The FDA announced yesterday that it will begin a multi-year Tomato Safety Initiative to reduce the incidence of tomato-related foodborne illness in the United States. 

FDA investigators in coordination with their respective state counterparts will visit tomato farms and packing facilities in Florida and Virginia to assess food safety practices and use of Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs).

It’s clear that the FDA thinks, as do I, that  the produce industry must do more to ensure that everyone from farm-to-fork recognizes food safety risks and take concrete actions to reduce the risks of dangerous microorganisms. And in the absence of verification from within, government is stepping in.

Regulators and the industry in the past have have released food safety guidelines for tomatoes, but there is a lack of verification; it is unclear if all growers are actually following the guidelines. The FDA announcement is a good step, but the industry should have been able to do this themselves.

Guidelines are a first step, but we need more creative ways to compel everyone, from the person harvesting to the person distributing, to take food safety seriously, even in the absence of an outbreak.

A list of North American tomato outbreaks can be found here.

Check out our papers below:

Luedtke, A., Chapman, B. and Powell, D.A. 2003. Implementation and analysis of an on-farm food safety program for the production of greenhouse vegetables. Journal of Food Protection. 66:485-489.

Powell, D.A., Bobadilla-Ruiz, M., Whitfield, A. Griffiths, M.G.. and Luedtke, A. 2002. Development, implementation and analysis of an on-farm food safety program for the production of greenhouse vegetables in Ontario, Canada. Journal of Food Protection. 65: 918- 923.

We also published a book chapter entitled Implementing On-Farm Food Safety Programs in Fruit and Vegetable Cultivation, in the recently published, Improving the Safety of Fresh Fruit and Vegetables