The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it will conduct targeted sampling of leafy greens as part of the Leafy Greens STEC Action Plan (LGAP). The agency also provided updates on the progress of LGAP and a summary report of a 2021 sampling assignment.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has summarized its investigations of possible multistate outbreaks caused by Salmonella, Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC), and Listeria monocytogenes in 2017–2020.
The food industry recognizes that consumers provide a very high level of fitness-for-purpose testing when they use products. Some shrinkage is, of course, involved in this process, but this consumer sampling will always reach beyond what is possible for a manufacturer. Instead, manufacturers make a more careful study of samples that are expected to be representative of what is delivered to the consumer. The selection of these samples, including the common misconceptions around the sampling of leafy greens, is the focus of this article.
The controlled environment agriculture (CEA) Food Safety Coalition recently announced the first-ever food safety certification program specifically for leafy greens grown indoors.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released a report on the investigation into the Fall 2020 outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 illnesses, which was linked to the consumption of leafy greens.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently released a statement saying that its investigation into the 2020 outbreak of Escherichia coli O157:H7 tied to leafy greens found that cattle grazing on lands near leafy greens fields could have increased the risk of product contamination.
