Wegmans Requires Produce Suppliers to Follow Best Food Safety Practices
Wegmans Food Markets — a Rochester, NY-based supermarket chain with 82 stores located throughout the Northeast — announced this week that effective September 30, the chain will require all growers that furnish fresh produce to Wegmans to show they’ve passed a “Good Agricultural Practices” (GAPs) inspection.
Wegmans actually began phasing in this requirement in 2008, first for growers of crops thought to be high-risk, such as spinach or melons that had been linked to past outbreaks of illness. Over the next several years, Wegmans expanded the requirement to apply to more kinds of fresh produce, and alerted farmers that the company would eventually require all of its produce partners to pass a GAPs audit.