Florida’s Abundance of Food Safety Initiatives

This effort resulted in Florida being the first state in the country to adopt a comprehensive food safety program with mandatory government inspection and audits for tomato handling, production, and packing. Tomato Good Agricultural Practices (T-GAPs) and Tomato Best Management Practices (T-BMPs) were adopted as state regulations, effective July 1, 2008.

Even with the recent release of FDA’s FSMA Produce Safety final rule (Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption), many of the requirements of T-GAPs are stricter than the rule, Dr. Danyluk points out.

Examples, she mentions, include the microbial water quality of water contacting the tomatoes (greater than 125 E. coli/100 milliliter geometric mean and greater than 410 E. coli/100 milliliter statistical threshold value in the produce rule, which differs from no detectable E. coli /100 milliliter in T-GAPs) and training (one-time Produce Safety Alliance [PAS] training for the produce rule compared to a requirement for annual training in T-GAPs).

“T-GAPs are just one example of Florida’s unique efforts to work with producers, not against, to help develop and implement equitable food safety rules,” Caime Mardenborough says. “This cooperative effort between the state and Florida’s tomato industry definitely enhances the safety of fresh tomatoes produced, packed, repacked, distributed and sold in Florida.”

Tomato Industry Food Safety Program

Highlights of the program include annual registration of all packers and repackers of tomatoes in Florida, which is facilitated by county extension offices; education, training courses, and workshops on food safety practices; regulatory inspections and audits by FDACS inspectors; and annual FDACS tomato packer/repacker permit application.

“Immediately following the release of the T-GAPs and T-BMPs rule, Florida successfully ran a GAPs program that trained over 1,400 produce growers and 90 percent of the tomato industry,” Dr. Danyluk relates. “This program then morphed into three offshoots, including a ‘Building Your Own Food Safety Manual’ workshop, run through our UF/Florida A & M University Small Farms Center, which is designed to get small farms growing any varieties of produce through a food safety audit. The second was a Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) class targeted at packinghouses that wouldn’t fit into traditional HACCP-like systems, but needed a HACCP certified individual to meet their audit requirements. The third is a one-day water workshop, focused on all on pre- and post-harvest water use, quality, and testing.”

“T-GAPs is a great example of how a Florida industry proactively dealt with a food safety problem,” Dr. Danyluk emphasizes “The program certainly makes us stand out from other states relative to food safety, protection, and defense initiatives, but it is not the only example of how we excel. For us in Florida, our many fresh market produce commodities benefit from our food safety focus, building upon the success we’ve had with our juice and seafood HACCP programs.”

One might say “Gator aid” abounds, since, from a training and education point of view, UF/IFAS has conducted numerous produce safety related trainings, starting a decade ago, Dr. Danyluk adds.

“Dr. Schneider and I serve as co-leaders for these programs, which cover basic food safety, biodefense (including recalls), GAPs, HACCP, and, most recently, FSMA requirements,” she says. “Specifically, we currently represent the Southern Training, Education, Extension, Outreach, and Technical Assistance Center to Enhance Produce Safety, which focuses on training, education, extension, outreach, and technical assistance to prepare the produce industry for FSMA Produce Safety rule and Preventive Controls for Human Food rule compliance.”

The Center was funded on Oct. 14, 2015 by USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture. This collaborative effort between USDA and FDA establishes a national coordination center and four regional centers. The Southern Regional Center was awarded to UF, which created a consortium of 13 southeastern states, one territory, and three non-government organizations.