Strawberry Growers Get Food Safety Kudos
April 1, 2010 Recognized for its outstanding achievements in food safety, the California Strawberry Commission (CSC) announced Thursday that it has received the 2010 NSF Food Safety Leadership Award for Training that recognizes leaders in foodservice who are making a real and lasting impact on the foodservice industry.
“We would like to extend our congratulations to the California Strawberry Commission for receiving this prestigious award, and we encourage them to keep up their exceptional food safety training initiatives,” said Kevan P. Lawlor, the president and CEO of NSF International said in a press release. “The commission was selected by an expert panel of judges who reviewed many highly-qualified candidates.”
“It is an honor to be recognized by the industry with this esteemed award for our efforts in food safety training,” said the commission’s president, Mark Murai. “The commission, with its dedicated team of food safety experts, is committed to global leadership in food safety and the continued development of innovative programs and initiatives to help farmers produce strawberries in a safe, responsible manner and provide consumers with the highest level of confidence that the strawberries they purchase are safe to eat.”
The CSC established itself as a recognized leader in food safety after developing one of the first commodity-specific food safety guidelines in 1998. That leadership continues as the CSC evolves the Food Safety Program using best practices from the produce industry and provides effective, innovative and world-class food safety training programs and instructional materials.
The Food Safety Practices for Strawberry Harvest Workers – and the accompanying training programs – were developed to address the specific needs of strawberry growers around training harvest workers on food safety best practices. Below are the key components of the program:
• Flipchart or Rotafolio – A series of illustrations with narrative in both English and Spanish that convey key concepts to prevent fruit contamination specific to the strawberry harvest. The illustrations are presented in a stand-up, three-ring easel binder, with associated text available for each page. The illustrations and text in the flipchart have also been converted to pocket versions of each chapter and to PowerPoint presentation format.
• “Introduction to Food Safety for Field Supervisors” Workshop: This workshop introduces supervisors to specific food safety practices and the importance of these practices on the ranch. Participants practice giving employee feedback about observed food safety behavior.
• “Teaching Food Safety” Workshop: This workshop reviews harvest worker responsibilities and introduces effective teaching techniques for use with adult learners. Participants practice using the flip chart, and leave the class equipped with the information and skills to train harvest workers.
• A third workshop in development focuses on food safety practices during harvest for the processor market. This workshop will reinforce safe practices, including hand hygiene, glove use, injury and illness prevention, harvest tool and container cleaning, and sanitization, and inspection and transportation to the processor.
Enrollment is limited for all the workshops to provide adequate opportunities for interaction and practice. Since the program’s inception in 2009 nearly 1,400 flipcharts were distributed and 1,800 people attended 28 food safety workshops, representing a majority of industry acreage. Efforts continue for 2010 with the goal of reaching every California strawberry farm with food safety tools and training.
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