Dive Brief:
- Government and industry food safety experts agree that more needs to be done to determine how listeria is getting on ready-to-eat produce before it arrives at packing houses or contaminating the produce after it's there, according to The Packer.
- More data regarding listeria incidences on produce coming in from the field — plus some practical methods of controlling the pathogen inside packing houses — would be helpful because fresh produce is typically eaten raw so there's no kill step to reduce or eliminate the potential for contamination.
- Scientists and food safety experts from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, United Fresh Produce Association, Church Brothers Farms and True Leaf Farms explored these issues during a panel discussion last month at United Fresh Produce's Washington conference.
Dive Insight:
FDA has a zero-tolerance policy for listeria on produce, so any growing or packing facility where it is found is at risk. Since 2011, there have been 13 multistate foodborne illness outbreaks linked to listeria, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Four were eventually traced to fresh produce.
One was a 2016 outbreak that sickened 19 people from nine states with one death and was linked to Dole packaged salads packed at a plant in Springfield, Ohio. Dole settled two civil lawsuits earlier this year in connection with the outbreak.
The other three listeria outbreaks were linked to an apple-packing facility operated by Bidart Bros. of Bakersfield, California, in 2014-2015; mung bean sprouts produced by Wholesome Soy Products of Chicago in 2014; and cantaloupe from Jensen Farms of Holly, Colorado, in 2011.
Compared to other pathogens, listeria is relatively hardy and can survive in cold temperatures. Once it gains a foothold in a food processing facility, it may persist in floor drains and on equipment and food contact surfaces for years and remain difficult to eradicate despite regular cleaning.
FDA is looking to the Food Safety Modernization Act's produce safety rule, preventive controls rule and foreign supplier verification program to help mitigate the listeria problem. FDA issued a draft guidance document in January for produce firms that will be regulated under the preventive controls rule and is now reviewing comments. Among other issues, that document recommends steps to control listeria in regulated facilities.
The new federal food safety regulations should help inform produce growers and packers about how to better limit or eradiate listeria, but having hard data about the level of contamination on field produce and in packing houses would help environmental scientists and others fill out the larger picture. It might also help to reassure consumers concerned about foodborne illness outbreaks that the fresh produce they buy is safe to eat.