Sludge Watch ==> US Ecoli O157 outbreak last year - are changes adequate?

[Maureen Reilly]

US: Last fall's E. coli outbreak in fresh spinach spurs changes
21.sep.07
USA Today
Julie Schmit

http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/food/2007-09-20-spinach-side-changes_N.htm
TOUGHER GROWING STANDARDS
•A push from processors. More than 100 California processors signed on to a
Leafy Greens Handler Marketing Agreement, crafted by the industry and
implemented in the spring. Participants, accounting for virtually all of the
state's leafy greens, require growers to adhere to defined minimum safety
standards.
The agreement, for example, says leafy greens most often should not be 
raised
within 400 feet of a feed lot or 30 feet of a pasture. Both could contain 
feces
carrying E. coli that could spread. Where growers often set 50-foot buffer 
zones
in the past, 400-foot ones are now required, says Dole Fresh Vegetables
President Eric Schwartz.
Fresh Express requires an 800-foot buffer between fields of leafy greens and
pastures and one-mile buffers between leafy greens and feed lots. "The 
(leafy
greens) metrics could do better, but they certainly set a floor," says Jim 
Lugg,
food-safety chief for Fresh Express.
Natural Selection President Charles Sweat, whose company contracted with the
grower that most likely supplied the contaminated spinach, says Natural
Selection was already doing most of what the agreement requires last year.
•More-frequent water testing.
Pre-outbreak, many growers tested irrigation water once a year for bacteria,
Schwartz says. The agreement often requires monthly tests. Natural Selection
says it now requires monthly or weekly E. coli tests. Last year, it required
annual tests.
•Penalties for violators.
Companies that violate the agreement lose the right to tell wholesalers and
supermarkets that the produce was grown under the agreement. Eventually, a
leafy-greens marketing label will be on consumer packaging. Regulators could
also seek fines. Repeat and flagrant violations could cost a company its 
federal
government-issued license to process fresh or frozen vegetables.The 
companies
pay fees to fund audits by California inspectors.
•A federal role?
Some consumer advocates and lawmakers also say growers need federal 
government
regulation, not self-devised standards that critics say aren't strong 
enough.
UNSUITABLE FIELDS
Fresh Express and Dole — the two biggest processors of bagged salads — have
required growers to take about 10% of leafy-green acres out of production to 
add
buffer space between plants and areas at risk for E. coli, such as pastures 
or
wildlife habitat. Other processors have done the same. Most of the newly
buffered acres are in California, the companies say.
•Questions about Paicines.
Investigators who searched for the source of the contaminated spinach never
found the matching strain of E. coli on the implicated Paicines Ranch field. 
But
they did find it one mile away.
Otto Kramm, managing partner of Mission Organics, which farmed the field,
declined to be interviewed. But he told a local newspaper, The Salinas
Californian, in March that there was nothing about the field that would make 
it
more vulnerable to E. coli than other spinach fields in the region.
•Another company's view.
Several things would make it unacceptable to Fresh Express, says Lugg.
A pasture is directly across a small paved road from the field. Before last
year's outbreak, Fresh Express required far more space than that between 
leafy
greens and pastures. No cattle had been in the pasture since July 2006, when 
the
spinach was planted, investigators said.
Wild pigs — and nearby vineyards that attract pigs — would also be too 
risky,
Lugg says. "We just couldn't (grow) there."
Trevor Suslow, produce research specialist of the University of California,
Davis, says not all processors would agree. NewStar Fresh Foods also has a
leafy-greens grower that farms about a mile from the Mission Organics' field 
and
has added fencing since last fall.
"You wouldn't necessarily say this is a wholly inappropriate field," Suslow
says. "Clearly, cattle next to leafy greens is not optimal. But this 
wouldn't be
the only field where that occurred."
MORE PRODUCT TESTING
Companies test product for bacteria more often, including after it is washed 
in
the processing plant — a first for the bagged-salad industry.
•Changes at Natural Selection.
A year after its recall, Natural Selection leads the industry in testing, 
says
Michael Doyle, head of the Food Safety Center at the University of Georgia 
and a
consultant to the company.
Before last year's outbreak, the company didn't test leafy greens for 
pathogens
such as E. coli. Nor did other processors. Last fall, Natural Selection 
started
sample-testing unwashed product for E. coli and salmonella and dumps product
that tests positive. In the first 10 months, it threw away about 90,000 of 
122
million pounds of produce. In January, it started sample testing finished
product. No positives have been found.
•Others focus on field tests.
Dole, Taylor Farms, NewStar and Fresh Express have also increased product
testing. But their focus is on crops before harvest, so fresh product isn't 
held
up in the processing plant, and contamination doesn't spread inside a plant.
They also say finished-product testing may give processors and consumers a
false sense of security, because so little product is tested and 
contamination
can be missed.