Introduction to Agri-Food Safety Produce Bites
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Hello, and welcome to the Agri-Food 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. Hi, my name is Micah Hutchison. I am the produce safety technician with the Genesee Conservation District, and I work with growers in Southeast Michigan on the on-farm implementation of the FSMA Produce Safety Rule.
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And I'm Morgan Anderson, like Micah, I'm a produce safety technician, but based out of the Ottawa Conservation District. So I'm focused more in the Grand Rapids, Lansing area.
Meet Simon Yevselman: Leader in Food Safety
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Hello, my name is Simon Yevselman. I am leader of food safety and compliance at Planta Detroit. Planta Detroit is a vertical controlled environment agriculture facility, growing leafy greens, micro greens and herbs on the east side of Detroit.
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participants in the produce safety readiness assessment, and really eager to have this conversation.
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Hi, my name is Elizabeth Visser. Most folks call me Liz. I manage the Blandford Nature Center farm on the west side of Grand Rapids. It's a non-profit in the area here. I manage two and a half acres and we have a wide array of various annual vegetables and herbs and flowers. We have a CSA program as well as attend a farmers market in the area, the Fulton Street farmers market. And we also offer
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range of educational and community programming related to agriculture in some aspects, but also so other of my co-workers will offer programming to school groups and more related to the ecology of the area.
Understanding Produce Safety Risk Assessment
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Michael, would you like to start us out with talking about what is the produce safety risk assessment and how that ties into the program and how farmers like Liz and Simon participate?
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A produce safety risk assessment is an assessment tool for technicians and growers to work through together to identify any risks in their growing, harvesting, packing, storage, and transportation activities on the farm. Any farmer can participate. This is open to all Michigan produce growers. It is free, voluntary, and confidential.
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and you can participate by contacting your local conservation district or produce safety technician. There is a map available at MDARD's website as well as at our website, which is miofps.org.
Earning a Produce Safety Certificate
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So Morgan, can you tell me what the steps are to earning a certificate?
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Yeah, you go through the Produce Safety Risk Assessment, which is kind of going through this checklist, but it's not really, it's more than a checklist. You're walking on a farm and assessing any risk a farm may have on site. And then once you go through that assessment, you kind of identify the next steps of what the farm can take to make sure that they're hitting, dotting all their I's, crossing all their T's when it comes to food safety.
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And then when you complete the action plan, the farmer completes it. They reach back out to the technician. They make sure everything is good. Their food safety plan is written and up to date. And then they send it off to the powers that be at the Michigan Department of Agriculture and they kind of review this whole application of
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food safety plan what the farm is doing to ensure that they're selling safe produce to their community and they accept them or they come back with a little bit of feedback of what they can change and we send it back and we'll have a dialogue there with the farmer and then after that final approval then they get a certificate of a produce safety participating farm and that kind of hops into the farm logo that's a benefit of getting certificates other than
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Having this piece of paper on the farm wall somewhere, there's also a farm logo. Farms can utilize in marketing or at point of sale.
Certification Timeline: How Long Does it Take?
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But I'm also curious, Micah, how long does it usually take, do you think, for a farm to earn a certificate? I think that depends a lot on the farm. I've worked with farms that have taken probably around two months to get their certificate.
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but throughout my experience, it seems to take more around a year. What about you, Morgan?
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Well, to be honest, Liz is the only one I've worked with so far that, cause I'm relatively new to the physician. And I was on the tail end of Liz's, um, experience with the program. And that took still at least a couple of months to get the actual certificate. Um, but I'm curious, Liz, before I came into picture, how long was that process for you of doing the risk assessment, the action plan, the food safety plan development, et cetera?
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So the whole thing took six to eight months or so, but after I had the walkthrough with the previous technician and had the checklist of things to take care of, it happened like within a couple of months. But then there was a transition, and so I don't know if my experience would be the same as everybody else's because
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the staff transition definitely made things take a lot longer. But yeah, it was pretty straightforward and the technician was very helpful with helping me to understand what exactly I needed to do and why I needed to do it. And I had a very comprehensive checklist to go through of minor things to tweak in order to be in compliance. So
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based on some of the systems that I have at a smaller scale. And because I sell to qualified end users and not at a large wholesale or like supplier with a third party involved, a lot of it was very straightforward for me. And Simon, how long did it take you? Our process was rather quick.
Quick Certification Success Story
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I'd say Micah, you were there. I will say we did have the benefit of
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already being a licensed wholesale food processor through the state of Michigan and kind of already acting in compliance with FISMA. And if that's the case, you know, we had a brief call on the phone. Y'all came for a visit, walked around the farm, and I had my certificate a few days later. Oh, wow. Yeah, it's very farm specific. I'd say our farm has the benefit of
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having a dedicated position that I hold right now, which a lot of farms, you know, either the owners or the operators are taking on a lot of that compliance work themselves. And if you have, like you mentioned, many other farm tasks that need to get done before this, those are always going to take precedent. Yeah, I think that Simon hit something that really speaks to my experience as a technician. Any farms that have someone dedicated to on-farm produce safety and food safety,
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usually take a little bit less time to get their certificate. That makes sense, yeah. I feel like Liz has a hand in literally everything going on at the farm, so I can see why coordinating schedules would take a second because there's just so much going on. For sure.
Benefits of PSRA Participation
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So Morgan, what are the benefits to participating in a PSRA and having a logo?
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From my understanding, I think a lot of farmers like the benefit of using the logo because it shows their consumers that they're taking steps to give them safe produce. They're taking efforts and steps to make sure that what they're eating won't get them sick and that they care about the community they're feeding.
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And I think also having some marketing benefits of using it both digitally and on the product itself is kind of like that visible piece. So I'm similar to the Michigan Environmental Insurance Program MEAP. They have that huge sign in front of farms that say environmentally verified. And that's kind of a visual indicator to farmers and the public alike that they're taking steps for the environment. And so similar for
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the produce safety participating farm logo is just identifying that they're taking efforts to ensure safe produce. So I think that's a good thing for consumers to be aware about. So that's not something they're always thinking of that, you know, they heard you have to wash your produce and stuff, but sometimes even myself included, I wasn't always aware of all the risks that go into growing produce sometimes.
Displaying Your PSRA Logo
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Micah, I'm curious, I know there's like a application the farmers fill out once they receive their certificate of completion for the produce safety risk assessment, but from the regulatory side, where can they and where can they not display this logo? I haven't seen anything that says you cannot display it in certain places. But because it is a logo, it's probably most effective having it at this point of sales. So
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at your market stalls, on coolers, on your packaging. It's a great way to display to your consumer. It can be used beyond the farm. Any participating farmer can use the logo on apparel, letterhead, websites in any publications from the farm, and on any of their promotional item. Oh, they can use that in their apparel? That's fun. I didn't know that. But back to the, so once you
Using the Safety Logo for Marketing
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Simon and Liz, once you got that certificate, what has your experience been with the participating farm logo and how do you use it? So we do put the logo on our salad packaging and we hope it's going to signal to our customers that they're getting locally grown, safe and healthy greens every time.
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Uh, we do think that showing our customers our commitment to food safety is an effective marketing strategy. Um, and you know, of course this comes on the heels of leafy greens being one of the most commonly recalled, uh, food commodities. We know from surveying customers that one of our reasons they love our product is because it's quote unquote healthy. And they're likely thinking about nutrition when they use the term healthy, but we are thinking a lot about robust food safety practice as well.
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So we want to show them that through the logo, show them that our, our practices and marketing efforts are something that we're committed to. Have you ever had someone ask you about your produce shaky practices, like a consumer at the farmer's market or something? I'm curious. At the farmer's market, um, we do have those kinds of interactions often. I know we do have customers that reach out to us when they have specific, uh, dietary, um, you know, obligations.
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because a lot of times, you know, they want to keep leafy greens in their diet, but they're concerned about the source. You know, MDART has been a key in finding kind of the last two big leafy green outbreaks. So you guys are aware of how big of an issue it can be.
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What about you, Liz? I'm curious what your experience with the certificate has been because I know you received it somewhat recently in the past year. Yeah, it is on Blandford Nature Center's website on the page about the farm. I'm going to be replacing my market banner at some point this year. I think it has a little bit of life left in it yet, but when I replace my market banner, I am going to be having all of my certifications next to our farm name and address.
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that would be the on-farm safety review, as well as the Meep logo and the certified naturally grown logo. I think it's a really good way to stay accountable to customers. And so I believe it was Micah who was saying that having it by your point of sale is a really good way to use it. And so that's how I plan to use it as soon as I need to replace my banner.
Advice for Growers on PSRA Participation
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And then lastly, Simon, Liz, and Micah, do any of you have any advice for growers in participating in the PSRA or the food safety programs in general? I think my advice, like sometimes it can feel a little intimidating to have someone come on site and review your processes with a critical eye, but it does really feel like they're there to help and to help guide you in the right direction and it's
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definitely helps to do your due diligence to stay accountable to customers. So I think about the process. I encourage people to see it as a resource as opposed to something that's intimidating. And I think in general, the FSMA requirements are there to help prevent
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uh, you know, any sort of E. coli outbreak or other kinds of contamination in the food system. And so it's definitely worth it to create systems that are in alignment with it. And even if it takes up some work in the beginning end of that process, it'll be definitely worth it in the long run. For sure. I agree with that answer. And Simon, how about you?
Intent and Support of Produce Safety Rule
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Yeah, I agree entirely. Um, I think it was important. What was just mentioned is the intent of the produce safety rule.
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Of course, regulations in one form or another can be viewed as a detriment by business owners, especially farm owners. But what's important to look at is the intent. And of course, the intent is to keep consumers safe. The law is written with good science, and it's really important to tap into the resources that our state is providing to fill those knowledge gaps and really ease the process.
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Change is always hard in any facet of life, but once that change is there, change in process, improvement of process is established, things actually become a lot easier and you'll probably sleep a lot better knowing that you've had somebody with particular expertise help bolster your processes and your food safety. I agree.
Role of Technicians in Produce Safety
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you mentioned tapping into the resources and Liz saying you know having that wall that's really helpful and the intent is there sometimes it's still intimidating and using us as the technicians to navigate that that's what we're here for so i appreciate you guys's answers and for participating in the prototype program using that logo um because not only does it show your guys's efforts but also shows our efforts and the state's efforts to
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ensure safe produce in our communities. So thank you both so much for joining me and a crazy planting season. Well, I guess, Simon, you're all year round, but still, thank you so much, both of you. It's my pleasure, really, anything I can do to support the great work that MDAR and the state of Michigan are doing to support growers. I'm happy to. So thank you for having me. Yeah, thanks for having me on as well.
Podcast Conclusion and Resources
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Links to anything referenced in this episode are provided in our show notes, which can be accessed on the website at c-a-n-r dot m-s-u dot e-d-u 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.