After 16 years as the staff lead for the Center for Produce Safety (CPS), Bonnie Fernandez-Fenaroli will be leaving the organization in mid-2025. She has served as the CPS Executive Director since 2008, guiding the nonprofit as it invested more than $46 million to fund produce safety research.

CPS Board Chair Joe Pezzini, Senior Director of Agricultural Operations at Taylor Farms, said details about the search for a new executive director will be forthcoming, but for now, he wants to honor and thank Ms. Fernandez-Fenaroli for the impact her leadership has made on produce safety. “Bonnie has led the effort to make food safety research something relevant with critical importance, thus having a profound effect on the nation’s food supply, he said. “[Under her leadership] CPS has raised the bar on produce safety knowledge.”

Ms. Fernandez-Fenaroli looks to the next five years of CPS’ work with excitement. “I look forward to seeing how the board, the Technical Committee, and the new Executive Director accelerate the work of CPS,” she said. “I am not much for looking in the rearview mirror, but when I do look back at how much CPS has accomplished since 2008, I’m beyond confident that the future will bring more ground-breaking research and practical solutions that will fuel the change needed to enhance produce safety even further.”

To learn more about CPS-funded research, read an overview of 14 new research projects commencing in January 2025, totaling $3.3 million in grants facilitated by the organization.