Dr. Doug Powell, who has made a career in food-safety
communications, says “producers of any food need to own their food safety.
“Don’t ask government to do it, don’t ask consumers to do
it: take care of things on your own end and good things will follow.”
He offers the advice leading into a website article about
food poisoning traced to melons.
He notes that in Rocky Ford, Colorado, it’s only after a
devastating outbreak of food poisonings that ended with at least 35 people dead
that producers have hired a food safety manager to monitor melon picking and to
change worker pay to hourly rates instead of melons picked.
They have also built a central packing shed where melons are
washed with soap and a chlorine oxide, then rinsed with well water tested for
contamination.
After being washed, the melons are cooled to reduce
condensation and then packed into boxes labeled with codes traceable to the
fields where the melons were grown.
The boxes are packed with slips that
interested shoppers can scan using a smartphone to read about where their
melons originated.
“These are on-farm food safety basics that should have been
undertaken years ago. There have been plenty of previous outbreaks,” writes
Powell on his Barfblog website.
This year there have been food poisonings traced to melons from
Indiana and North Carolina where inspectors found the melon field was a dump
that had not been checked out. The bacteria identified there is Listeria.
In Indiana it’s salmonella and two people have died and at
least 141 have been sickened.
