Supermarket Perimeter - August 2019 - 61

Keeping an eye
on supply
WHILE RETAILERS can have a
direct hand in the safety of their
produce once it gets into their
hands, everything before that is
much more out of their control.
"Retailers should be broadly aware
of the details of their suppliers'
overall produce safety systems
under industry standards or
certiﬁcation bodies, as well as
compliance with whichever parts
of the Food Safety Modernization
Act rules apply to their operation," says Trevor Suslow, vice
president of food safety for
the Newark, Delaware-based
Produce Marketing Association.
Or - as Dave Corsi, vice president
of produce and ﬂoral for Rochester,
New York-based Wegmans Food
Markets says - trust by verify.
"Audits are a good ﬁrst step, but
face-to-face visits are important,"
he says. "We can't always see
the full picture from an audit."

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April Ward, marketing communications director for the California
Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement
in Sacramento, California, reiterates that it is important to buy
from produce companies who
are taking food safety precautions that start on the farm and
continue through harvest.
LGMA members are audited an
average of ﬁve times annually to
verify compliance with a set of
science-based food safety practices
that also meet and exceed FSMA's
Produce Safety Rule, Ward says.

3 TIPS FROM WEGMANS
Dave Corsi, vice president of produce and ﬂoral for Rochester, New York-based
Wegmans Food Markets and Chairman of the Center for Produce Safety, shares three
areas where retailers typically struggle with produce food safety.

Maintaining proper
temperature control
throughout the
supply/retail chain:
What tops the list
here is rejection of
product inbound to our
distribution centers.
There are no good
solutions yet for realtime - or GPS-type
- temperature devices
during transit of fresh
produce. As an example,
with product that has
traveled from the West
Coast to us in the East
Coast, there is nothing
worse than to reject
an entire load due to
temperature abuse. It's
very disruptive to the
business and causes loss
of product for the grower
or supplier. If we knew
when temperatures on a
truck were suspect during
transit, we can address
well before it arrives
inbound through real
time information.

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Fresh-cut production
instore: On the store
front, since we are heavy
producers of instore cut
products, that means we
have production facilities
in each store to sanitize
and wash product. This
is a large investment and
task, but it is a necessary
one.

Audits
are a good
ﬁrst step,
but faceto-face
visits are
important."
Dave Corsi,
Wegmans Food Markets  

Local sourcing:
We want to always have
proper food safety
practices applied with
every grower no matter
where it's sourced. And
since we source around
the world and around
the corner, we have
small growers near our
stores that service us
during their peak growing
season. I wouldn't say it's
a struggle, but again an
investment, by hosting in
each state we operate in a
food safety training session for our local, smaller
growers to educate them
on the latest developments around food safety
to assist them on their
farm. As an example,
there are many questions that small growers
have around FSMA.
They might not have
the resources that their
larger counterparts have
around this topic. That's
why each year in the off
season we host these
training sessions.

AUGUST 2019 - 61
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Supermarket Perimeter - August 2019

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