This is the Key Learnings Executive Summary only. See the PDF link for more extensive information.