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Cyclospora, Summer Surprises, and Safe Produce with Bryan Brady
33 Plays4 hours ago
On this episode of Hort Culture, Ray, Alexis, Jessica, and Brett chat with Bryan Brady, Senior Extension Associate for Cultivate Kentucky, about everything from summertime Kentucky heat to the less-than-glamorous world of food safety and produce outbreaks. They dive deep into the biology of resilient microscopic parasites like Cyclospora, why standard wash water sanitizers can accidentally spread trouble across large batches of shredded lettuce, and how the lengthy incubation period makes these outbreaks so tough to trace. The crew also explores the intricacies of agricultural water risks, third-party GAP audits, and why buying local helps keep supply chains short and manageable compared to massive commercial operations.
Kentucky Hort Council Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs)
Kentucky Hort Council GAP Cost-Share Program
Bryan Brady, Cultivate Kentucky Senior Extension Associate
The Kentucky Produce Safety Program
Questions/Comments/Feedback/Suggestions for Topics: hortculturepodcast@gmail.com
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Transcript
Summer Vibes and Artistic Inspirations
00:00:16
Alexis
Hi friends, how we feeling today?
00:00:19
Plant People
Feeling like summer still in Kentucky. So, I mean, that's not a bad thing.
00:00:22
Alexis
Feels like summer.
00:00:23
Jessica
Yeah, feels good.
00:00:24
Plant People
Summer. I mean, I'll be complaining about winter. So I don't know what makes me have fall makes me happy. Okay.
00:00:30
Brett
Ooh, can I ask you guys some questions?
00:00:31
Plant People
That's 70.
00:00:31
Brett
Can I ask you the questions about summer?
00:00:32
Plant People
Oh, you need to.
00:00:33
Brett
It's specifically what you're saying or like about, so I'm, I've recently gotten into some drawing and that kind of stuff and like trying to represent doing some expressive things.
00:00:34
Alexis
Yeah.
00:00:35
Plant People
Okay.
00:00:35
Jessica
Okay, go for it.
00:00:37
Alexis
Okay. Okay.
00:00:41
Plant People
Yeah. You done some couple of cool ones for, yeah. You show me.
00:00:44
Brett
What for you all, and this is, i am putting broad category. doesn't have to be plants. It doesn't have to be natural. Can be, are the quintessential imageries
Quintessential Summer Imagery
00:00:56
Brett
of summertime?
00:00:58
Plant People
Hmm.
00:00:59
Jessica
Thank you.
00:01:00
Alexis
imageries of summertime.
00:01:01
Plant People
Imagery, like mind's eye when you think of summer kind of things.
00:01:05
Brett
Yeah.
00:01:06
Plant People
ah The heat coming off of like, I think of but ah tobacco field. We actually manually hold out tobacco fields back in the day. 103 degrees, and I would look down that long, those long rows of tobacco that I still had to chop out the weeds of, and just seeing heat signatures coming from the ground looking like Mars.
00:01:20
Brett
Long road to hoe.
00:01:25
Plant People
And I'm like, just melting, just melting out in the sun.
00:01:30
Brett
Obviously, Ray is going to give an extremely Kentucky folksy answer that is amazing.
00:01:34
Plant People
Just, you just look out and it looks like a moonscape just with the heat, just doing that heat signature thing off the ground.
00:01:40
Brett
Yeah, I can feel it.
00:01:40
Plant People
Yes. Just summer in
Brian's Diverse Talents
00:01:42
Brett
I can smell it and feel it.
00:01:42
Plant People
Kentucky.
00:01:43
Plant People
Summer in Oh, yeah, yeah. Everybody else is like, hmm, free to answer that one.
00:01:51
Bryan
I'm from the beach, so it's hard to not think about summer and how everything changed. I'm from Virginia Beach, and so it's kind of the way the the beach fills up in the summertime and takes on life.
00:01:58
Plant People
Oh, yeah.
00:02:05
Plant People
I'd say that's pretty interesting in a tourism town like that.
00:02:05
Brett
Brian's a surfer.
00:02:06
Jessica
Oh.
00:02:06
Brett
Brian's a surfer. Did you guys know he's a surfer?
00:02:07
Plant People
wow.
00:02:08
Alexis
Ryan's a surfer?
00:02:08
Bryan
don't if you can say it currently is.
00:02:09
Jessica
That's cool.
00:02:10
Bryan
Yeah, could be.
00:02:11
Jessica
I want to be a surfer.
00:02:12
Bryan
this
00:02:13
Alexis
was at one time, can be again.
00:02:16
Bryan
yeah great
00:02:16
Plant People
I surf the internet.
00:02:16
Brett
Never.
00:02:17
Jessica
You have the skills, right?
00:02:17
Plant People
Does that count?
00:02:17
Alexis
You know, because Kentucky is really known for that.
00:02:19
Bryan
Yeah, i can surf.
00:02:19
Jessica
It's like riding a bike, right?
00:02:21
Bryan
surf is probably what we should leave that out right now.
00:02:25
Brett
Surfer.
00:02:25
Plant People
I can't even boogie board effectively.
00:02:25
Brett
He has you he has billabong hats. He's a surfer. Okay.
00:02:30
Plant People
Part of the club.
00:02:30
Brett
just Just embrace it.
00:02:30
Alexis
See, the thing, i Brian and I have been in each other's orbits for too long for me not to know that you were many multitudes.
00:02:36
Brett
It's because he contains multitudes because Brian's also a chef.
00:02:41
Alexis
I know, did know that. I did know that. Talent.
00:02:43
Bryan
See, that's it there's also like a discrepancy there where like you can't really be a chef unless you have like a crew that you're a chef.
00:02:43
Alexis
The talent.
00:02:44
Brett
It.
00:02:49
Brett
Gonna have to disagree, chef. Sorry.
00:02:51
Jessica
Hmm. Hmm.
00:02:52
Brett
Behind, chef. Behind.
00:02:53
Bryan
professionally Professionally trained.
00:02:54
Alexis
is that why Is that why you have so many children so that you can just have a crew just ingrained in the household?
00:02:58
Bryan
Yeah, right.
00:02:58
Brett
ah wait.
00:02:59
Plant People
Raise your crew.
00:02:59
Brett
I'm not supposed to contradict you.
00:03:00
Bryan
yeah
00:03:00
Brett
If you're the chef, I'm not supposed to contradict you in that. Sorry. So, yes, chef. Sorry.
00:03:04
Bryan
Professionally trained cook, I guess.
00:03:04
Alexis
you...
00:03:06
Bryan
I don't
00:03:07
Brett
Yeah. He he contains multiple, everybody, people think he's just the produce safety guy, which he is the a produce safety guy, but he's like, he's got a lot.
00:03:09
Alexis
would he
00:03:15
Brett
There's a, there's a lot of there that Brian is the reason, the reason that I got into baking bread and pizza.
00:03:16
Plant People
lot of depth, lot of depth.
00:03:21
Alexis
Aww.
00:03:23
Brett
He has been a co-fermenter of different products across time and interest in that kind of stuff.
00:03:27
Jessica
Aww.
00:03:28
Brett
So yeah, I, as a person with lots of other interests, game, respect game. And he's taught me a lot across time.
00:03:35
Bryan
Yeah.
00:03:37
Alexis
i I do remember having class with Brian as as a young child who knew nothing of the world. And remember hearing in like in you know those intro classes the first day, tell me about yourself, the icebreakers.
00:03:49
Alexis
And Brian saying he was a chef and then he was studying sustainable agriculture. And I i swear, I'm not making this up. I legitimately thought that was like the coolest thing I'd ever heard. I was like, he knows how to make the things. Now he's going to know grow the things.
00:04:00
Plant People
And grow the things.
00:04:00
Alexis
And to this day.
00:04:02
Plant People
And now he knows how to do it all
Cyclospora Outbreak and Challenges
00:04:04
Plant People
safely in between.
00:04:04
Alexis
And now he knows how to do it without...
00:04:05
Brett
yeah
00:04:06
Bryan
yeah
00:04:06
Plant People
and ah Yeah, I was going to say kind of sort of important.
00:04:07
Alexis
ah
00:04:07
Bryan
Yeah. Food safety is big in both of those realms.
00:04:11
Alexis
Yeah.
00:04:12
Jessica
It is. Yeah.
00:04:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:04:14
Alexis
I almost said now he knows how to not make people sick, but that's probably something you knew as a chef as well.
00:04:14
Plant People
Yeah.
00:04:20
Bryan
Let's hope. man
00:04:20
Jessica
I was thinking along the same lines, Alexis, and I was like, and now people are safe.
00:04:22
Plant People
Yeah.
00:04:22
Alexis
I was like, don't say that, Alexis. Don't say that.
00:04:25
Bryan
Yeah.
00:04:25
Plant People
Maybe rephrase that.
00:04:26
Bryan
Yeah.
00:04:26
Plant People
Maybe.
00:04:27
Brett
Well, that brings us to the the reason why we're here.
00:04:27
Plant People
i don't know.
00:04:27
Alexis
Yeah. Yeah.
00:04:31
Brett
Anybody who's been watching, yeah why and why we're here specifically with Brian.
00:04:32
Alexis
b Brian.
00:04:35
Jessica
Tone change there.
00:04:36
Brett
a So anybody who's been watching the news has maybe heard about some things with ah fruits and vegetables and the ways that it may or may not make you sick. Some of them that are out there floating around in the marketplace. There's a lot of um As you might imagine, Facebook is just rife with people just riffing about it from all different angles and all different.
00:05:00
Brett
It's become weirdly political in a way.
00:05:01
Alexis
With obviously very good information.
00:05:04
Brett
Yeah, a lot of citations needed.
00:05:05
Plant People
Absolutely.
00:05:06
Brett
um
00:05:07
Bryan
Impressive how many hidden cyclospora experts there were. Just waiting to bounce.
00:05:13
Plant People
I know. Who would have thought that?
00:05:13
Jessica
Right.
00:05:15
Plant People
Who would have thought that?
00:05:17
Bryan
Yeah.
00:05:17
Plant People
I thought it was only on Wikipedia, but oh no, not at all. Absolutely not at all.
00:05:22
Jessica
lots of Lots of talk around the water coolers at extension offices about what's going on.
00:05:27
Brett
Brian, what I mean, what's, yeah, what's, what's your take on, on this?
00:05:32
Bryan
um I think that, you know, but for lack of a better reason as to why this one seems to have taken on legs compared to some of the other recalls and some of the other outbreaks is probably the term explosive diarrhea.
00:05:46
Bryan
Yeah.
00:05:47
Plant People
Yes, that tends to be an attention grabber.
00:05:50
Bryan
yeah And, you know, the fact that it you know it's let it's it's become pretty obvious that it's in the supply chain of Taco Bell, which has always had this you know, yeah.
00:06:02
Plant People
That's fun to talk about that with him anyway. So, yeah.
00:06:05
Bryan
so
00:06:06
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:06:07
Bryan
yeah, I think um it's just grabbed a lot of people's attention. I think that it's likely that the numbers as well are way, way higher than what's reported in Michigan, which has much higher numbers than what's been reported by the CDC.
00:06:16
Alexis
yeah
00:06:22
Bryan
um You know, that's that's a big thing with with food safety outbreaks or human pathogen outbreaks through food is that it's grossly underreported. um If you don't go to the hospital, then they're it's very unlikely that it's going to get recorded.
00:06:38
Bryan
So, yeah, and it's it's just one of those that seems to... I think just kind of been showing a TED more often recently. ah we've We've seen cyclospora at this time of year. um So technically, you might have heard this, you know because I know there's been a lot of information around there, and everybody definitely knows more about it than they used to.
00:07:02
Bryan
ah But there is a season for it. um So it's essentially like May through August. It's like warm weather. um
00:07:10
Brett
So when I asked earlier about the imageries of summer, you should have said cyclospora.
00:07:15
Jessica
yeah
00:07:15
Plant People
that That would have been a good one, i yes.
00:07:16
Bryan
Yeah, it may become one.
00:07:17
Brett
Just explosions, not just fireworks, you know?
00:07:21
Plant People
Fourth of July.
00:07:23
Bryan
Yeah. So it's it's got some unique properties too, or or just some unique biology compared to other human pathogens. We're usually looking at like viruses and bacteria, e coli, salmonella, listeria, things like that. But this one's a microscopic parasite.
00:07:44
Bryan
And yeah, and it has ah some serious staying power.
00:07:44
Alexis
Ooh.
00:07:50
Bryan
It's got a oasis kind of shell that protects it um from desiccation, that protects it from, ah you know, one of the things I told you guys earlier that's very unique about it is the sanitizers that we use in wash water do not affect it at all.
00:08:07
Bryan
So chlorine doesn't affect it. ah Yeah, parasitic acid does not affect it.
00:08:09
Jessica
Wow.
00:08:13
Brett
So just
00:08:19
Bryan
Yeah. Yes.
00:08:23
Brett
basin full of water and you can add a sanitizer to it. And then people might dunk stuff in that in order to help sanitize, you know, you're not going to kill if it's, if it's really, really dirty, it's, but it's a, it's an extra step to help to sanitize that.
00:08:37
Brett
And, or you might have a wash line that's pushing water through and washing peppers or apples or whatever. And in that process, it will have a sanitizer in it. Is that what you're talking about Brian? and you're saying that sanitizer doesn't, doesn't kill it.
00:08:47
Bryan
yes Yeah. And that sanitizer really acts kind of in the same way that chlorine acts in a pool. It's not there killing you, but it is there to prevent anything that comes off of you. That's a human pathogen to getting on to somebody else.
00:09:02
Bryan
So if you've got one head of lettuce or 10 heads of lettuce, they're infected. It doesn't infect hundreds that go through there. um But in this case, ah that you know it does not reduce the amount of pathogen in the water or prevent it. And in fact, what it does is spread it all over everything.
00:09:21
Brett
Ooh.
00:09:21
Jessica
Wow. how
00:09:22
Brett
So if you're washing a washing lettuce and one of it had and it has cyclospora on it, the sanitizer won't kill it in the water and now your water is an inoculation bath.
00:09:22
Bryan
Yeah.
00:09:29
Bryan
Yes.
00:09:32
Bryan
Yeah, essentially. And, um, you know, there's a couple of other unique things about it are that it takes very little to, um, be infected.
00:09:43
Bryan
Um, so it could be a situation where small amounts, uh, can infect large amounts and then, uh, small amounts on produce can affect large amounts of people. Um, yeah. And it, uh,
00:10:00
Bryan
It is also uniquely um human host only.
Tracing Contamination and Irrigation Practices
00:10:07
Bryan
So if ah you've got cyclospora, then you're dealing somewhere along the line with human feces.
00:10:09
Jessica
That's interesting.
00:10:18
Bryan
So could be, you know.
00:10:20
Brett
As compared to like e coli or something like that, that can come from a cow or from a pig or whatever.
00:10:22
Bryan
Yes. Right. Exactly. Even like Giardia and Cryptosporidium, which are two of the other microscopic parasites that can be in water, untreated water. um This one specifically comes from humans, is hosted by humans only. So um that does give you, you know, when they're doing the investigations and traceback, it does give you an idea that human sewage is involved here somewhere.
00:10:54
Jessica
can yeah if Can you give us an example about like these investigations? I know there's some classic ones that we use when we do produce best practices training for farmers and growers of like – how How can these things have go from one farm, you know, so many miles away and then get, you know, get across the country and infect things like how, you know, i know we don't necessarily know the main source of this one yet, but how can this be traveling, you know, across or how do things, you know, get moved around?
00:11:20
Bryan
yeah
00:11:26
Bryan
yeah so t i would say take this as a hypothetical example because they don't completely know they have a pretty good idea of where it came from and how this happened um so let's say a farm um these these farms that grow hundreds of acres of lettuce usually use furrow irrigation which means they're filling the furrows in between the raised beds
00:11:31
Plant People
Thank you.
00:11:36
Jessica
Thank
00:11:43
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:11:46
Bryan
um with water they're trying to they generally are keeping it below that soil line where the lettuce is growing you know iceberg lettuce is growing pretty much directly on the ground and so that's how they are irrigating that water is surface water which is coming you know untreated water surface water definitely has issues with runoff um and And what we do when we test, unfortunately right now, what we do when we test irrigation water is we test for
00:12:19
Bryan
generic E. coli, and that acts as an indicator to how much fecal contamination ah there is in water, but excuse me it's specific to bacteria.
00:12:32
Bryan
So it doesn't necessarily, you could test excuse me relatively clean for E.
00:12:32
Alexis
Mm
00:12:38
Bryan
coli, but have no idea um, what the parasites are in there.
00:12:42
Alexis
hmm. Parasites.
00:12:43
Jessica
Right.
00:12:44
Bryan
And and and and to be fair, it is much more likely that there would be like Giardia or Cryptosporidium in there. Um,
00:12:50
Brett
And that's because the the water tests can be expensive. You're testing a lot in a lot of these systems. And so it's sort of an industry, it becomes an industry standard to test for this as a proxy for all the other things in the same way that ah ah having a fever is an indication there's something wrong with you.
00:12:59
Alexis
Mm hmm.
00:13:05
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:13:06
Brett
i mean, there's just, yeah so ah to be fair to you know people, why don't they test everything?
00:13:07
Bryan
Exactly.
00:13:11
Brett
What's because they're testing and getting a lot of negative tests all the time and that costs money and time and everything else.
00:13:12
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:13:17
Bryan
And I do think from that perspective as ah as a indicator of ah you know human pathogen, E. coli is great for that. And it does work for that. And that is very scientifically valid.
00:13:27
Brett
Thank you.
00:13:28
Bryan
I think the other end of it is if folks, if farms go on to treat that water, um for irrigation purposes, then they treat it usually with either chlorine or parasitic acid. And that specifically just kills the E. coli. So you get that E. coli number down, tests look good, good to go. However, you know, this, ah you know, we're, we're still with furrow irrigation. They're still using a best practice where the water is not supposed to get on the edible portion of the crowd.
00:14:02
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:14:02
Bryan
And so somewhere, somehow there was a breakdown of that ah in this process. And so one farm, a portion of you know one lot of lettuce gets picked and then shipped to a processing facility.
00:14:19
Bryan
And you'll notice a lot of these recalls with romaine and E. coli that are pretty common are almost always cut lettuce. um
00:14:25
Plant People
Yeah.
00:14:25
Brett
And again, this is a hypothetical example that sort of proves a point of how this might happen.
00:14:27
Bryan
Yes. Hypothetical. So this, yeah, this goes to this production facility.
00:14:29
Plant People
yeah
00:14:32
Bryan
It goes into, it gets shredded. Then it goes into their water, gets that triple wash you see on the bags. And that water for sure is treated with a sanitizer and is clean water.
00:14:45
Bryan
And also likely has, um you know, filtration on the front end. But the problem is, that that lettuce has it on it. So when it goes in that water and that sanitizer can affect it is now being spread amongst all of that shredded lettuce.
00:15:02
Bryan
It's getting packaged up and then it's being sent, you know, across the country to large food service vendors. I mean, we know that Taco Bell is likely,
00:15:14
Bryan
ah the source where people bought it and ate it.
00:15:15
Jessica
Thank you.
00:15:17
Bryan
um So yeah, the, the like Brett, like you said, you know, people might say, oh why aren't we testing for it now? We know it's happening more often. There's a season for it in the summer. Why don't we test then at least for it? ah Well, so, you know, I wasn't an expert on testing for,
00:15:36
Bryan
you know, cyclospora before this outbreak, but having looked into it and asked some questions about that, you've got to take a sample of like 10 liters of water ah to deliver.
00:15:40
Alexis
yeah
00:15:47
Brett
Oh, wow.
00:15:48
Bryan
They have to run it through filters and they have to actually use PCR ah identify it.
00:15:53
Plant People
Oh, wow.
00:15:54
Brett
Whoa.
00:15:55
Bryan
And that's why that test that came back false positive came back false positive because it's a very difficult test to then prove that cyclospora.
00:16:04
Brett
To have super conclusive result results.
00:16:06
Bryan
Right.
00:16:07
Brett
Yeah.
00:16:07
Bryan
um I did see, ah this is on the cutting edge of things, I saw that a professor at Purdue, a materials scientist, is ah trying to develop a test that's very similar to the COVID test.
00:16:17
Bryan
So it be a rapid test that would identify cyclospora.
00:16:19
Brett
Cool.
00:16:21
Bryan
So that'd be cool if we could get one of those. But yeah, it's um when you run into these large outbreaks, it's it very often involves a processing facility.
00:16:37
Bryan
And it's not necessarily that processing facility, again, that is causing the outbreak.
00:16:41
Brett
Mm-hmm.
00:16:43
Bryan
But it is the fact that all of it gets commingled, and all of it goes through that water, and all of it ends up with a little bit of cyclospora, and that's all it takes.
00:16:54
Bryan
And then to add to the difficulty with cyclospora is that it's got an incubation period of like seven plus days.
00:16:59
Plant People
was to say, yeah.
00:17:01
Bryan
So that's
00:17:02
Alexis
Oh, wow.
00:17:02
Jessica
Oh, wow.
00:17:02
Alexis
It's hard figure out.
00:17:02
Plant People
Really hard to track that back, isn't it?
00:17:03
Brett
what what does what does that What does that mean?
00:17:05
Plant People
Yeah.
00:17:05
Jessica
Yeah.
00:17:05
Bryan
What did you eat? ah I mean, could you guys list what you ate a week ago, two weeks ago?
00:17:08
Plant People
Yeah.
00:17:09
Bryan
Yeah.
Water Usage in Agriculture
00:17:10
Jessica
Oh, no.
00:17:10
Plant People
Last night, nope.
00:17:11
Brett
what does So when you when you say incubate, what does that mean?
00:17:12
Plant People
Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:14
Bryan
So if you consume the the product with cyclospora in it, then it will take at least seven days until you start to exhibit symptoms.
00:17:24
Brett
so you're not it's not like I ate it yesterday and I feel bad today or I ate it this morning and i feel bad this afternoon.
00:17:26
Bryan
Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:29
Brett
It's this it's a slingshot.
00:17:29
Alexis
No wonder it's so underreported because like you would never think it's food related because in, you know, most people's mind, my mind, if it's food related, it's within 24 hours.
00:17:32
Bryan
Yeah.
00:17:33
Plant People
Yeah.
00:17:36
Bryan
Right. Right.
00:17:39
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:17:39
Plant People
Yeah. You think about what you ate last night or the day of when it's really not the culprit, is it?
00:17:40
Jessica
right
00:17:45
Bryan
Yeah. And believe it or not, some of the, the you know, the really bad ones, Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria, Salmonella and E. coli have a shorter incubation period than that, but, but longer than you would think.
00:17:56
Bryan
So that is another reason why those are hard to trace back, but Listeria can be a month.
00:17:58
Plant People
Hmm.
00:18:00
Bryan
So that one is incredibly difficult to track, but yeah, that's something that's added to the time it's taken to kind of figure out where it's come from.
00:18:01
Alexis
What?
00:18:12
Plant People
Seems like with this, oh, go ahead, Brett.
00:18:12
Brett
Well, so, yo and no you go ahead. you good
00:18:15
Plant People
I was just going to say, and you know, thinking through in my mind, checking off like audit boxes in my brain, like pre and post processes. It seems like this is one of those bad actors, one of those bad guys, it being, you know, ah you know, microscopic parasite that really you would focus on your, the upfront kind of keeping it out of the food stream to begin with. Is that where it falls in the auditing process and thinking about these things? Because once it gets in there, it's in there, it sounds like.
00:18:43
Bryan
Yes. Yes, exactly. If you are, um you know, if you've adopted best practices to, um you know, as far as irrigation water is concerned, you are either using, you know, look, the majority of our farms, whether it's, you know, the greatest thing for them or not, are using municipal water to irrigate.
00:18:51
Jessica
Thank you.
00:19:06
Bryan
crops that are usually eaten raw. um And they are using drip irrigation, which is another best practice. So both where the water comes from and the delivery method are kind of the two main ways that ah too they're they're kind of categorized by risk.
00:19:13
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:19:22
Bryan
So low risk is municipal water. That medium risk is well water, which you know can can become contaminated, but much less less likely than surface water, which is almost certainly contaminated to a point, which is why we do
00:19:32
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:19:36
Bryan
if you're using surface water for irrigation so surface water is any water that's exposed to the air so it would be ponds it would be ah creeks streams rivers uh also if you use a rain barrel that's considered surface water because that's catching water off of a roof that's unprotected so that's all considered surface water um you know so
00:19:36
Brett
what What's surface water?
00:20:01
Bryan
what we try to work with growers to do that if you're if you're going to use the high risk source of the water, you use the lowest risk delivery of water. And so if you're using surface water and you're using drip irrigation, even drip irrigation under plastic even better, I know that's not an option for everybody, but then you're certainly reducing the risk.
00:20:22
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:20:23
Brett
yeah it seems It seems like generally speaking, water is is a big part of what you're talking.
00:20:27
Bryan
yeah
00:20:30
Brett
And and you were saying, i think you were saying earlier, you talked something about a pre or post or something like that. Can you talk, like, what does that mean?
00:20:37
Bryan
So pre-harvest, yeah, no, no, pre-harvest water is is anything before harvest.
00:20:38
Brett
Correct whatever I said. Yeah.
00:20:44
Bryan
it's yeah It's primarily irrigation, but it also is anything that's being sprayed, um which is why maybe you read a little bit about raspberries being a carrier of cyclospora, and you'd think, well, those don't get washed, and you know those likely those likely don't get overhead irrigation because of mold issues and
00:20:58
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:21:01
Alexis
Yeah.
Economic Pressures and Food Safety
00:21:05
Bryan
stuff like that.
00:21:05
Bryan
Well, they get sprayed lot.
00:21:07
Alexis
Huh.
00:21:08
Bryan
And they have those little hairs on them, those little track combs that grab onto everything. And so that's why that's a risk. So yeah, sprays are are one. And there are even some large operations that use water during harvest, particularly ice for like sweet corn harvest, broccoli harvest, things like that.
00:21:22
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:21:25
Bryan
And then post harvest water is really anything after the product's harvested. You're usually looking at a couple different types. um they're There's single pass water, which is like basically an overhead spray on root vegetables.
00:21:41
Bryan
um And then you mentioned earlier, like a basin, dunk water, that is you know usually to take field heat out, also to clean up greens and stuff. That's the one where you are going to want to use a sanitizer to protect any kind of cross-contamination.
00:21:58
Bryan
um And then there are some operations that have ah reused water where it is a system that's spraying water on top and then it's getting recycled and reused. And usually as that, you you're also the best practice and and likely they're large enough that they're actually required by law to have a sanitizer in that water that's being reused.
00:22:17
Bryan
um That's really rare, but the the two overhead and dunk washing are pretty common.
00:22:23
Brett
Yeah. I think one of the, again, people might be thinking in their minds, well, why don't you just hook it up to municipal water and use that for everything since it's treated and it's safe and everything.
00:22:33
Brett
And it comes, it keeps coming back to the the margins in this business. The amount of money that you can make growing produce is already so thin that if you start to add in having to buy water as opposed to use water that's there,
00:22:39
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:22:42
Bryan
Yes.
00:22:47
Brett
it gets really tricky. And like, it's the scale thing too. you know, people are imagining ah maybe a small field or something, but when you're talking about the volume that some of these operations are doing, they, they literally don't almost don't have an economic choice, but to use some of those types of runoff water and you can manage it.
00:23:03
Brett
But the unfortunate thing about food safety is like, you can be right 99.9% more percent of the time. And then when you're wrong, it can be bad.
00:23:14
Brett
And like Jess, you were saying about like, how does it end up,
00:23:14
Jessica
Thank you.
00:23:18
Brett
going from this one farm to all these other places.
Local Produce and Food Safety in Kentucky
00:23:20
Brett
It's this the big, the R word in agriculture of risk that like as you scale an operation, especially a distribution operation, you scale the like potential impact of the risk.
00:23:24
Bryan
Uh-huh.
00:23:24
Alexis
Yeah.
00:23:31
Brett
And I think something that's been kind of interesting to see I've seen it in the news. I've seen people the news agencies going out and interviewing some farms that we're big fans of here locally.
00:23:42
Brett
we have a network of price reporters and others that we work with that ah we've been talking to that we've seen this. I wish that it didn't require a global pandemic or a bunch of people getting sick from eating lettuce from somewhere else, but...
00:23:54
Bryan
Thanks.
00:23:57
Brett
this like surge in interest in, in sourcing products locally because the, they perceive the supply chain as being risky in one way or another, or maybe it's, you know, in the COVID it was a different thing too.
00:23:59
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:24:09
Brett
But I think that i I'm swinging back around to Brian, you, to me, you along with others have done more than, than just about anybody to help,
00:24:22
Brett
enhance the safety food safety of Kentucky food supplies, uh, produce supplies. And I I would be curious to hear maybe the, the elevator pitch of like how, and for those who don't know you, how, how and why you've done that, um, or not why you've done that, but look at things but like what that what that's looked like.
00:24:39
Alexis
I don't want to die.
00:24:40
Plant People
I like food, safe food. Yes.
00:24:42
Brett
Yeah.
00:24:42
Alexis
i don't want to die
00:24:44
Plant People
think yes
00:24:45
Brett
But also, um like, what what types of safeguards have you helped farmers put in place, you know, to to try to avoid this altogether?
00:24:56
Bryan
Sure. um So what my primary function is at the the Food Connection at UK is to help produce farmers access wholesale markets.
00:25:09
Bryan
And that primarily, you know, help them with all the certifications that they need in order to access wholesale markets.
00:25:14
Jessica
you
00:25:15
Bryan
And that primarily ah involves a third party food safety audit, which is known as a gap audit. Um, and so we, you know, what we do is we go out on farm and we help farms assess their risks. We go through and find their unique risks. And then we find ways for them to reduce those risks. There's no eliminating risk. Like there's always going to be risk, uh, when you're eating produce raw,
00:25:45
Bryan
And that is the unique thing about produce that makes it risky. ah
00:25:48
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:25:49
Bryan
you know There are other things that make it risky, but the ah the fact that lettuce, you're gonna eat lettuce and there's never gonna be a kill step, you're gonna be eating it raw is a risk in and of itself that you you're not gonna eliminate.
00:26:01
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:26:01
Bryan
So what we help farms do again is assess those risks and then depending on how they operate, for the most part, we help them reduce those risks within how they already operate.
00:26:14
Bryan
There are some situations where we advise them to do, you know, to change this, to change that.
00:26:18
Jessica
you
00:26:20
Bryan
Mostly it's retrofitting things that they already do. um And I will say that a lot of our farms that we work with are using municipal water to grow if they are growing.
00:26:30
Plant People
Uh-huh.
00:26:32
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:26:34
Bryan
They are doing that and it's simply an easier step for them. But that's not the case with everybody. But the ones ah you know, the ones that are using ah water that, you know, we have quite a few farms that use well water, um which is generally pretty safe. they They're testing that once a year, they're following the guidelines that are set forth by federal government.
00:26:58
Bryan
And they, you know, are testing it to make sure that that's not contaminated. But again, like we talked about the the method of delivery is really important as well.
00:27:07
Brett
And just just to make sure people understand, when you're you're saying they're using muipip municipal water, you're saying that the water that they're using a municipal, like a city or whatever, has treated that, tested it.
00:27:07
Bryan
So
00:27:12
Bryan
yeah.
00:27:14
Jessica
No, thank
00:27:19
Brett
You could literally go and drink the water that they're irrigating with as opposed to a well.
00:27:21
Bryan
Yes. Yes. As long as there's
00:27:25
Brett
or i mean, a well you can drink, but there's other things, but like or like a pond.
00:27:27
Bryan
sure.
00:27:28
Brett
you know I wouldn't want to necessarily go and grab a glass of pond water and just drink it straight up.
00:27:33
Alexis
Mmm.
00:27:33
Jessica
no thank you
00:27:34
Bryan
Please. Yeah. Please don't. but
00:27:36
Plant People
Not even a cistern.
00:27:36
Brett
I won't, but only because you told me not to, Brian.
00:27:37
Plant People
Yeah. Quit showing off, Brett. Quit showing off.
00:27:40
Bryan
Yeah. um So yeah, they they they are using water. They're essentially using tap water ah that is potable water.
00:27:47
Plant People
Yeah.
00:27:50
Bryan
And the actual requirement for post-harvest water is that it must be potable, ah that you could drink it, that there is zero E. coli in it. um And so the things that ah municipality or a water treatment facility use to prevent um parasites from being in the water are things like membrane filtration.
00:28:13
Bryan
These are big enough that they can filter them out. And also UV filtration, so they can use UV light and in line to also degrade the um cell structure of any of these parasites or their shell or their little protective oocyst.
00:28:15
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:28:32
Bryan
that's what's happening that's not happening on the farm. And you certainly, you know, we've, uh, gotten in discussions before with different water projects where people, you know, we're interested in using surface water for different things.
00:28:43
Bryan
And we always kind of come to the conclusion that, you know, unless you want to put a complete water treatment facility on your farm, that this is, this is a better practice than using surface water.
00:28:52
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:28:56
Bryan
So, um, Yeah, we we universally, I think with the farms we work with, they're using municipal water in post-harvest situations. And they're they're they're taking an extra step to use sanitizers and water because that's a requirement and a gap audit. If you are using water that you're going to dunk in, then you have to use the appropriate sanitizer. And we go as far as to that sanitizer has to be labeled by the EPA.
00:29:26
Bryan
at for that use specifically. You have to use the right amount and you have to use but you know a little dip strip to make sure that that's the right amount. So, yeah.
00:29:38
Alexis
log it and all that stuff you're not just dumping chlorine and being like it'll be fine
00:29:42
Bryan
Nope. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because that's that's not great either.
00:29:46
Alexis
ah
00:29:47
Bryan
So.
00:29:47
Plant People
It seems like smaller producers, they'll try these sometimes novel solutions is a good way to put it, maybe like the washing machine and lettuce and all these different, you know, methods that we see.
00:29:55
Bryan
Yeah. Yeah.
00:29:58
Plant People
Not I guess not everybody's required to have an audit. But do you find that in instances like this, is there like a renewed interest to take all reasonable efforts?
00:30:01
Bryan
Sure.
00:30:08
Plant People
Does that kind of spike that interest in those that may not even be required to have a third party or
00:30:15
Bryan
You know, I have, know I, at this point, I would say,
00:30:16
Plant People
I've never really thought about it, I guess.
00:30:22
Bryan
The reason that we're not seeing like a spike in that is because the Department of Ag and the FDA have made a huge kind of push over the last, oh, I'd say, I guess even like a decade now to promote education around the Food Safety Modernization Act.
00:30:38
Plant People
Yeah.
00:30:38
Bryan
And so a lot of these farms do, the majority of farms in Kentucky, produce farms in Kentucky, I believe have had the training.
00:30:38
Plant People
yeah
00:30:46
Plant People
Yeah, the the base, FISMA,
00:30:46
Bryan
um It's actually a requirement, but yeah, that base business
00:30:49
Alexis
Yeah, a lot of farmers markets are requiring it of their vendors.
00:30:51
Plant People
yeah. most markets that I've worked with, they just require that as a baseline now.
00:30:52
Jessica
Yep.
00:30:56
Plant People
They they go that extra step, yeah.
00:30:58
Brett
So I know, Brian, I've heard you, I've heard you clarify this a million times, but can you just briefly disambiguate for me ah the a gap audit from the FISMA?
00:30:58
Jessica
Something
00:31:04
Bryan
Yeah.
00:31:07
Bryan
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. We live in like an acronym soup and food safety.
00:31:13
Brett
FISMA.
00:31:13
Plant People
Slurry.
00:31:14
Bryan
Yeah. And so FSMA is a federal regulation. ah It is the Food Safety Modernization Act. And the one that affects produce is called the Produce Safety Rule.
00:31:25
Bryan
And it is ah The Kentucky Department of Agriculture administers that for for for the state and they do it on behalf of the FDA.
Traceability and Audits in Food Supply Chains
00:31:39
Bryan
And so if you meet certain requirements, if you if you are large enough, if you primarily sell wholesale, then you actually fall completely under the rule and you will occasionally get an inspection from kda Typically, if you're large enough to do that, you're also going to have a gap audit. But what a gap audit is, is a voluntary thing. It is only something that you need ah to get if you are planning to sell to someone that requires it.
00:32:07
Bryan
So. it requires it's very similar like the requirements and the the topics are very similar to uh the produce safety rule um in fact they've even been aligned to kind of fall you know to essentially be exactly the same uh you just have to do more you have to to keep records you have to write a food safety plan you've got to pay for an audit and you have to do that annually actually so um
00:32:28
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:32:32
Bryan
So food safety really become once you start to sell into a wholesale market, food safety becomes pretty serious on the farm. Not that it's not serious already.
00:32:37
Plant People
Is that Yeah.
00:32:37
Brett
And so that's like that's like you're selling to a distributor, you're selling to some, you know, restaurants typically don't require it necessarily.
00:32:40
Bryan
Yes.
00:32:46
Bryan
Oh, actually, no.
00:32:48
Brett
um some of Some of them do.
00:32:48
Bryan
Yeah, they're really
00:32:49
Brett
And basically, if you want to grow and get larger, the company that's buying from you wants some sort of a assurance that you're doing something, you're doing the right things to try to adhere to this.
00:32:54
Bryan
wrong.
00:32:57
Bryan
Yes.
00:32:59
Bryan
Yeah.
00:33:02
Brett
And there's different scales and levels of those. and um I think the, yeah, the, the FSMA stuff is, you know, it's more broad, like it covers more people, more things, and it's a federal legal, you know, legislation rather than the other way around.
00:33:11
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:33:12
Bryan
Yes. Yeah.
00:33:16
Bryan
Yeah.
00:33:17
Brett
and
00:33:18
Bryan
It's technically, if you grow produce that's normally eaten raw, then it ah it affects you in some way, shape, or form.
00:33:24
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:33:24
Bryan
You may be exempt from it because you grow too little of it. ah But that doesn't mean that you're completely out of the loop. You've got to take the training, and you've got prove that with records that you're exempt from it.
00:33:35
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:33:38
Bryan
So yeah, it really was designed for that produce that we eat raw.
00:33:39
Jessica
Thank you.
00:33:43
Brett
And honestly, like, I mean, so part of it is the the idea of the record keeping and part of it is, i think, just thinking through practical steps of how something could get contaminated or these you reducing the risk and all that kind of stuff.
00:33:53
Bryan
Yeah.
00:33:55
Brett
And then part of it, there are some traceability pieces.
00:33:59
Plant People
I was going to ask, yeah, the traceability is what I was thinking of
00:33:59
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:34:03
Brett
Because I think that that, like, frankly, even though, the like, considering the incubation period and even though maybe it's, some people don't think it's, the idea that we were able to
Kentucky's Food Safety Initiatives
00:34:15
Brett
figure out where it came from relatively quickly, actually, or or at least trace back to, like, point of service at, you know, Taco Bell or whatever,
00:34:24
Brett
Anytime that this comes out, I'm always like, man, that is a informational and logistical marvel that there was that much. true So what's that like? Is that part of the traceability thing and part of food?
00:34:35
Bryan
yeah every so every step along the the the value chain the the food chain the supply chain every step along the supply chain you have to be able to trace your product one step back and one step forward and so for a farmer because you're the originator of that product that means you have to be able to say this product came from my farm. Usually we get more detailed than that. So normally it's field level based, also based on what day harvested.
00:35:06
Bryan
Sometimes with larger farms, it even gets down to who was harvesting and working that day. So that stuff all goes on a label that goes on either a box or a pallet.
00:35:15
Jessica
you
00:35:18
Bryan
ah Usually it's at the box level because multiple boxes are obviously going to be taken off of a pallet. So that somebody ah one step forward could could could do a recall with you if you actually needed it. And so one step forward is your obviously your records of who you sell to.
00:35:35
Bryan
And in a gap audit, you actually annually have to do what's called a mock recall, um where you call somebody that you've sold product to, and you ask about a specific lot, and you say how much of that product do you have left, and then they can tell you how much of that product they have left, even if it's zero. you know that Then you have conducted a traceability exercise that shows that you could reach out and grab that product back if you needed to.
00:36:03
Alexis
But vegetable farming is fun, folks.
00:36:04
Jessica
Uh,
00:36:05
Brett
That's crazy. That's just – because some of the – and some of the stuff is using like sensor technologies and like it's not like it's all a clipboards.
00:36:07
Plant People
Yeah.
00:36:11
Bryan
um sure. Yeah. Yeah.
00:36:14
Brett
you know I'm i'm i' just observing like even just individual workers might have like a particular card and as they bring up their thing to harvest, it's scanned that like this came from this spot and this – So, I mean, like the technology is, it scales pretty quick and becomes really ah intensive informatics really about like the the way that the these farms operate and and they're they're able to trace that stuff.
00:36:16
Alexis
It's barcodes and...
00:36:41
Brett
And again, places that are doing that, a lot of times they are the ones that have this really amplified risk of distribution and
00:36:42
Bryan
Yeah.
00:36:47
Plant People
Yeah.
00:36:49
Brett
centralization and processing and all that kind of stuff. um Is there like, I think I'd love for you to toot your own horn about some of the successes of the program and of your particular outreach, like the number of farms that have kind of showed interest in your, any, yeah, anything like that would be good to hear. Cause I think for for me, I feel like Kentucky has, we've gotten given and gotten a lot of support from on, on making food a little bit safer here.
00:37:19
Brett
And, um, yeah, just be curious to hear your thoughts on that.
00:37:20
Bryan
Yeah. I agree. So our program, the Cultivate Kentucky program has been around for 10 years now, actually. And um over that time, we've had over 220 farms um get audited.
00:37:37
Bryan
Now that's that's individual audits because it's an annual thing.
00:37:37
Brett
Wow.
00:37:41
Bryan
So I would say of the farms that we've worked with, we're probably around 70 farms at this point. And then I think six packing and storage facilities. So we also help if you're just packing and not um processing, then we can also help with that part of an audit. um And, you know, we, you know, one one of the big things for us is we have a hundred percent success rate and passing the audit.
00:38:07
Plant People
Thank you.
00:38:10
Bryan
ah That also has to do with the fact that that doesn't mean that we make it so easy that, you know, you're just going to cruise on by. That means that if you're not ready, then we're going to say, Hey, you're not ready. like cancel, your cancel your audit.
00:38:19
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:38:19
Brett
Yeah.
00:38:21
Bryan
You're not taking that seriously enough. Um, so, uh, but there are also other food safety, uh, entities in Kentucky that have been really, you know, the, a produce safety team was built out at KDA to support FISMA.
00:38:34
Jessica
you
00:38:36
Bryan
Uh, the food systems innovation center has a, an extension specialist, uh, ah Paul Priyash, who is kind of administers the FSMA training program for the for the state. And they have the number escapes me right now, but it's in the thousands of farms that he's led trainings on.
00:38:59
Bryan
so yeah there's really good food safety produce food safety infrastructure um in kentucky uh and it's uh even getting better we're going to have uh in-state uh auditors at the department of agriculture um they've signed a cooperative agreement with the usda and i'm allowed to say that now uh the commissioner announced that at the foods you know the it's out uh which uh was yeah that was ah that's another big thing that should help
00:39:20
Plant People
It's out. Yeah.
00:39:26
Brett
It's a big deal because previously you would have to you have to pay for somebody to fly in to come from somewhere far away in order to do this audit because we just didn't have as broad a base of need demonstrated in Kentucky to have them and a lot of other things involved.
00:39:28
Alexis
Yeah.
00:39:28
Plant People
Yeah.
00:39:39
Brett
but So that's really exciting. real And I would say, i remember I'm flashing back to a meeting maybe six months ago. that you were sort of leading the, here's the information, here's what we have.
00:39:51
Brett
And then there was people from KDA, people from ah UK, from K card, from Kentucky horticulture council, all kind of gathered together. Like this is a problem we need to fix this. ah And that, yeah, it's really cool to see that come to fruition and big props to KDA for stepping up and and facilitating that.
00:40:06
Bryan
Yeah, they're almost almost immediately, um you know, they they took the ball and ran with it.
00:40:10
Brett
Yeah. Yeah.
00:40:12
Bryan
um Yeah, it was one of those meetings where you kind of call in 10 years worth of favors and say, hey, can can you guys help us?
00:40:18
Alexis
Can you guys get this together?
00:40:19
Bryan
Because we're we
00:40:21
Plant People
cash in all the chips.
00:40:21
Bryan
we've got We've got a problem. Yeah, it will. ah and And also would like to mention that the Horticulture Council, Kentucky Horticulture Council has a cost share for gap audits.
00:40:32
Bryan
They pay 75% of the cost they audit up to currently it's $1,250.
00:40:34
Jessica
you
00:40:38
Bryan
If we can, having an in-stated auditor should push the audit down far enough that that's going to um, continue to be, really useful.
00:40:48
Bryan
I mean, it, ah it currently is still really useful for growers. Um, it's a lot of money and, you know, the issue here is that it's an annual thing.
00:40:53
Alexis
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
00:40:56
Bryan
So that kind of compounds on itself. If we were looking at $3,000 audits every year, then that versus where we were at $1,000, you're looking at $2,000 extra every single year, that compounds really quick and really pushes out small farmers that have, um,
00:41:13
Bryan
found a way to make wholesale for, say, one or two products work for them.
00:41:20
Brett
ah So this, this has been my last question and sorry I've dominated, but I'm just have a lot of interest in this and um call it a passion.
00:41:20
Bryan
Yeah. Thanks.
00:41:29
Brett
Maybe I just have a passion for not having explosive diarrhea.
00:41:30
Plant People
Save food.
00:41:32
Brett
um
00:41:32
Bryan
Yeah.
00:41:32
Alexis
ah
00:41:34
Brett
ah So as you, as you see this, this thing unfolding, um you're seeing it from a different perspective from like a typical consumer from a,
00:41:45
Brett
farmer, I mean, like there's a lot of different, like, are you are you particularly like alarmed by it? Are you surprised? Is this the system working as it is supposed to? Is this a, you know, how would you, how are how are you interpreting this?
00:42:03
Bryan
Um, yeah, definitely not surprised. I mean, it's just, again, like we were talking about, you you can reduce risk, but it's always going to be there. And, and, you know, it there's always potential for some sort of new contamination route.
00:42:11
Brett
Yeah.
00:42:18
Bryan
Um, you know, these, these farms have serious food safety culture and serious, uh, you know, food safety plans and records. Um,
00:42:30
Bryan
It's so not surprising.
00:42:32
Alexis
Thank
00:42:33
Bryan
And I will say that every time one of these happens, ah you know the the immediate demand to kind of figure out where it came from and know exactly where it came from, why don't we know where it came from? It takes it takes it takes a while. And um the fact that they were able to do it in the speed that they did it in, um I think it is the system working the way it should.
00:42:58
Bryan
um So yes, there's a lot of people that got sick, but that is, like you said, the the scale of the risk, the size of the operation. you know food Food service entities like Taco Bell are gonna use quite a bit of lettuce and the farms and processing facilities, you know different times a year, different places are processing and sending product and,
00:43:22
Bryan
you know you're you're looking at a scale that you really probably can't comprehend unless you would go and and stand in one of those farms and and horizon the entire as far as the sea is nothing but lettuce um so yeah and and you're growing this outdoors you're eating it raw so it's not surprising and it's a risk you take with produce and um you know i know we talked earlier about ah you know local produce and
00:43:29
Alexis
As far as the eye can see, it's lettuce.
00:43:31
Jessica
Yep.
00:43:32
Brett
Yeah.
00:43:33
Plant People
Yeah.
00:43:49
Bryan
um you know When you are buying locally, there are so many great things along with that. But from a food safety perspective, you're dealing with a shorter supply chain. You're you're dealing with you know a smaller risk in terms of size.
00:44:03
Bryan
you are also you know generally not going to get locally. You're not going to get pre-cut lettuce where things are mingled.
00:44:11
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:44:12
Bryan
And ah and we talked earlier a little bit about you know how farmers markets have been selling out. And i think pre-COVID, maybe you know this is just me my you know my imagination, but pre-COVID, that wouldn't have been
00:44:29
Alexis
Bit balling here.
00:44:32
Bryan
the case maybe all produce bad you know don't eat lettuce no lettuce all produce it is bad it's kind of situation but i i think that people realized and there's enough people out there supporting ah local farms and social media is driven the kind of
00:44:34
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:44:49
Jessica
Right.
00:44:50
Bryan
hey, this is a ah big supply chain kind of thing. I'm not saying there's no risk. Any purchase to raw, there's risk.
00:44:56
Brett
Totally.
00:44:58
Bryan
But you are um getting one product from one farm. If you're buying a head of lettuce that is one head of lettuce that is not 3,000 heads of lettuce that went through the same wash line in 30 minutes.
00:45:11
Bryan
So yeah.
00:45:11
Plant People
I've learned it's like gas station food. When you have a problem, it's a big problem. There's no small problems on a big operation. There's no problems or big problems on that scale and scope that Brett alluded to.
00:45:24
Plant People
But I didn't realize I was on the forefront of food safety.
00:45:25
Alexis
Leave it to Ray to bring up gas station food.
00:45:28
Plant People
Yeah, I mean, just just you know use really hot bacon grease. You take that, you pour it over your lettuce. See, I'm all about food safety, people.
00:45:35
Bryan
Yeah. There you go.
00:45:37
Plant People
Killed lettuce or i guess, dude, ah yeah is it spinach, really.
00:45:38
Bryan
Yeah.
00:45:39
Alexis
spinach.
00:45:39
Brett
Kilt.
00:45:39
Brett
Kilt.
00:45:41
Plant People
No kidding.
00:45:42
Bryan
Yeah.
00:45:42
Brett
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:45:42
Plant People
Yeah, okay, okay.
00:45:43
Brett
Kilt's lettuce.
00:45:44
Bryan
I'll tell it.
00:45:44
Jessica
does it
00:45:44
Alexis
Does cyclospora survive hot bacon grease is really the research we need.
00:45:48
Bryan
No.
00:45:48
Plant People
It's a study we all need in our lives right now.
00:45:50
Bryan
It dies with heat too.
00:45:52
Plant People
Okay.
00:45:52
Bryan
Heat cure.
00:45:52
Plant People
Just, hey, listen, safety first, people.
00:45:52
Bryan
Yeah.
00:45:53
Jessica
well that's good
00:45:54
Brett
Same.
00:45:54
Bryan
Yeah.
00:45:55
Plant People
Hot bacon grease, okay?
00:45:57
Bryan
Yeah.
00:45:58
Alexis
I think I did see that they were saying if you um have raspberries or something to can it and to make like jam or something like that.
00:45:58
Plant People
Just.
00:45:58
Bryan
I will say.
00:46:03
Bryan
Yeah.
00:46:04
Plant People
Oh, yeah.
00:46:04
Alexis
And I was like, let me just add sugar.
00:46:07
Bryan
yeah yeah
00:46:07
Plant People
no
00:46:08
Alexis
but the heat. Yeah.
00:46:09
Plant People
Yeah, yeah.
00:46:09
Alexis
I was like, this is an interesting spin. hmm.
00:46:12
Jessica
This has been really great ah ah information and they kind of like twist it for like more of a homeowner. Like instant we in our area have recently had a lot of flooding and a lot of calls.
00:46:23
Brett
Hmm.
00:46:25
Bryan
Yeah.
00:46:25
Jessica
ah Can I still use this produce? It was underwater for 24 hours, right?
00:46:29
Plant People
Mm-hmm.
00:46:29
Jessica
And so this is a great way of being like, hey, this like really hits at home of like why you don't want to use that.
00:46:33
Bryan
Yeah.
00:46:34
Alexis
Mm-hmm.
00:46:36
Jessica
Not just like they're concerned about, you know, Oh, my plants aren't going to be doing good. But all the other things that can come in with that flooding and it kind of all ties back to even like even in your own backyard, food safety that can occur.
00:46:49
Alexis
her
00:46:50
Jessica
And, you know, it works its way from the backyard garden all the way up to the big, as far as the eye can see, fields of of lettuce.
00:46:57
Bryan
Yes.
00:46:58
Jessica
So great information.
00:46:59
Bryan
Yes.
00:47:00
Jessica
There
00:47:01
Bryan
Underwater, no eat. Yeah.
00:47:02
Plant People
Yeah, bad, equal bad, yeah.
00:47:02
Brett
yeah yeah i think people people would be not pleased by how much of the water that's in those natural creeks and things around your house has fecal material in it i don't think they'd be pleased to learn that or understand that um all kinds of other fun stuff there's poop in the water
00:47:03
Jessica
you go. Bad. Bad.
00:47:13
Plant People
Yes.
00:47:14
Bryan
Yeah. Yeah.
00:47:16
Plant People
And various other chemicals and substances, yeah.
00:47:18
Alexis
So you're welcome, listeners.
00:47:19
Plant People
Yeah.
00:47:20
Alexis
the Next time you're near a beautiful body water, just remember, there's poop in there.
00:47:24
Jessica
Maybe you don't want to dive down in there and take a big gulp.
00:47:26
Plant People
Great, Alexis, thank you.
00:47:28
Jessica
so
00:47:29
Brett
Well, thank you, Brian, for joining us and for for all the stuff that you've done you know over over the the years to support this Kentucky industry to be safer and people to be able to eat and trust food um that they're getting from it.
00:47:30
Plant People
Great conversation, yeah.
00:47:42
Brett
um You mentioned the Food Connection. We'll make sure to link to that and the Cultivate Kentucky partnership and and all the fun things. but If you all enjoyed this episode, be sure to give us a like or rate us five stars. If you haven't done it already, what are you waiting for? And you can reach out to us on hortculturepodcast at gmail.com. You can also find us on Instagram at hortculturepodcast. If you'd like to leave us some comments about what you want to see next or follow us there, send us a message, whatever tickles your fancy.
00:48:14
Brett
um Thanks for listening and we'll see you down the road.
00:48:14
Alexis
Mm-hmm.