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Food Safety on U-Pick Farms
55 Plays4 years ago
This episode features Barb Roth, owner of Red Barn Market in Lowell Michigan, and Mariel Borgman, Community Food Systems Educator with MSU Extension. They discuss various food safety risks on U-Pick farms and how you can mitigate them.
Resources:
Contact your local Produce Safety Technician
Michigan Agritourism Association
Worker Training Resources and Templates
Funding for this podcast was made possible in part by the Food and Drug Administration through grant PAR-16-137. The views expressed in the posted materials do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department of Health and Human Services, nor does any mention of trade names, commercial practices or organization imply endorsement by the United States Government.
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Transcript
Introduction to Produce Safety Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the Aggravant Safety Produce Bites Podcast, where we discuss all things produce safety and dive into the rules and regulations surrounding the Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rule.
Challenges at Red Barn Market
00:00:14
Speaker
I am Barb Roth. I own Red Barn Market in Lowell, Michigan, and we've got a little bit of You Pick Apples. We're actually on a pause right now. We lost our
00:00:26
Speaker
um, block that we had for the last few years, um, that we've got baby trees in the ground. So we have a prime opportunity to educate our guests on what to expect when that comes into play. We also do you pick pumpkins. Um, but I feel like we don't have quite as many sanitary issues with you pick pumpkins as we do with apples. So yeah.
Insights from Community Food Systems Educator
00:00:48
Speaker
And I'm Mariel Borgman. I'm a community food systems educator with MSU extension.
00:00:53
Speaker
And I have a lot of experience in going to Yupik Farms to take advantage of all the goodies there. That's one of my favorite things to do in the summer and fall in Michigan. And I also work with a lot of Yupik Farms in various ways, but particularly in some of my farm marketing work. I work on the farm marketing track for the Great Lakes Expo, and we have a lot of Yupik Farms that come and take advantage of that education.
00:01:21
Speaker
So
Importance of Handwashing at Yupik Farms
00:01:22
Speaker
it's fun. I love you picks. So Barb, when should visitors wash their hands when they come to a Yupik farm? Before they pick. So we should really think about anything that you're putting your hands on and then is going into potentially your mouth or someone else's mouth. You should wash your hands before you're touching that. So.
00:01:43
Speaker
Um, if you happen to visit a farm that has, um, a petting farm, you would want to wash your hands before and after visiting the animals and obviously before going into the U pick. And then if you sneeze, wash your hands and before you eat and whatnot. Just wash your hands
Facilities and Crowd Control on Farms
00:02:00
Speaker
all the time. It's common kindergarten stuff. That's so important. Yes. Yeah. So when we talk about.
00:02:11
Speaker
you know, welcoming guests to the farm for you pick. We want them to wash their hands before they pick produce, after handling animals, after using the bathroom. So making sure that your restroom and hand washing stations are nearby. Obviously you don't want, if you have like portable toilets, you don't want them to be really close to the food production areas, but you do want them to be close enough that folks can walk to them really easily.
00:02:37
Speaker
in making sure that they're well labeled and that people know where they are upon arriving at the farm. It's important to have good signage, not only like letting people know where the restrooms are, but also reminding them to wash their hands. And so the hand washing stations should accompany the restrooms, but it also might be a good idea to have some extra hand washing stations in those areas where you want them to wash their hands. So maybe having one set up
00:03:03
Speaker
near the Yupik area in your field, maybe having one near the animals if you have animals that that gas could interact with. So kind of thinking strategically about where people are going to be moving around the farm and how quickly they'd be able to access a restroom and or a hand washing facility. So what would be other food safety risks specific to a Yupik farm?
00:03:31
Speaker
Yeah, well, one of the things that comes to mind is kind of crowd control and how the people move through your farm, especially if you're not just a Yupik farm, but you're also growing product that is going to be sold somewhere else. It's important to kind of make sure that people aren't walking through those areas where you don't want them to be walking because they could potentially be tracking.
00:03:56
Speaker
contamination or even picking fruit that they're not supposed to be picking. So I think it's not only a food safety risk, but it's also a risk to your business. So making sure it's really clear where people are allowed to go on the farm and where they're not allowed to go is one of the things that comes to mind. What about you?
Monitoring Visitor Health
00:04:14
Speaker
I mean, I just I think making sure that you're washing your hands making especially after you have been potentially in the barnyard or use restroom and then making sure that if you have been in the barnyard, some farms let you go in with the animals.
00:04:30
Speaker
Um, making sure that you, um, you know, kind of watch where you're walking cause you're not tracking potentially tracking that into areas of you pick. Um, I would say, um, probably choose to you pick first and then visit animals. That might be a better direction of traffic flow for that. Um, but really, uh, you know, the biggest things are just making sure that customers are washing hands and, um,
00:04:55
Speaker
not coming sick. Yeah, so definitely it's important to kind of monitor to make sure people aren't coming to the farm sick. You would hope that people would, you know, not come to the farm sick and you can do your best to keep them from getting there by having signage and things on your website that say, please don't come when you're sick, but people will come. And so training
Contamination Risks of Dropped Produce
00:05:18
Speaker
staff to look out for people that might look pale or clammy, that could be a sign that they're
00:05:25
Speaker
feeling nauseous or if they're going to the bathroom quite a lot, that also might be a sign that they're suffering from vomiting or diarrhea. These are the kinds of things you'll want to look for.
00:05:38
Speaker
It's tough to have to ask someone to leave, but we definitely don't want folks to be spreading germs, especially foodborne illness germs. So anything that might indicate nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, jaundice, those types of things are what we're looking out for. Right. Back to kindergarten basics. Exactly. Okay. So what if I'm picking apples and I drop one on the ground? Can I take that one home?
00:06:07
Speaker
What are the risks of doing that? Well, the risks are that whatever bacteria is, whatever junk is on the ground can get on that produce and then get in with the fresh picked produce that you have. So the recommendation would be that if you drop it on the ground, you leave it on the ground. So should visitors be eating or drinking in the U-pick?
00:06:32
Speaker
No, and this is so hard because when you're out there picking all that tasty food, all you want to do is take a snack. And really, it's important for visitors to not eat or drink in the fields. That is something that we talk about with workers and farms all the time is having designated eating and drinking areas. We don't want to introduce any potential.
00:06:56
Speaker
food safety risks by having people eat and drink in the field. So having designated picnicking areas for families is really important because people are going to want to come and experience the day at the farm and they want to try those things that they just picked. And it's really important that they're keeping their hands clean by not putting their hands in their mouth full of berries. So making sure that people are aware that
00:07:20
Speaker
We shouldn't
Preventing Contamination with Provided Containers
00:07:21
Speaker
be eating in the field and giving them that designated space for them to take advantage of that food. Can visitors bring their own containers or is it best for the farm to provide containers for them to pick into? The farm will most likely be providing containers. Typically you want to leave your own things at home and use the containers that are designated for the produce that you're picking. And then bringing things from home can introduce things into
00:07:49
Speaker
the orchards or berry patches that maybe we don't want in there. So I
Effective Communication of Farm Rules
00:07:55
Speaker
would definitely lean towards the farm supplying the containers. So how do you best inform visitors of your farm policies? How do you let them know what's expected of them when they arrive? So we have information on our website. We frequently post information on social media, and then we do have a list of farm rules
00:08:19
Speaker
UPIC rules, barnyard rules, and such. So the gist of it is that we do have a printed list of this is what we expect in our UPIC area. And then we reiterate with, there is no eating, drinking, smoking, pets, or potty in the orchard. So I'm pleased to not do those things. But then we also have, we've got a list of rules for our barnyard area as well, which
00:08:48
Speaker
involve food safety and just safety in general. So just having signage and talking about it a lot. Yeah, I think some of the best practices when it comes to putting up signage for visitors on your farm are including things in really simple language. You know, kind of think about
00:09:11
Speaker
putting it at an elementary school reading level, really simple, not a whole lot of text, incorporating pictures. Pictures can be super helpful in diagrams of the behavior you'd like to see because you make it.
00:09:28
Speaker
folks visiting your firm that don't speak English or it's not their first language. And so if you have more graphics, it's easier. You don't have to actually
Role of Educated Staffing
00:09:38
Speaker
have a written language to explain some of the things that you're trying to get across, but you may consider having science in some of the more common other languages that folks speak in Michigan, such as Spanish, just to ensure that folks are reading and understanding those policies really well.
00:09:54
Speaker
And also, you know, think about the fact that a lot of times in you pick operations, you have families coming with young children. And so you want the kids to be able to easily read and understand those signs as well. So yeah, also putting them in areas where they're likely to be needing to do that behavior. So, you know, hand washing signs right next to the sinks and in the bathrooms and, you know, animal policies right in the animal barn.
00:10:21
Speaker
So putting them in those spaces as an extra reminder in addition to all the things that Barb shared, like trying to get them that information in advance and then reinforcing it with signage. So how do you enforce all these policies? It's a lot for people to take in and they're coming to have fun, to have a good time. So how do you make sure that they're following the rules? I will say sometimes you pick your battles.
00:10:47
Speaker
but staffing, you have to have staff and your staff has to be educated. Especially if you have something that's out of the line of sight of your regular area or your most staffed area. For instance, our Yupik pumpkins are at the back of our property and people get to wander back there on their own.
00:11:11
Speaker
which will kind of be the same when we reopen our you pick apples. So it will be really vital that we have staff back there that is encouraging customers to make sure that they, you know, did you have a chance to see our you pick rules or did you have a chance to see how you pick an apple, and then it's easy to
00:11:31
Speaker
incorporate the teaching them how they're going to pick their produce right into the food safety side of things too without really being a killjoy because you're right they're here to have fun and if all you're doing is throwing rules and rules and rules at them they're like oh I just want to come and you know pick some produce and have a nice time but I think just having some educated employees that are out and about and able to just kind of redirect
00:11:59
Speaker
Behavior that to what we want them to do So when you see kids pulling apples off the tree and dropping them on the ground say oh Let's put them right into your bag and leave the ones on the ground and we'll you know Let's pick a new one off the tree and then on the same side of it as a business owner You don't want them throwing apples on the ground or throwing the produce on the ground because then you're not selling that so there's kind of two sides to that coin is teaching them, you know, like be careful about how your
00:12:27
Speaker
picking and
Safety Resources for Farms
00:12:28
Speaker
so that you're doing it correctly so that you can get it into the container that the farm has provided for you so that everybody wins. So yeah, great answer. Bottom line. So what resources are out there for you pick farms to help them to develop and implement food safety plans?
00:12:53
Speaker
Yeah. So one that I always recommend is meeting with your local produce safety technician. They can help you walk through all of, uh, all the different, uh, aspects of your farm with you and help you to write that food safety plan. And then they'll also kind of help with that implementation as well. So always, always, always recommend them as a resource because it's free and confidential and they're awesome people to work with. So definitely reach out to them.
00:13:21
Speaker
We also have resources within MSU Extension. We have lots of templates and examples of things that folks can just download and be able to use right away on their farm for worker training, for signage, lots of resources there on our website as well.
00:13:40
Speaker
I would go ahead and plug Michigan Agritourism Association. So all of you, you pick farms that might be hearing this. I encourage you to join if you have not. There's just incredible resources in there as well that can help you just, you know, when you have questions or struggling or you want to share your wins, we're the family to share that in.
00:14:05
Speaker
Links
Conclusion and Resource Links
00:14:06
Speaker
to anything referenced in this episode are provided in our show notes, which can be accessed on the website at canr.msu.edu slash agri-food underscore safety. Thank you to everyone for listening and don't forget to tune in next month for another episode of our Produce Bites podcast.