1-in-3 Agree This Grocery Store Has The Worst Quality Produce

By Ralph Schwartz

July 26, 2021

Some people prefer to grow their own garden or pick up their produce at the farmers market, straight from the person who grew it. On the other hand, a lot of us like to get our apples and lettuce at the same store where we buy our toilet paper and home furnishings. Mashed had these big-box shoppers in mind when we conducted a recent survey of 593 U.S. residents. We asked, "Which grocery store has the worst-quality produce?" We gave our survey participants eight options: Aldi, Costco, H.E.B., Kroger, Meijer, Publix, Target, and Walmart.

Before we reveal which of these retail chains our respondents considered the worst, let's take a look at who didn't get a lot of votes. Like golf, low scores are good in this survey, and three grocers each got less than 7% of the total vote. Faring best was Publix, with 6.41% of the votes. Publix might have been off the radar for most respondents, as the chain only has locations in seven Southeast states, according to the Publix website. Publix doesn't necessarily have a sterling reputation for produce. If it's known for anything, it's the fried chicken and sub sandwiches, per The Kitchn.

Costco and Kroger tied for second-lowest vote total, at 6.91%. This is more impressive, as both are truly national chains. The only real knock on Costco's produce is that a lot of it is sold in bulk, and normal-sized families might not use it all before it spoils, per CNBC.

Our survey says Walmart has the worst produce, despite a recent upgrade.

Now for the bad news in the Mashed survey that asked people which grocery store has the worst produce. The runner-up for worst produce was Target, which drew 16.53% of the vote. But Target was no competition for Walmart in the produce-quality race to the bottom. Walmart was our clear, er ... winner, with 33.39% of the total vote. Our survey respondents seem to know low-quality produce when they see it. Their answers matched a 2019 survey by Consumer Reports, which also ranked Target and Walmart's produce among the worst.

Target had planned to install vertical farms inside its stores beginning in 2017 (via Business Insider), but it's not clear whether this plan for getting the freshest possible produce in their stores ever got off the ground. Whatever the case, it has done little to improve Target's poor reputation for produce.

Meanwhile, Walmart made major improvements to its produce departments in 2020, according to Supermarket News. But the changes were more about the department's layout than the quality of the food. Wider aisles and lower displays were intended to reduce crowding and make it easier for shoppers to see the produce. But if you don't like what you see, then a redesign may not be much of a game-changer. Walmart may need to do more to lose its image as the worst grocery store for produce.

CEA Food Safety Coalition Launches First-Ever Food Safety Standard For Indoor-Grown Produce

The Coalition, founded by industry leaders in greenhouse and indoor farming, developed the food safety addendum to address the unique attributes of CEA-grown leafy greens

WASHINGTON, DC, April 28, 2021 -- The CEA Food Safety Coalition, comprised of leaders in the controlled environment agriculture industry, today announced the first-ever food safety certification program specifically for CEA-grown leafy greens. Effective immediately, members of the Coalition can choose to be assessed for the CEA Leafy Greens Module, and upon successful completion will be allowed to use the CEA food-safe seal on certified product packaging. The Leafy Greens Module is measured against science-based criteria and is an add-on to existing compliance with an underlying Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) recognized food safety standard. To learn more about the certification and auditing process, click here.

Traditional food safety risk profiles include examining the physical hazards and microbial hazards from water use, herbicide, and pesticide use, and impact from animals and animal byproducts, many elements that do not impact CEA growers in the same way, if at all. The CEA Leafy Greens Module enables CEA growers to distinguish produce grown indoors while ensuring the highest standard of quality and compliance is achieved.

“Current food safety standards were written for the field, and many do not address the unique attributes of controlled, indoor environments,” said Marni Karlin, executive director of the Coalition. “This new certification process and the accompanying on-pack seal helps to unify CEA growers while also differentiating them from traditional field agriculture. It also better informs consumers and provides a quick-glance image to know when produce has been grown safely indoors, with a high standard of quality and without some of the hazards of the field, such as potential contamination from animal byproducts.”

Controlled environment agriculture takes a technology-based approach to produce optimal growing conditions inside controlled environments such as greenhouses and indoor vertical farms. Plants are typically grown year-round using hydroponic, aeroponic or aquaponic methods, without the need for pesticides and unaffected by climate or weather. 

The certification program is available to all CEA FSC members for a nominal cost and must be completed on an annual basis. CEA growers can be assessed for multiple sites across four key areas:

• Hazard analysis: use of water, nutrients, growing media, seeds, inputs, site control and other relevant factors

• Water: all contact with the plant and with food contact surfaces. The use of recirculating water will require a continuing hazard analysis. Will also require zone-based environmental monitoring based on company-specific risk assessment.

• Site control / Infrastructure / System Design: all food contact surfaces and adjacent food contact surfaces, including plant containers. Will also assess associated farm physical hazards, including lighting, robotics, sensors, equipment and utensils, etc.

• Pesticide Use / Testing: the use of pesticides or herbicides during the plant life cycle.

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“The CEA industry is rapidly expanding and predicted to support more than 10% of US vegetable and herb production by 2025,” said Rebecca Anderson, technical key account manager for GLOBALG.A.P. North America. “The CEA FSC Leafy Green Module will set a new industry standard for CEA-grown produce while driving consumer awareness of the innovations happening in indoor agriculture today.”

First conceived in 2019 to distinguish CEA-produced greens from field-grown greens that have been at the epicenter of many industry-crippling recalls, the Coalition successfully worked to educate the CDC and FDA about the limited risk of contamination for indoor produced leafy greens, ensuring CEA-produced leafy greens remained on store shelves during later lettuce recalls.

In addition to overseeing development and revisions to the CEA Leafy Greens Module and seal, the Coalition’s mission includes spearheading research development that supports the industry and championing CEA-grown produce as a critical component of safe and secure domestic food supply. Founding members include AeroFarms, Bowery Farming, BrightFarms, Little Leaf Farms, Plenty, Revol Greens, Superior Fresh, and Vertical Field.

About the CEA Food Safety Coalition

The CEA Food Safety Coalition was founded in 2019 to represent the interests of CEA leafy greens growers in developing credible and appropriate food safety standards while educating consumers and regulators alike on the value of controlled environment agriculture. The CEA Food Safety Coalition is headquartered in Washington, DC, and represents companies with facilities and distribution in over 21 states.

Find more information at http://ceafoodsafety.org/. 

Press contact information

Lizi Sprague
ceafoodsafety@songuepr.com

New Restrictions On Lettuce

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Marc Fawcett-Atkinson, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

October 22, 2020

Unprecedented federal import restrictions on romaine lettuce and salad mixes from California’s Salinas Valley point to problems in the U.S. agricultural system that supplies British Columbians with more than half their fresh vegetables, Canadian food safety researchers say.

Companies that import lettuce must now prove each shipment has been tested for E. coli, or was grown outside of California's Santa Clara, Santa Cruz, San Benito and Monterey counties. The directive will remain in force until Dec. 31, to cover the harvest season for California lettuce producers.

Lawrence Goodridge, director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety at the University of Guelph, says repeated outbreaks of E. coli contamination from American farms precipitated the move.  There have been at least four outbreaks associated with romaine lettuce alone since 2016, Goodridge said. Investigations by American and Canadian authorities have also pinpointed the region as the source of several past E. coli outbreaks.

“The problem is nobody quite knows how the lettuce is becoming contaminated,” said Goodridge. “It could be the irrigation water, wild animals could run through the field and defecate. It’s hard to trace.”

Canada imported 183,300 tonnes of lettuce from the United States last year, and 64 per cent of that was from California. The remainder came from Arizona, Ohio and Florida. Between June 2019 and July 2020, more than 50,000 shipments of the vegetable crossed the border.

Lettuce is not the only vegetable that’s mostly imported to Canada outside the summer months. In 2018, about $2 million worth of vegetables flowed north, everything from kohlrabi to kale. Like lettuce, the majority was grown in California or other southwestern states.

Cattle are pastured on the hillsides surrounding the Salinas valley. That means manure can be washed downhill, gather in the bottom of the valley and possibly contaminate surface water and groundwater. This water is used to irrigate the hectares of lettuce and other vegetables growing in the valley bottom.

“The current temporary import requirements, implemented on Oct. 7, (are) a preventative measure due to the repetitive outbreaks linked to California romaine lettuce over the past four years,” the Canadian Food Inspection Agency said in an emailed statement.

The decision has received a tepid reception from American lettuce producers.

“Our producers will do their best to comply (with the new testing requirement) in an effort to continue shipping romaine lettuce to our valued trade partners in Canada,” the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA), an association of shippers and handlers who adhere to shared food safety measures and are responsible for about 90 per cent of the leafy greens grown in the U.S., said in a written statement.

“However, this may not be feasible due to limited laboratory capacity. More importantly, product testing has not proven to be a reliable indicator of product safety.”

The organization is advocating for in-field testing instead of the post-harvest tests the Canadian government requires. It also said that recently implemented measures are sufficient to protect consumers.

The changes implemented by the LGMA classify irrigation water into categories depending on where it comes from, and how it will be used. Water used for overhead irrigation exceeds the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “recreational standard” - clean enough for swimming. Water used for ground level or buried irrigation systems can fall below that standard. 

However, that’s not enough, said Keith Warriner, a food security professor at the University of Guelph. He would like to see the water tested more frequently, similar to the weekly or daily water testing requirements many states require for water to meet their recreational standard - an unfair comparison said the LGMA. 

“Comparing recreational water use and irrigation water use is questionable because swimmers taking a drink of the water they are swimming in is a very different risk profile than irrigating a crop that will then be exposed to the environment...before a consumer eats that product,” the organization said in an emailed statement. 

Nor does post-harvest cleaning do much, Goodridge and Warriner agreed.

“We know that washing actually spreads bacteria,” Goodridge said. “You’ve got to think that these are big processing operations (that) could be receiving lettuce from many different fields all over the place. If you have one batch that’s contaminated, but you’re running other batches through (the same cleaning line) at the same time, they can all get contaminated.”

Tracing a leaf of contaminated lettuce from a Canadian consumer’s plate back to individual farms is impossible, he said, especially since it could be more than two weeks before someone gets sick from the lettuce.

Nor is the federal government’s approach perfect.

Lettuce from other parts of the U.S. could also be contaminated, especially if water standards for processing and irrigation aren’t any higher.

And testing isn't very accurate because it only captures a minute snapshot of the total lettuce shipment, Goodridge said. A better approach would be to push the industry to implement system-wide changes that would address the problems at their source, such as treating all irrigation water with chlorine, to help deal with the issue.

These are largely regulatory matters Canada can’t control, since water and growing standards fall under U.S. jurisdiction. Still, the economic pressure exerted by an import ban could help push the industry to implement changes of its own volition.

“You have to have regulation,” said Goodridge. “But, ultimately, it’s when the industry takes food safety seriously, as opposed to seeing it as a necessary evil, (that) we will really begin to address these ongoing outbreaks.”

How Hydroponics & Vertical Farming Can Improve Food Safety

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Our greenhouse team member utilizing food safety best practices at our R&D facility.

The United States Department of Agriculture sometimes refers to vertical farming as “controlled-environment agriculture” and there’s a good reason for this moniker. 

Viraj Puri, co-founder, and CEO of a hydroponic vertical farm told Food Safety News that the hydroponic vegetable industry has a built-in food safety advantage over open-field farming. He believes that this advantage comes from its “physical infrastructure and higher levels of environmental controls.”

In recent years, the safety of our food supply has been called into question. Numerous food recalls are a regular part of news broadcasts across the country. Recently, it was found that fruit and vegetables failed import safety checks at a rate of 12.5%. At the same time, other categories such as meat, fish, and eggs, achieved compliance rates over 95%.

National producers of fruit and vegetables have also had problems. The recent outbreak related to contaminated romaine lettuce originated in California. This year’s recalls of onions and peaches also originated domestically. 

Vertical farms using hydroponic technologies could usher in a revolution in food safety. Hydroponic growing has a plethora of food safety benefits. Year after year, pathogens are found in traditionally-grown (or soil-grown) crops. This is because the soil itself contains naturally-occurring pathogens, and traditional farms are open to contamination from outside sources such as animal droppings and tainted run-off. Hydroponic farming has the potential to drastically reduce the number of people who get sick via foodborne illness every year by eliminating these pathogens from the growing process. 

Foodborne illnesses have originated from traditionally grown crops over and over, and the problem is growing. It’s important to understand the dangers of these foodborne illnesses, as well as what “food safety” is and how every individual along the food supply chain has a role to play. Fortunately, recent food safety news gives us hope that hydroponics can improve food safety. 

Why We Need A Culture of Food Safety: The Dangers of Foodborne Illnesses               

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 48 million people get sick (1 in 6), 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die from foodborne illnesses each year in the U.S. Food can be contaminated by many different disease-causing germs. There are many different types of foodborne illnesses (sometimes described as food poisoning or foodborne disease). Over 250 types of foodborne illnesses have so far been identified. The majority are infections caused by bacteria, parasites, and viruses. Food can also be contaminated with harmful toxins and chemicals. 

Food may become contaminated during any stage of the food supply chain; from production, distribution, processing, preparation, to storage. Germs can spread to food from unclean utensils, surfaces, or equipment. And it’s not uncommon for these contaminated foods to make it to market and into kitchens and restaurants before anyone knows there is a problem.

What is Food Safety? 

“Food safety” describes all operations and practices that are utilized to keep food safe. Keeping food safe is a joint effort involving everyone in the food supply chain. All along the food supply chain—from producers and farmers to wholesalers and retailers— there are standardized regulations and controls in place to reduce the risk of food contamination. 

Part of food safety practices involves growing, handling, preparing, packaging, and storing food in a way that best reduces the risk of people getting ill from foodborne diseases. Food safety is a concern all over the world and one that we should take great care to address.

The fundamental principles of food safety focus on preventing food from becoming contaminated and causing food poisoning. This is achieved through several different methods, some of which include:

• Understanding food allergies, food intolerance, and food poisoning

• Keeping up high standards of personal hygiene (i.e hand-washing) when handling food at any step in the food supply chain

• Storing, heating, and cooling food properly with regard to temperature, environment, and equipment

• Using effective and adequate pest control measures

• Cleaning and sanitizing all surfaces, utensils, and equipment

How Hydroponics Can Improve Food Safety

Unlike in traditional farming, wildlife and livestock can’t contaminate produce grown in a vertical farm’s greenhouses. It’s almost impossible to prevent such contamination in traditional agriculture where wide open fields are susceptible to bird droppings and animal encroachment. 

Although there aren’t industry-wide food safety standards for hydroponic growers, the vast majority of companies have rigorous processes in place. Joel Cuello, Vice-Chair at the Association for Vertical Farming, said “vertical farms are, in fact, generally and significantly safer than conventional agriculture”. He believes that the reason many vertical farms don’t have internationally recognized food safety certifications is because their stellar food safety reputation is proof enough.

Since vertical farms use a hydroponic system for watering, there’s very little chance that contamination from water will infect the produce. Hydroponic systems add nutrients to tested or purified water and then apply that water directly to the plants’ roots. The system completely bypasses the use of soil, which is a possible contaminant with a lengthy history of getting people very sick. Hydroponic technology also avoids the problem of runoff from nearby sources of toxic chemicals or biological waste.

Food Safety News: Soil and E. coli  

In recent food safety news, the major E. coli outbreak that started in September of 2019 and related to romaine lettuce seems to be over. Epidemiologic, laboratory, and traceback evidence conclusively showed where the contaminated romaine lettuce came from. The produce that made people sick in September of last year is no longer available for sale. However, it was grown in soil and harvested in the Salinas Valley growing region. 

A total of 167 individuals from across 27 states were infected with the outbreak strain of E. coli O157:H7. Eighty-five people were hospitalized due to this outbreak, including 15 who developed hemolytic uremic syndrome—a kind of kidney failure. Luckily, no deaths were reported.

Some think E. coli results in little more than an upset stomach, but outbreaks can be very serious affairs and in some cases have caused death. At best, it causes vomiting, diarrhea, and stomach cramps; let alone an long-term aversion to lettuce after getting sick. 

Hydroponic Greenhouses Are Safer Than Soil-Based Farming 

The Centers for Disease Control, the Food and Drug Administration, and public health officials investigated the most recent E. coli outbreak in the United States. Their recommendation said that hydroponic-grown lettuce was not related to the current outbreak. In their words, “there is no recommendation for consumers to avoid using romaine harvested from these other sources.”

Hydroponic Growing Offers Many Food Safety Benefits 

• Hydroponic growing does not require high levels of pesticides and uses less water, land, and fertilizers than conventional farming.

• Vertical farms also use a soilless medium for growing their plants. This means that food products are not infected by pathogens that can sometimes contaminate soil and be passed to traditionally grown crops.

• Greenhouse vertical farms are highly controlled environments in which the light intensity, temperature, and humidity are closely monitored and controlled and the growing solution is strictly regulated. With so many levels of checks and controls, it is far less likely that pathogens and toxins could be introduced into these closed environments.

• 
  Eden Green Technology offers hydroponic systems that can help create a healthier food supply. Learn more about how to safely grow delicious produce here.

Reminder RSVP - Indoor Ag Science Cafe October 20th 11 AM Eastern Time

October Indoor Science Cafe

October 20th Tuesday 11 AM Eastern Time

If you already signed up, thank you! 

Learning critical control point

for hydroponic food safety

"Hydroponic Crops

How can you produce safe vegetables?"

by

Dr. Sanja Ilic (The Ohio State University)
 

• Please sign up so that you will receive Zoom link info.

• Indoor Ag Science Cafe is an open discussion forum, organized by Chieri Kubota (OSU), Erik Runkle (MSU), and Cary Mitchell (Purdue U.) supported by USDA SCRI grants.

Sign Up Here

RSVP - Indoor Ag Science Cafe October 20th 11 AM Eastern Time

October Indoor Science Cafe

October 20th Tuesday 11 AM Eastern

Please Sign Up!

Learning critical control point

for hydroponic food safety

"Hydroponic Crops --

How can you produce safe vegetables?"

By
Dr. Sanja Ilic (The Ohio State University)
 

• Please sign up so that you will receive Zoom link info.

• Indoor Ag Science Cafe is an open discussion forum, organized by Chieri Kubota (OSU), Erik Runkle (MSU), and Cary Mitchell (Purdue U.) supported by USDA SCRI grants.

Sign up here

WEBINAR - Food Safety in CEA Systems - September 24, 2020 - 2:00 PM EDT

Date: September 24, 2020
Time: 2 p.m. - 3 p.m. EDT
Presented by: Gioia Massa (NASA) and Marni Karlin (CEA Food Safety Coalition)

Click here to register

Dr. Gioia Massa, plant scientist at NASA will highlight some of the unique aspects of space crop production and the microbial food safety considerations of space-grown produce.  Data will be presented on space-grown leafy green vegetables, as well as from a study with market produce and ground-grown produce to compare. NASA's preliminary Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) Plan will be highlighted and future goals will be discussed. 

Dr. Marni Karlin, executive director of the CEA Food Safety Coalition will provide a brief introduction to the unique opportunities and challenges for CEA leafy greens producers, vis-à-vis food safety. Dr. Karlin will identify the areas where a risk assessment may indicate increased controls needed to ensure food safety; as well as the areas where CEA processes enhance the ability to ensure food safety.

Preventing Diseases Coming Into Your Fresh Produce

Sankaran:

“The first thing is to understand the controlling factors. How do you make sure of the soil and the water quality health. Our job is the water quality.” Outside of heavy metals, some micro-nutrients are toxic to plants in moderate concentrations or specific conditions.  KETOS looks at water quality as the first aspect in food safety because elements or toxins in water are often filtered and held by soil.

“If people don’t make the investment to understand water quality, once they realize the damage to their produce, it might be too late. One of the most common things, which we haven’t measured yet but actively looking into it, is how we can understand e-coli. We always end up having e-coli outbreaks and product recalls because of e-coli. We need to get ahead of that because there’s millions of dollars of losses and food waste.”

Safety issues

Kris Nightengale, VP Agricultural Sales notes: “If you look at the US data regarding food safety issues and over 80% of the cases had livestock grazing in proximity or higher in the watershed in relation to the produce field. Indoor and vertical agriculture seeks to solve the problem by taking the food out of the open and into a highly controlled enclosed environment.” Some pathogens are known to translocate in plants and become a part of the cell structure. This means that no amount of washing is going to disinfect the produce.

The KETOS shield continuously monitors the pH, ORP, and chlorine, which ensures chlorine can be maintained at the proper level to ensure effective sanitization. Even though indoor production facilities go to great lengths to filter and treat influent and circulating water, pathogens can still be introduced through fertilizer, worker, and pests.

“Healthy plants are not the hosts for pathogens that unhealthy plants are. Because indoor production works on a circulating loop system, nutrient imbalances can move very quickly through a facility. It’s not uncommon for indoor growers to watch a perfectly healthy crop start exhibiting symptoms of changing vigor in a matter of hours. Water tests are generally infrequent and there is a significant lag time from the lab. KETOS is filling in the massive data gap that growers can directly and immediately tie to crop health”, Nightengale affirms.  

Keeping the water nutritious 

One of the biggest issues that the US is dealing with right now, not necessarily how good the water treatment plants are, but how good the piping across the distribution network. Those pipes could have been laid out 100 years ago and could be contaminated with toxins. Knowing the water quality, both at the source and the destination is very important.

“KETOS is deploying systems to help with irrigation as well as help implement a broader distribution network for leak detection, understanding lead contamination in pipes, so that repairs can be conducted proactively vs. an expensive infrastructure replacement”, Sankaran says. “You cannot act upon what you don’t measure.”

“Agriculture has successfully implemented technology across many facets of its operations and its time for water management to be a more important discussion as this is a precious asset that can impact not just the farmers but of all of the consumers at large .”

Nightengale adds: “KETOS is able to address the gaps in the marketplace today for water intelligence in-depth, and the right kind of data can provide you insights for what’s actually occurring at your fingertips.”

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For more information: 
KETOS
Meena Sankaran, Founder, and CEO
meena@KETOS.co  
Kris Nightengale
kris.nightengale@KETOS.co 
www.KETOS.co 

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Publication date: Tue 15 Sep 2020
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© HortiDaily.com

Federal Grant Bolsters Higher Education In AgTech

Growers have indicated the need for highly skilled workforce is becoming more urgent as technology restructures the future of farming.

Today’s blog notes a bright spot amongst many past reports of reduced government-backed financial support in research & development (R&D) and education programs that aim to improve living conditions, reduce environmental impact, and manage the growing population’s resources via technology.

Cornell University has reported that the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), through its National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), has endowed the university’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences’ School of Integrative Plant Science with a $496,000 grant. The federal funding will be used to develop new controlled environment agriculture (CEA) training programs for a skilled workforce that is sorely needed.

Cornell’s associate professor of horticulture Neil Mattson, well-known to us as the keynote speaker at our 2019 HortiCann Light + Tech conference, will collaborate with Cornell Small Farms program director Anu Rangarajan, Ohio State University’s Agricultural Technical Institute, and SUNY Broome Community College to create a technical training certificate in CEA production. The partners also expect to develop a two-year associate’s degree program for students at these institutions and other community colleges to provide solid education in CEA.

Mattson said in the Cornell Chronicle, “Growers consistently state that finding well-trained personnel to operate their facilities is among the largest barriers to expansion.”

Why do we need this educational support? The global population is growing, and supply needs to ramp up to deliver healthy foods to all economic strata. Many food crops are currently unavailable close to home for many, which places a burden on transportation and increases carbon footprint, as well as impacting shelf life. CEA can bring many food-growing resources closer to consumers, especially in urban areas or regions that would prove inhospitable to sensitive crops in a traditional farming operation.

CEA gives growers the means to apply physical systems of growth media, environmental controls, horticultural lighting, and water supply systems along with evidence-backed research in pest management, food safety processes, light customization, and more to produce food sources in a manner designed to balance economic viability, food demand, and sustainability.

Technologies available to modern CEA growers would naturally require a more advanced skillset. Indeed, said Rangarajan, “Our efforts have laid the groundwork for what I hope will be a dynamic training program that will build the workforce and elevate the industry as a whole.”

It’s an exciting time in the horticultural and agricultural space, and learning opportunities abound. Bookmark our HortiCann Light + Tech conference homepage for updates on our upcoming October program, now virtual for 2020. Moving beyond horticultural lighting fundamentals, the program will also delve into agribusiness and the return on investment in advanced systems and controls, AgTech systems integration, and topics related to legalized cannabis growing operations.

Photo credit: Image by iamereri via Pixabay; used under free license for commercial or non-commercial purposes.

Author: Carrie Meadows | LEDsMagazine | Jul 10, 2020

These Peach Salsa Brands Sold in 8 States Are Being Recalled

Three brands of peach salsa may be contaminated with Salmonella, the FDA warns.

Peaches are technically still in season until late September, however, you may want to refrain from picking up any containers of fresh peach salsa at the grocery store—that is, if you live in a certain eight states.

The FDA recently announced that Russ Davis Wholesale (RDW) is recalling Peach Salsa sold under the following three brands: Crazy Fresh Perfectly Peach Salsa, Quick & Easy Perfectly Peach Salsa, and Clear Label Perfectly Peach Salsa. The salsa has reportedly been contaminated with Salmonella, which, according to the CDC, can cause diarrhea, fever, and stomach cramps, among other symptoms.

The recall comes in response to Wawona Packaging, which informed RDW on August 22 that the peaches used to make the salsas could have been contaminated with the foodborne pathogen. The affected products include any packages of Crazy Fresh Perfectly Peach Salsa with a sell by date of 6/25/2020 to 8/26/2020; Quick & Easy Perfectly Peach Salsa with sell by date of 7/29/2020 to 8/26/2020; and Clear Label Perfectly Peach Salsa with sell by date of 7/30/2020 to 8/23/2020. (Related: 7 Secret Tricks for Extending Food Expiration Dates)

The packages of peach salsa that could be tainted with Salmonella were delivered to retail stores in Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. There are a few other miscellaneous containers of peach salsa that could cause foodborne illness, including ones that were offered at the deli counter at several grocery stores in Ortonville and Cross Lake in Minnesota, as well as in Tipton, Iowa.

In addition, five Bountiful Fresh gift baskets are suspected to have included the contaminated peaches, which were sold through one location in Hastings, Minnesota. If you've purchased any of the following items in the past several days, be sure to throw it out immediately. So far, there haven't been any reported cases of foodborne illness from these peaches, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't take precaution!

For more, check out These Are the Most Often Recalled Foods in America.

Article by: Cheyenne Buckingham | August 26, 2020

Peaches Recalled Nationwide After 101 Sickened, 17 Hospitalized Across North America

by Jessica Fu

08.25.2020

If you bought peaches at any of the country’s largest supermarkets this summer—including Target, Walmart, and Kroger—you should probably toss ‘em.

Federal agencies on Monday expanded a nationwide recall of peaches linked to the country’s largest stone fruit company, Prima Wawona, due to potential contamination with Salmonella Enteritidis. The recall, first announced last week, was originally limited to bagged fruit, and has now been extended to individual and loose peaches as well. Both yellow and white, conventional and organic peaches are affected. A full list of recalled products, including specific produce codes, can be found here.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), at least 68 individuals have become sickened by the outbreak strain, Salmonella Enteritidis, and 14 have been hospitalized across nine states. In Canada, U.S.-imported peaches have sickened an additional 33 people in two provinces.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is urging eaters to toss any of the specified fruit purchased from some of the country’s largest grocery chains—such as Aldi, Walmart, Kroger, and Target—between June and August, including peaches you might have in your freezer. It’s also encouraging both restaurants and suppliers to throw potentially contaminated fruit away.

“Salmonella is really sturdy, meaning it’s very good at surviving on plants like fruit and produce.”

Salmonella is a foodborne illness that can cause gastrointestinal issues, ranging from stomach aches to bloody feces. While most infections resolve themselves without treatment within hours or a few days, many eaters—including children, elderly people, and those who may have compromised immune systems—face a heightened risk for serious complications.

There are numerous points along any supply chain where fruits and vegetables can be infected with illness-causing bacteria. This can happen anywhere from farm fields, where animal feces can spread disease to produce; to processing plants that fail to properly sanitize equipment; to one’s own home, where raw meat or eggs can cross-contaminate with other groceries, said Mary Anne Amalaradjou, an associate professor of food microbiology at the University of Connecticut

“All of these factors can play a role in how salmonella can get into food and how it gets into us,” she said. In the past, Amalardjou has studied this particular outbreak strain and its ability to survive in mangos, finding that Salmonella Enteritidis can stay alive inside fruit for multiple days, and can remain on surfaces even after washing.

“Salmonella is really sturdy, meaning it’s very good at surviving on plants like fruit and produce,” she said.

In addition to our peach problem, an outbreak of Salmonella Newport linked to red onions has sickened over 500 people in the U.S. and Canada, and a Cyclospora outbreak linked to bagged salads sickened nearly 700.

For this particular outbreak, FDA and CDC have reportedly traced multiple infections back to Prima Wawona, the nation’s biggest stone fruit supplier.

“We’re conducting this voluntary recall in cooperation with the FDA out of consideration for the wellbeing and safety of our customers and consumers,” said George Nikolich, Prima Wawona’s vice president of technical operations in a press release. “We continue to be committed to serving consumers with high quality fruit.”

This isn’t the first time the company has been linked to foodborne illness. In the summer of 2014, it had to recall peaches, nectarines, plums, and pluots due to potential listeria contamination, food safety lawyer Bill Marler noted for Food Poisoning Journal.

You couldn’t be blamed for feeling like 2020 has been banner summer for foodborne illnesses: In addition to our peach problem, an outbreak of Salmonella Newport linked to red onions has sickened over 500 people in the U.S. and Canada, and a Cyclospora outbreak linked to bagged salads sickened nearly 700.

Outbreaks of foodborne illness occur every year, and advancements in detection technology help officials pinpoint and trace pathogens along the supply chain with increasing efficiency.

Nonetheless, Amalardjou said, there’s no reason to feel too alarmed quite yet: Outbreaks of foodborne illness occur every year, and advancements in detection technology help officials pinpoint and trace pathogens along the supply chain with increasing efficiency.

With peach season in full swing in numerous growing regions, you can likely rest assured that stone fruit produced by other companies or sold at a nearby farmers’ market is still safe to enjoy.

“I’ll still have my peaches,” Amalaradjou said. “I love my peaches.” Safe peaching is just a matter of keeping an eye on FDA’s recall list, and steering clear of any fruit that gets flagged.

We will continue to update this story as it evolves.

Jessica Fu is a staff writer for The Counter.

Lead photo: Jessica Fu

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food safety peaches recall salmonella

Cities Are Turning To Rooftop Farming

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by Erin Tallman

August 24, 2020

With green initiatives popping up, the benefits of rooftop farms are becoming worldly-recognized. We spoke with Thomas Schneider, co-founder and director of Rooftop Roots in Washington DC and Michelle Hong of Rooftop Republic, based in Hong Kong, China to know how to create and run a rooftop garden or farm.

Hong Kongers and city-dwellers are increasingly concerned about the food they put on their dinner tables, According to Michelle Hong of Rooftop Republic, people are increasingly demanding food that is safe, healthy and sustainably produced. With green initiatives popping up, the benefits of rooftop farms are becoming worldly-recognized.  One prime advantage is locality— reducing transport mileage equates to lowering emissions, but there’s more to it than a couple of miles here and there.

When bare roofs receive more heat than they emit, they increase emissions and greenhouse gases. Rooftop farms are also helping to cool buildings as they defer this “heat island” effect. The greenery of rooftop farms absorb CO2 and release oxygen, so buildings don’t diffuse as much heat—a good thing since the United Nations confirms our planet is warming much faster than we think.

There’s more still. Rooftop farming can offer low-income families a new source of revenue and better access to quality products—in the US, only 7% of low-income families eat the proper amount of fruits and vegetables, according to a report done by CBS This Morning.

The Rooftop Society

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Rooftop Republic (Credit: Ann Woo for Let It Grow.)

Both the Rooftop Roots and Rooftop Republic were born from the realization that there was untapped potential in the city and that there was a real rupture between people and their food sources, health and community.

Rooftop Republic provides services to help install, maintain, learn and understand how to grow gardens on the top of the buildings. Some of the gardens act as a platform for corporate employee engagement or for students to immerse themselves in the educational experience of growing their own food. Through these actions, they’re taking a step forward to reconnect people to food explains Michelle Hong,

“Only by addressing this disconnection—this broken relationship—will we be able to change people’s mindsets and behavior and help them make more informed decisions about their food.”

Rooftop Roots was also created with the intention of rekindling this disconnect through providing economic, environmental and social justice. Their ambition is to generate jobs, offer a new source for fruits and vegetables, and establish a community for food deserts.

Choosing the Right Location

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Thomas Schneider, the founder and executive director of Rooftop Roots, in one of his gardens. (Keith Lane/for The Washington Post)

Although the benefits are shiny on paper, Schneider reminds us that it’s not easy:

“Rooftop gardens are not going to end world hunger, weather conditions and temperature swings that occur high up render farming a lot more difficult than ground farms. Plants tend to prefer the earth.”

One can’t forget that rooftop farms are on roofs, literally vulnerable to strong winds on structures that need to be secure and have fundamental integrity. In the Hong Kong context, the first thing to consider when starting the urban farming revolution is to identify a good location that has easy access to water, explained Hong.

“Most herbs/veggies require a minimum of 4 to 5 hours of direct sunlight. No matter what containers you use, the bigger the better. The more space you give to your plants the easier they will find it to develop their root systems, to find nutrients in the soil, etc.”

Rooftop Republic is embarking on training more urban farmers of the future, and with the growing demand for urban agriculture, the company is optimistic that the potential of urban farming in creating employment/vocational opportunities, can be huge.

Immeasurable Benefits

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Rooftop herb, vegetable and fruit garden by Rooftop Republic. Photo by Matthieu Millet

Rooftop farming doesn’t require that one purchases land for farming. Underutilized spaces such as rooftops, terraces or even ground surfaces can be re-utilized and re-valued. Although difficult at times, the perks of building community and giving others’ access to natural processes at work are priceless, Schneider maintained. When people begin to understand the tough work involved, a stronger sense of respect for food develops. Hong emphasized:

“People who grow their own food are likely to understand the processes of nature on agriculture, and are more likely to accept ‘imperfect’ produce, as well as be more conscious to treat food purchases with care. We are aiming to change the concept that food is something that we only engage with at the supermarket.”

Rooftop farms and gardens are being implemented to provide greenery and produce just as much as they’re learning experimentations. Today there still aren’t enormous amounts of data concerning the success or results of rooftop projects, which is why Rooftop Roots took it into their hands to initiate a pilot project in 2016 in collaboration with the University of the District of Columbia, in order to establish the best methods and plants for maximum production.

With the intent to improve food scarcity and help other urban growers, the project focuses on the testing of 6 varieties of both strawberries and tomatoes, because as Schneider put it,

“Tomatoes are the gateway drug to gardening.”

In other words: tomatoes are the plant one usually starts out with. Tomatoes are also exceptionally nutrient-dense and somewhat temperamental, so they are an interesting fruit to work with.

Although the teams have been working on this for about 2 years, results are still not definitive and the farmers are not in a position to report their findings. Yet, they can say that tomatoes are definitely not easy on rooftops.

Lead photo: Credit: Rooftop Republic

(This article was first published in our sister publication AgriExpo)

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AGRICULTURE FARM FARMING

Pablo Bunster, Co-founder and CCO of AgroUrbana “In Our Next Farm, We Will Be Able To Use 100% Renewable Energy”

As Chile has been in a complete lockdown since mid-May, AgroUrbana is lucky to continue its operations. “It’s not easy, because you have to change the way of operating, the interactions, and in-farm activities, even when food safety was already key to the company culture. Our customers have been ordering through home delivery”, Cristián Sjögren, Co-founder and CEO of AgroUrbana says.

Renewable energy

Bunster notes: “It took us from the energy market, from renewable energy, to farming. We believe that this is the perfect testing round to see what vertical farming can do.” Chile has drought, cheap labor, we have competitive, available and abundant renewables. Which is always a discussion around vertical farming. We manage sunlight here as we use 100% renewable energy PPA. However, we cannot do this with our pilot because the overall consumption is too low, so we have to regulate it. In our next farm, we will be able to go 100% renewable. That puts a lot toward sustainability for vertical farming.” The urban population is growing fast in Latin America. AgroUrbana believes that vertical farming can accommodate that food demand.

“Our next stage is, going commercial to a scale where we can bring costs down”, Bunster continues. “First, we thought of a small community distributed model with a few small blocks around, such as container farms. But, we believe that scale is still required as you can become more competitive with higher efficiency.

“First, we’re farmers and technology comes to serve that purpose be the best farmers! We are developing some technologies internally to run our farms, but our focus now is how we can actually rate the curve of cutting costs to make our products increasingly competitive. We want to stay out of the commodity but still reach the masses. Our mantra is to deliver better quality food to everyone”, Sjögren adds.

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Pablo Bunster harvesting some fresh lettuce

Pilot farm

Sjögren states: “We started with a pilot farm, because vertical farming is something completely new in Latin America.” Before launching a new category for Agriculture in Chile, Sjögren and Bunster wanted to understand the economics of vertical farming. They took an approach of technology-agnostic by building a 3000 sq. ft pilot farm, where different technologies are tested. The 18-month pilot phase will be completed by the end of this year. 

“We are integrating our own recipe that combines the seeds nature provides us with its nutrition and environmental parameters. Next to that, we are constantly improving and optimizing our operations in order to drive down costs”, Bunster adds. These quantities are allocated in a 3000 sq. ft farm which is not a large production, Sjögren noted, but this is done to test the market, integrate and develop our technology and do R&D in new varieties. AgroUrbana is planning on scaling up throughout Chile in 2021 with an aim to further expand into the new markets, mainly large urban areas, in the region in the next years. 

“Chile is a perfect testing ground to start, test and stress what vertical farming can do, due to the Mediterranean weather we have, favorable to open farming, but also abundant and competitive renewable energy. We both spent our last ten years in the wind- and solar energy industry. Renewables will help AgroUrbana close the gap between traditional agriculture and vertical farming”, Sjögren says. 

The country has suffered from climate change, with a 10-year drought that highly affected Chilean agriculture. AgroUrbana has achieved surprising improvements in its yield. “We are planning to transfer all this knowledge to our next farm, a 30,000 sq. ft commercial-scale farm. In the upcoming months, we are doing funding rounds in order to help us realize this farm.

Sjögren says that AgroUrbana is going to pilot in the berry space as well, such as strawberries. “We are starting a pilot to test the different varieties of strawberries. Next to that, we are developing edible flowers and some microgreens”, Sjögren affirms. Most of the volume is lettuce, but we will be rolling out other leafy greens and we will see how it goes with the other crops. 

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Carmelo platform

“There are many components such as climate control, irrigation, growing structures, and so on. We want to put all the pieces together and operate these very efficiently”, Sjögren states. The company is developing a technology ‘Carmelo’, a platform of sensors with hardware and software to monitor and control our operations. “We are at a level of precision, where we are able to handle the microclimates within the farm. Using Carmelo, we are collecting data already for over one year which is helping us to become even more precise and consistent.” All data gathered will be used for our first large scale commercial farm planned for 2021.

“We’re all about technology and data because that’s how you drive down the costs. We are combining genetics, giving the perfect climate, and the perfect environment. Carmelo is all about finetuning the recipe we’re creating, through managing a farm, and having consistent quality food, every day of the year”, Bunster adds. 

Product pricing

“Our team is in good spirits as we have been keeping up production. The pandemic hit us hard, but we were able to relocate all production to different distribution channels, such as e-commerce, supermarkets and subscriptions”, Bunster states. We were planning on doing that already, but we accelerated our go-to-market because of the current situation. “There’s no going back on e-commerce because customers are getting used to it. If we can take our produce to e-commerce, keep our customers satisfied and easy about always getting the perfect product, they’ll always order it online. It’s something we already wanted to do and we are currently testing and proving it. So far, we’re doing okay”, Bunster adds.

AgroUrbana has two markets, one of them being retail with a fast pace opening of new distribution for their products, with 100% recyclable packaging. Furthermore, the company delivers its products to restaurants. Since one year, AgroUrbana has launched its own house mix of lettuce. 

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Cristián Sjögren and his colleague preparing the plugs for planting

Bunster mentioned that AgroUrbana is selling to restaurants that are price sensitive. Meaning that they care about food quality and the costs. “Here’s where food waste comes into play. We do not have any food waste. We’re coming to the point where most of what we grow, we’re able to process and sell. In restaurants only, we’re saving between 25-35% food of waste in leafy greens. We are very efficient in logistics as we don’t truck. We move food for a few miles from our farms to the kitchens of different clients. This helps us to make numbers for a competitive market.”

Focusing on the next generation

“It has been exciting to put our team together because nobody has a vertical farming degree on its resumé. We’re really excited to prepare the next generation of vertical farmers. We’re putting together different skills and attracting the next generation of farmers that want to move from the countryside to the city. It’s an attractive way to get a generation back to growing veggies in the city with a lot of interaction with technology”, Sjögren ends. 

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For more information:
AgroUrbana
Cristián Sjögren, Co-Founder and CEO
cristian.sjogren@agrourbana.ag 
Pablo Bunster, Co-Founder and CCO
pablo.bunster@agrourbana.ag
www.agrourbana.ag 

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Publication date: Tue 25 Aug 2020
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© HortiDaily.com

Exploring The Costs And Benefits of Indoor Agriculture

Leafy GreRobert Colangelo and Matt Roy

Yesterday, the Indoor Agtech kicked off its virtual event, joined by many participants. One, of the many seminars, was about 'Exploring the costs and benefits of indoor agriculture'. Robert Colangelo, Founding Farmer at Green Sense Farms, kicked off the seminar by asking what CEA means to Matt Roy, VP Business Development CEA at Tanimura & Antle. Roy answered, “CEA to me, means anything grown inside. There’s a lot of innovation and disruption happening in the space and I think there’s going to be a lot of different technologies that are going to provide the right solutions here.”

Colangelo: “Is it true that, according to the myth, the leafy greens supply chain is broken and where can it be improved?”
Roy stated that one of the misconceptions out there is that there’s this big waste field on the West Coast on how products are grown, harvested, and shipped out. “It’s actually highly innovative and from innovation, technology, and sustainability standpoint, there’s a lot of exciting things happening out there. I continue to be amazed at how well we are able to get fresh fruits and vegetables across the country. A lot of things we’re trying to achieve indoors, in a lot of ways we have accomplished that outdoors. From growing it, getting it harvested efficiently, timely, and done food safely, we’re getting high quality, nutritious fresh produce across the country in a matter of days.”  

Colangelo: “Can you give us a quick thumbnail of the different touchpoints, from seed in the field to the supermarket, how does that level travel and where do you see waste along that line?”
Roy: Naturally, with any farming, indoor, or outdoor there is going to be some level of waste. Obviously, putting products on a truck for five days brings challenges and vulnerability along. A misperception is that all of the food is left in the field, but in a lot of ways, it’s organic material feeding the soil. Just because leaves are left in the field after harvesting, it might be viewed as waste, but it goes back in the dirt and provides nutrition to the soil.

Colangelo: "A challenge in vertical farming is packing on a large economy of scale. What are the challenges of packing as a smaller scaled farm with few centralized packing houses near? How do you get packing done economically?"
Roy: “Hyperlocal smaller farms bring value to the supply chain and continue to provide additional ways to provide nutritious products to consumers. I think it’s going to be one of the challenges, and it’s a huge component that is not talked about a lot. There’s a lot of discussion on the growing side, but I think that we need more conversation on what innovation looks like on the packing side. What is looks like for hydro-cooling, think of everything shipped out from the West Coast, is hydro-cooled. So, when growing indoors, pulling the heat out of the product to ensure you have the shelf life needed out of it. It’s a big piece that needs to be solved.

Colangelo: “Most of the packing equipment is geared to large-scale production and there's very little cost-effective low scale packing equipment out there. So I agree, that it’s an area that we all need to work out. Looking at product recall, there's been a number of recalls with field-grown lettuce, but I've not heard of any from a vertical farm. So, can you talk a little bit about health and safety, and food safety when it comes to field production versus indoor growing?”

Roy: “The challenge has been full case-level traceability. A lot of work was done around the first traceability initiative. But, until all channels of the supply chain jump all in together around traceability, it's going to continue to be a challenge rather outdoors or indoors. Controlling more elements inside allows to produce a safer product, but in a lot of ways, it creates more risk because it's easier to contaminate all of your crops. So it’s really an all-in from everybody jump in and says we're going to prioritize food safety. And yes, this product might be 50 cents or a dollar more of a product, but we're putting a premium on food safety. We know these ‘five golden rules’ they are compliant against and we're going to pay a premium for that. As a buyer, you’re not looking at food safety first, so it’s actually a broader conversation that impacts both indoor and outdoor. It's great to have you here with your unique perspective both as a buyer and now our producer.”

Colangelo: Vertical farming is the shiny new toy in agriculture. It's attracted tremendous media attention and VC investments. Mostly, VC seeks a high rate of return. How has VC investment impacted the business decision making in vertical farming operations?

Roy: “I think it creates a different pressure. Whereas, if you're a self-funded or institutionally funded organization, there's more of a long view on what you're doing and when you're crawled by VC money there's a higher expectation on the return. I think that in a lot of ways vertical is still early stage and technology has not gone to a point that had a mass scale to produce cost-effectively. The market has not matured enough to demand a premium to get those returns. The pressure impacts your day-to-day decisions as a business leader. Are you going to make the right decisions, long-term, for the help of a product in your business, or, are you going to make some short-term decisions that might not allow long-term success in your business?

Colangelo: “Banks don’t provide debt finances to new ventures. Private equity and VC being the only few sources, how do new ideas get funded in this market?”

Roy: “In the last four of five years, from an investment side people have really have given more attention to how much food is consumed, and the size of the industries, the supply chains around products. In general, the energy coming into the food space, investing, bringing innovation and new ideas to disruption is all very exciting, but I think you speak to that challenge. ‘How do you balance funding your business to get started, while still staying true to your principles and creating something long-term?’ So I think that these many people were battling with these challenges. From a macro view to me, it's exciting to see a lot more VC money coming into fresh produce than you’ve seen historically. With that will come continued innovation and disruption.” 

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For more information:
Green Sense Farms
Robert Colangelo, Founding Farmer  
www.greensensefarms.com 

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Tanimura & Antle
Matt Roy, VP Business Development CEA 
www.taproduce.com 

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Indoor AgTech Innovation Summit
www.indooragtechnyc.com 

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Publication date: Fri 24 Jul 2020
Author: Rebekka Boekhout
© HortiDaily.com

FDA And CDC Use Technological Advancements To Investigate Cyclospora Illnesses Linked To Bagged Salads

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has provided an update on the status of the investigation of Cyclospora cayetanensis illnesses tied to the consumption of bagged salads. This update is not just on the number of cases, but also on the scientific progress we’ve made in using a new method developed and validated by the FDA to sample for Cyclospora in agricultural water for the first time in a field investigation.

This method was used in our current investigation and may be instrumental in our efforts to better understand the dispersion of the parasite in the environment, which could help prevent future outbreaks. The collective work by public health officials to get these new findings demonstrates a commitment to innovation and science in the service of public health and the importance of strong federal and state coordination on food safety work.

Even as our agencies continue to respond to the COVID-19 public health crisis, teams of experts from the FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have continued to respond to a threat of a different kind – a nationwide outbreak of Cyclospora illnesses. Cyclospora cayetanensis is a parasite that is so small it can only be seen with a microscope. It causes an intestinal illness called cyclosporiasis from the consumption of contaminated food, mainly fresh produce, or contaminated water.

Ongoing Investigation Update
FDA’s Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation Network (CORE) and CDC today updated the case numbers and the status of the investigation, which advances what we know about Cyclospora, based on the three key parts of every food outbreak investigation:

Epidemiology linked the illnesses to bagged salad produced by Fresh Express. The number of reported cases of Cyclospora typically rises during May through August. Although CDC conducts surveillance for cyclosporiasis year-round, during the spring and summer months CDC conducts enhanced surveillance for cases of domestically acquired illness. In this outbreak, CDC has reported 690 cases across 13 states, with 37 hospitalizations and no deaths. Onsets of illness range from May 11, 2020 to July 20, 2020. Salads made by Fresh Express and containing iceberg lettuce, red cabbage, and carrots were identified as the food vehicle responsible for the outbreaks.

Traceback of cases with the strongest sources of information (shopper card info, etc.) revealed that bagged salad codes most likely to have resulted in illness contained iceberg lettuce from California and red cabbage from Florida. The FDA evaluated and investigated each of the ingredients in the bagged salads, identifying red cabbage from Florida and iceberg lettuce from California as those most likely in the bagged salads consumed by people who became ill. Traceback investigations are time-consuming work but are critical. In this instance, in the wake of traceback and collaboration with the retailers to recall product, FDA identified a noticeable decline in illnesses that matched the time period in which cabbage sourcing shifted from Florida to another area, providing a possible clue in the investigation.

Environmental sampling detected the presence of Cyclospora in the surface water of a canal near a farm suspected of being a source of the red cabbage. Two samples collected to the north and south of where the farm accessed canal water for seepage irrigation were found to be positive for Cyclospora cayetanensis. The farm that supplied red cabbage was no longer in production at the conclusion of the growing season, so it was not possible to sample product. Additionally, the farms growing iceberg lettuce in California were investigated and all of the samples collected in California were negative for Cyclospora.

Given the emerging nature of genetic typing methodologies for this parasite, the FDA has been unable to determine if the Cyclospora detected in the canal is a genetic match to the clinical cases, therefore, there is currently not enough evidence to conclusively determine the cause of this outbreak.

Advancements Aiding the Investigation
The FDA has pioneered ways to detect the parasite that have been employed in this outbreak investigation, developing and validating new methods to test for Cyclospora in produce and agricultural water. The first of these new methods was used in 2018 to confirm the presence of the parasite in a salad mix product tied to an outbreak that sickened hundreds of people.

In July 2019, the FDA made its second major advance in Cyclospora detection, completing studies that resulted in a novel, validated method to test agricultural water for the presence of the parasite. These new methods were developed by the Foodborne Parasitology Research Program that the FDA established in 2014 in our Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, in part to break the cycle of recurring Cyclospora outbreaks.

Strong federal and state coordination on matters of public health are critical. In identifying clinical cases of Cyclospora, assisting in providing traceback records and completing investigations in processing facilities and growing fields, our state partners’ work has proven essential to this investigation. We continue to work to strengthen these vital public health partnerships and federal agencies continue to work together to advance additional tools needed to assist with these investigations. For example, CDC is piloting the use of a genotyping tool to help identify cases of parasitic illness that might be linked to a common source.

For the full report, check the FDA website.

Publication date: Mon 17 Aug 2020

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Disease-Causing Bacteria Can Grow on Hydroponic Microgreen Mats

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Posted on July 2, 2020, by Gina Misra

Salmonella enterica and Listeria monocytogenes are two bacteria that can make you sick when eating contaminated produce. It turns out, some microgreen grow mats might be a breeding ground for these bacteria.

You may be like a lot of people and associate foodborne illness with eating improperly cooked meat. Did you know that raw vegetables can also carry foodborne illness? Bacteria and viruses get on produce in a variety of ways: by food handlers, contaminated water, or soil fertilized with untreated manure. Romaine lettuce grown in Arizona made the news in 2018 because of widespread E. coli contamination. Sprouts, another popular health food, have been involved in 74 outbreaks of (mostly) Salmonella since 1973. Turns out these nasty pathogens are not just reserved for chicken and beef! There is no cooking step to kill the bacteria or virus on produce before it goes into your salad. Sometimes washing doesn’t even help, so prevention is key.

Microgreens are a hot new leafy green on the market. A microgreen is the first 2 to 3-inch (5 to 7-cm) tall shoot from a germinating vegetable seed. They are grown indoors in trays or hydroponics systems in soil, soil-substitutes, or without any rooting medium at all. Scientists understand a lot about how bacteria get to leafy greens from soil, but little about contamination in indoor farms. Are indoor farms safer if they don’t use dirt? We wanted to find out.

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This is what a typical microgreen hydroponic system looks like. Source: Wikimedia Commons, by Kchittock0511 / CC BY-SA

Microgreen growers do use soil. However, they also use materials such as coco coir (made from coconut husks), Biostrate(TM) mats, plastic, perlite, rice hulls, and hemp in soil-free indoor systems. Our hypothesis was that if soil can transfer bacteria to lettuce, other growing materials can too. 

E.coli and Salmonella survived better in hydroponic nutrient solution compared to soil, so we wondered if there would also be differences among soil-free materials. Within the last few years, there have been close to 10 microgreen recalls over diarrhea-causing Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes found during routine testing. So, we decided to compare the survival of these two pathogens among popular soil-free growing materials to see if the bacteria lived longer on any of them.

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An example of a Biostrate mat. Source: The author | Creative Commons Share Alike 4.0

We watered multiple samples of coco coir, Biostrate(TM) mats, hemp mats, and peat-based potting mix and contaminated them with Salmonella and Listeria monocytogenes. To imitate microgreen growing conditions, we left them on the lab bench for 10 days. We took samples from the mats on the first day, and then at 24 hours, 3 days, 6 days, and 10 days to measure the growth of bacteria. Each sample was spread onto Petri dishes containing a gel called agar, enriched with nutrients preferred by each species. The idea behind this classic microbiology technique is that if any cells from the samples were viable, they would multiply on the Petri dishes and form colonies. The colonies are easy to see with the naked eye, and each represents one cell from the original sample.

We found out that Biostrate(TM) mats and hemp mats supported the growth of these two pathogens, while coco coir and peat potting mix did not. In fact, on Biostrate(TM) and hemp, Salmonella and Listeria levels increased after 24 hours and then maintained their original levels for 10 days. On peat and coco coir, Listeria began to die off after the third day and was undetectable on coco coir by the 10th day. Salmonella survived better on all the materials, but on the 10th day, there were 10 times fewer colonies on peat and coco coir compared to the two mats. 

Both pathogens showed poorer survival on peat and coco coir compared to no media at all. That means there may be some feature of the peat and coco coir that suppresses the growth of these bacteria. Understanding if that is true, and if so, what exactly that feature is will require more experiments.

It is necessary to point out that because this experiment did not involve microgreens, we still don’t know if microgreens grown in Biostrate(TM) and hemp actually do take up greater amounts of bacteria. These tests are underway! However, this preliminary information may be useful to indoor growers. Until we know more, microgreen growers may want to avoid using fibrous mats, perform additional sanitation steps, or do more testing to keep their customers safe.

Posted in Agriculture, Biology, By Science Writers, By Scientists, Food Science, Microbiology, Science NewsTagged agriculture, Biostrate, coco coir, contamination, food safety, food science, growing media, hemp, hydroponics, indoor farming, leafy greens, Listeria, Microgreens, peat, Salmonella

Study Information

Original study: Survival of Salmonella enterica subsp. enterica serovar Javiana and Listeria monocytogenes is dependent on type of soil‐free microgreen cultivation matrix

Study published on: May 12, 2020

Study author(s): Gina Misra and Kristen E. Gibson

The study was done at: University of Arkansas

The study was funded by: National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA NIFA) and University of Arkansas

Raw data availability: Available from the author upon request by email.

Featured image credit: Jenny Nichols WallpaperFlare.com

Bowery Farming Wants To Make Lettuce Safe, Smart And Tasty

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• by Sarah Mahoney  @mahoney_sarah

• August 12, 2020

For decades, consumers have been on a quest for cleaner, safer produce — and agricultural methods that are good for both the palate and the planet.

Bowery Farming, the New York-based indoor farming start-up, thinks it’s mastered the recipe, especially given increasing safety concerns.

Grown indoors, lettuces, greens, and herbs are non-GMO, free from pesticides “and grown with complete transparency,” says Katie Seawell, Chief Marketing Officer. “We are deeply committed to increasing access to high-quality delicious food. We’re going to build an enduring brand — we hope a generational brand — that emotionally connects with consumers.”

Its main selling point? “Our produce tastes better, too, and that means a lot to our core audience.”

At present, the vast majority of produce isn’t branded, “and highly commoditized, not unlike coffee used to be,” she says. “I spent 15 years at Starbucks before joining Bowery a year ago, and I see a lot of similarities. Starbucks is a very mission-driven company, and so is Bowery. We are committed to disrupting the food-supply vision. And through technology, we want people to think differently about how we grow the food we eat.”

Currently, Bowery is selling its products in retail chains such as Walmart, Giant, and Whole Foods Market. It’s also available on Amazon Fresh and believes e-commerce will be one of its biggest sources of growth. “It’s a great cross-section of retailers, and part of our goal-to democratize access to our produce.”

Seawell says it is preparing ads set to break later this year, based on consumer research that uncovered ongoing concerns about widespread lettuce recalls for problems like E. coli and Cyclospora infections.

Mustache is the ad agency, and it also worked with Red Antler for a brand refresh and a new website.

Seawell says the pandemic has also intensified interest in safer, healthier foods. It’s also accelerated awareness of America’s gaping inequalities and inefficiencies in the food system.

So far, Bowery has two farms in Kearny, New Jersey, and the a outside of Baltimore. With its modular technology, it hopes to expand soon. Providing fresh food for underserved communities is also part of its mission, which translates into partnerships with nonprofits, including DC Central Kitchen and Table to Table.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misspelled CMO Paula Seawell’s name, as well as the location of two of its farms. They are in Kearny, New Jersey.

Farming In The Desert: Are Vertical Farms The Solution To Saving Water?

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Deutsche Welle

Jul. 23, 2020

By Isabelle Gerretsen"

When I told people I was going to grow tomatoes in the desert, they thought I was crazy," Sky Kurtz, founder of Pure Harvest Smart Farms, told DW.

With just an average 12 days of rain a year, less than 1% arable land, a desert location, and an 80% import rate for food, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) seems an unfavorable place to set up a farm.

Kurtz is one of several entrepreneurs using high-tech farming techniques to boost crop production in the Emirates. Pure Harvest built the first climate-controlled greenhouse in Abu Dhabi in 2017.

Prompted by arid conditions and a desire for greater food security, the country is investing millions in technologies — such as vertical farming — that could make it an unlikely agricultural pioneer.

Vertical farms can grow a rich variety of different crops by stacking them in layers under LED lighting in climate-controlled greenhouses and watering them with mist or drip systems. The process is tailored to each crop's specific needs, resulting in high-yield, year-round harvests."

It takes 30 to 40 days to grow leafy greens out in the field. We can grow that same crop in 10 to 12 days," says Marc Oshima, co-founder of Aerofarms. The company received funding from the Abu Dhabi Investment Office to build the capital's largest indoor vertical farm, with 800 different crops, by 2021.

Water Scarcity and Fossil-Fuel Reliance

The technology uses minimal land and up to 95% less water than conventional agriculture.

The hydroponics system places the plants' roots directly into a water-based and nutrient-rich solution instead of soil. This "closed-loop" system captures and recirculates all the water, rather than allowing it to drain away — useful for a country like the UAE suffering from extremely high water stress.

Globally, agriculture accounts for 70% of freshwater withdrawals, and UAE is extracting groundwater faster than it can be replenished, according to the International Center for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA)."

Water is very expensive over in the UAE, but energy is cheap as it is subsidized," says Jan Westra, a strategic business developer at Priva, a company providing technology to vertical farms.

The artificially controlled environment is energy-intensive because the air conditioning and LED lights need a constant source of electricity.

This bringing forth of life in the desert could come at a high environmental cost. Most of that energy comes from carbon-emitting fossil fuels, even as the Middle Eastern country feel the effects of climate change.

By 2050 Abu Dhabi's average temperature is predicted to increase by around 2.5°C (36.5 F) in a business-as-usual scenario. Over the next 70 years, patterns of rainfall are also expected to change.

Integrating Renewable Energy 

Although Pure Harvest is building a solar-powered farm in neighboring Saudi Arabia, its UAE operations get electricity from the carbon-intensive national grid.

Investing more in renewables "is a goal of ours," Kurtz told DW. He said the company has not set a clean energy target but is working on various green power projects, including a plan to integrate solar power generated in UAE into its operations.

However, Willem van der Schans, a researcher specializing in short supply chains at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, says sustainability and clean energy should be "inherent in the technology and included in plans when starting a vertical farm."

He argues that many vertical farming companies are not sustainable in terms of energy as they still view clean power as an optional "add-on."

Ismahane Elouafi, director-general of the government-funded ICBA in Abu Dhabi, acknowledges that vertical farming has some way to go before achieving "real sustainability," but she believes the innovations are "promising."

Improved battery storage, increasingly efficient LED lights, and cheaper solar panels will help, she adds.

Local Solutions

 By 2050, the UAE government wants to generate almost half its energy from renewable sources.

Fred Ruijgt, a vertical farming specialist at Priva, argues that it's important to factor transport and refrigeration into the energy equation. Vertical farming uses more energy to grow crops than traditional agriculture, but because crops are grown locally, they do not have to be transported by air, sea, or truck over long distances."

The energy-saving is difficult to calculate exactly, but the advantages of locally grown crops are huge," he says, adding that those grown in vertical farms not only use less water and pesticides but that they also have a longer shelf life due to minimal transportation time.

Food Security and Coronavirus

 In 2018, the UAE set out its vision to become a hub for high-tech local food production.

Companies and investors have flocked to the region, attracted by the 0% corporate tax rate, low labor costs, and cheap energy. With their help, the UAE aims to reduce its reliance on imports and make its food system more resilient to shocks like climate change and pandemics.

Oshima from Aerofarms says the coronavirus pandemic has brought "greater appreciation of how fragile the supply chain is and raised questions about food safety and security."

When the UAE went into lockdown in April, imported supplies of perishable goods like vegetables fell and business boomed for local suppliers.

ICBA's Elouafi said they have helped keep the UAE well-stocked during the pandemic."With the help of local food production and adequate imports, there has been absolutely no shortage of food in the UAE," Elouafi told DW.

Climate change, however, poses an altogether more complex threat to the country in the long-term. Given climate change's likely impact on food production, she says vertical farming has shown it is "an economically viable proposition even with harsh climatic conditions."

Reposted with permission from Deutsche Welle.

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TAGS: farming farmers water food food security agriculture renewable energy

How Leafy Greens Growers Have Turned Food Safety Challenges Into Opportunities

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By Brian D. Sparks

July 30, 2020

Editor’s Note: This article is the second of a three-part series on food safety concerns in the production of leafy greens in a controlled environment. 

Click here to check out Part One of the series, which covered the formation of the CEA Food Safety Coalition.

Growing lettuce and other leafy greens in a controlled environment presents its own set of challenges and opportunities. During United Fresh Live in June, Marni Karlin, Executive Director of the CEA Food Safety Coalition, moderated a discussion that outlined how indoor growers who make food safety a priority, rather than dismissing it as a problem unique to field-grown crops, can inadvertently create market opportunities for themselves. The panel featured growers of all types (greenhouses, vertical farms, and warehouses) and sizes. Here are a few insights from the discussion.

Don’t Overlook Irrigation and Growing Media

Jackie Hawkins, Senior Manager of Food Safety at BrightFarms, says irrigation water is likely potable if it comes from municipalities or wells. However, it can still be contaminated, so don’t assume it’s clean and forsake the necessary testing.“Test your incoming water, treat it if necessary, and test it again,” Hawkins says.

Growing media, as well, may not seem like a concern because many leafy greens producers are not growing in soil. “But the seeds might have been grown in media, so it’s important to do routine monitoring of your media as it comes into the greenhouse,” Hawkins says.

From Data Comes Solutions

Michael DeChellis, Co-Founder of Livingston Greens, a small indoor farm in Montana, says it’s critical for greenhouse producers to compile the data they’re able to collect from growing in a controlled environment to create a plan for developing a safer product.“

For small farms, working with other growers in the CEA Food Safety Coalition is a great opportunity,” DeChellis says. “Our members share data, and this culture of collaboration can help us identify ways to overcome challenges.”

For example, DeChellis cites a mold issue at Livingston Greens, which he addressed by using temperature and humidity data to highlight the problem area and the conditions that caused the problem.

Consider Design Upgrades

Simon Yevzelman, Managing Partner and Leader of Biosecurity at Planted Detroit, a vertical farm in the Motor City, says his company saw the concerns of food safety looming, so it opted to temporarily suspend production so it could enhance its production systems with food safety as a guiding principle.“

Thanks to those efforts, we are now in an expansion mode,” Yevzelman says.

Full Company Responsibility

Oscar Camacho, President of Superior Food Safety, a California-based consulting company, says any greenhouse production system should be designed to optimize best food safety practices.“

The system needs to work across the entire company,” Camacho says. “This means communication from one end of the production line to the other is critical.

Retailers and Consumers Care

Chris Livingston, General Counsel at Bowery Farming, a vertical farming company in New York, says the CEA Food Safety Coalition is currently developing a standard specific to controlled-environment production that addresses unique challenges such as water management and infrastructure.“

Our goal is to have a seal that members can use to show their customers they are complying with standards unique to our industry,” Livingston says. “We are also developing a research agenda based on food safety topics.”

Stay tuned for Part 3 of this series, which will focus on how the coronavirus pandemic added value to CEA-grown leafy greens.

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By Brian D. Sparks

Indian Grower Capitalizes On Market Opportunities With AI

Sachin Darbarwar, Simply Fresh

Things are looking up for the greenhouse produce market in India. "We see an increase in demand in the Indian market, especially in many cities where we supply", says Sachin Darbarwar, founder of Simply Fresh. Last year, the grower invested $30 million in expanding the greenhouse operation, and that investment appears to be paying off.

"With more awareness on hydroponic farming and more emphasis on food safety, consumers today are selective in their buying and prefer produce, which is clean, safe, and traceable", Sachin tells us. "With the current global scenario and special focus on health and immunity, we only see this demand increasing in future."

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Sachin and Shweta Darbarwar, founders of Simply Fresh

Simply Fresh not only supplies its produce to the local market, however: "We have exported our produce to the UAE, and will shortly resume our exports to countries like the UK, USA, and South East Asia."

So they look across the border, and not just when it comes to exporting their produce. "Our greenhouse structure was designed and delivered to us by Cravo, a Canadian company that specializes in retractable greenhouses", Sachin tells us. They source their seeds from various domestic and international suppliers as well, like Rijk Zwaan. "Depending on crop type we reach out to different vendors to get the best variety of seeds to have high-quality produce for our consumers."

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Nutraceuticals
Under their nutraceutical vertical, Simply Fresh grows varieties of medicinal plants. "These have three times more alkaloid content than field grown plants, and serve as raw material for nutraceutical companies", Sachin explains. "The choice to grow these has been a successful move as we are able to provide medicinal plants which are traceable and with higher alkaloid content, which reduces the cost of extraction. Also, all our fresh produce and medicinal plants are safe, traceable and grown using sustainable farming techniques without any use of pesticides."

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It's been a bit of a pioneering project to grow those "non-traditional" greenhouse crops: "They are very challenging as globally there are not many growers who have grown this and can share best practices/knowledge on how to grow them and how they behave without soil", Sachin tells us.

Farm in A Box
Like any modern grower, Simply Fresh also makes use of AI, having implemented it in creating data points and making decisions on data points. "For example, we use AI in forecasting yield, predicting seeding charts, space utilisation, traceability, managing crop workflows and knowledge line."

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The Farm in A Box (FiAB) platform, developed by the grower, plays a central role in this strategy. "It helps us track everything from the very initial stage of sending, plant profiling, monitoring plant health and nutrient level requirement at each stage of the plant growth.

"We also use the same FiAB platform to plan and forecast the yield required for future and for our internal CRM management, to collect and process orders received from different vendors from various cities."

The company is constantly developing the platform, and in future FiAB may become available for other growers to use as well.

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That's not the only thing they have in store for the future: Simply Fresh will be further expanding, growing to 40 acres on their current site in Phase 2 of the expansion.

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For more information:
Simply Fresh
www.simplyfresh.co.in

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Publication date: Wed 22 Jul 2020
Author: Jan Jacob Mekes
© HortiDaily.com