Eric Wilhelmsen Ph.D., CFS

Treating melons as food as soon as possible—even though they will be peeled—is needed to mitigate the risks associated with the three contamination mechanisms for cantaloupe. Zero risk is impossible, but can industry do better?

With a focus on fresh-cut produce in the U.S./North America, this article explores critical questions related to the improvement and modernization of the microbial outbreak investigation process.

This article examines FDA's investigation of the 2022 regional outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium on cantaloupe from the Southwest Indiana growing region, which caused 87 reported illnesses and 32 hospitalizations between July and September of that year, and discusses several themes and conclusions related to the outbreak, such as how "business as usual" will continue to produce the same results.

Some will argue that more sensitive methods are needed to drive change. This is a reasonable argument, but it misses the underlying problem of defining the mission before implementing a sampling and testing program.

The questions about the safety of controlled environment agriculture (CEA) are complicated. This article outlines why CEA safety depends on understanding and properly addressing the challenges of combining agricultural and ready-to-eat (RTE) into a single facility. It also addresses why CEA is not inherently safe. Ultimately, this article will show how the risk profile of CEA must be compared to that of other RTE produce and that there is no universal answer to the question of CEA safety.

Recent flooding in California included many ranches in the Salinas Valley, which grow leafy greens and other crops. Floodwaters have the potential to contain various pathogens that can directly cross-contaminate future product grown in those fields, as well as nearby fields. Bringing land back into production is an area of great concern.

A pervasive trend exists to take larger and more frequent samples to address microbial contamination. This trend has touched almonds and is expected to hit other nut products, which can be considered for aggregated sampling as a solution.

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. 

Sanitizer level control is required in many systems where sanitizers are used to control microbiological growth, avoid cross-contamination, or sanitize as part of a HACCP plan.