January/February 2023 - 24

CPS
WWW.CENTERFORPRODUCESAFETY.ORG
3 produce safety research projects
to pay attention to in 2023
McEntire Produce
By Alexandra
Belias, Ph.D.
McEntire Products
Inc., for CPS
Inc. looks at fresh
produce food safety
through the lens of a
family-run business:
Are we comfortable
feeding our products to
our friends and family?
We use this question to
drive our produce safety
programs ― from good
agricultural, harvest
and manufacturing practices, to proper
cleaning and sanitation procedures, to
validating and verifying our programs
through environmental testing, product
testing and audits.
We ut i l ize on-farm vi sits and
autonomous data collection to verify our
growers are following our standards. For
example, we have installed sensors on
harvesters that record where, when and
for how long each harvester was cleaned.
This ensures all harvest equipment is
cleaned at the appropriate frequency.
While we are proud of our programs,
we always reserve the right to get better.
We acknowledge there's a lot we still
don't know, and we rely heavily on
Center for Produce Safety to help fill
those knowledge gaps. We attend CPS's
annual Research Symposium and review
research findings. And now I volunteer
on CPS's Technical Committee to help
guide the center's produce-focused
research program.
Fourteen new CPS-funded projects
have started in January. Here's how they
came about ― and three projects I find
particularly interesting.
Behind the research design curtain
In late 2021, CPS issued a detailed
request for research proposals to be
awarded in 2022 and to get underway
this year. That RFP was informed by
conversations among our committee
and industry, questions raised by recent
outbreaks, and ideas posed by industry,
24 JANUARY/ FEBRUARY 2 023
 CPS has funded several agricultural water research projects by University of Arizona's Channah Rock, Ph.D.,
including a 2019 rapid response project evaluating the potential role of ag water in harboring or transferring
pathogen contamination in leafy greens fields.
regulators and other stakeholders.
For example, the RFP called for
cyclospora research, driven partly by
a Food and Drug Administration action
plan calling for industry best practices,
identifying effective controls, research
specific to agricultural water, etc.
The RFP called for research to answer
produce safety questions across supply
chain sectors, such as: addressing risks
associated with growing produce adjacent
to animal operations or other foodborne
pathogen sources; and assessing food
safety threats posed to, or amplified by,
harvest equipment.
The RFP also called for commodityspecific
research, including pears, stone
fruit, avocados and leafy greens.
The Technical Committee worked
closely with researchers to refine their
initial proposals, so that final study
designs will yield best results for industry.
This includes connecting researchers
with industry support. Researchers
tell us this collaboration is valuable,
and unusual.
3 projects to watch
University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign's
Matthew Stasiewicz, Ph.D.,
is partnering with Cornell University's
Martin Wiedmann, Ph.D., to create a risk
assessment model across the leafy greens
supply chain. I am a big proponent of
models; as the saying goes, " all models
are wrong, but some are useful. " Their
work will generate a tool to help growers
and processors determine where along
their supply chain they should invest
their resources, to improve long-term
food safety and lower the risk of a
public health incident. This can help

http://WWW.CENTERFORPRODUCESAFETY.ORG

January/February 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of January/February 2023