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Communicating the Value of Produce Safety
27 Plays2 years ago
In this episode, Jordan DeVries, a Michigan Produce Safety Technician, sits down with Elizabeth Visser, farm manager at Blandford Nature Center. They discuss the produce safety efforts put into place at Blandford, and how Liz communicates the value of food safety to the customers and crew.
Connect with Blandford Nature Center on their website or Instagram!
Website: https://www.blandfordnaturecenter.org/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blandford.nature.center.farm/?hl=en
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 Podcast and Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
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. My name is Elizabeth Thisser. I am the farm manager at the Blandford Nature Center and I've been working there, oh gosh, this is going on year seven for me, but managing it for five.
00:00:26
Speaker
And this is Jordan DeVries. I'm the produce safety technician for the Newaygo Conservation District. And I've been doing this job for now four years.
Mission and Operations of Blandford Nature Center
00:00:36
Speaker
So to start us off, Liz, we first want to know what is Blandford Farm and what inspires you to work there? Well, the Blandford Farm is one part of a larger nonprofit organization called the Blandford Nature Center.
00:00:50
Speaker
So there's also other focuses for the Nature Center. So they do educational programming that work with both community members for fun experiences out in nature, as well as more structured programs for schools. And then there's summer camps and conservation work. And then there's also the farm. So it's two and a half acres.
00:01:15
Speaker
And we grow a bunch of annual vegetables for 8100, approximately, give or take a few member CSA. And we also sell produce at the Fulton Street farmers market. We also do seedling sales in the spring and try to have a focus on education. The mission of Blanford is to empower people to connect to the natural world around them. And so the farm is kind of taking like a
00:01:45
Speaker
agricultural or food lens on that mission. So there's a lot of really exciting things that can happen as part of that. And there's so many things that inspire me to work there. Just suffice it to say, it's very meaningful work to me. And there's always something new to learn, so it keeps it interesting. So I'm engaged in multiple levels through the work that I do there. Great.
Developing a Food Safety Plan Under FSMA
00:02:10
Speaker
So Liz, tell us about your food safety efforts at Blandford Farm.
00:02:14
Speaker
So the food safety efforts started when I took a food safety training to go through FISMA. It was like an all day training, but it went through like a binder that was like three inches thick, making sure that farmers participating in the workshop understood the ramifications of the legislation and how that would impact farms at different scales. And since then we've really focused on
00:02:42
Speaker
internal communication about cleaning procedures and making sure everybody is aware we spent well me and one of my co-workers spent a whole winter coming up with our own food safety plan and in between other things of course but making sure that our policies and procedures were in alignment with the standards set by FSMA
00:03:05
Speaker
which I guess for people who, I guess I'm assuming everybody knows what that means, but it's the Food Safety Modernization Act.
Internal Farm Procedures and Communication
00:03:13
Speaker
So that has kind of trickled into my whole management of the farm, everything from like how and where I'm sourcing amendments, when I'm applying them, how I'm communicating with my crew about applying them to cleaning spaces before we utilize them for like our food prep area and making sure that everybody's on page
00:03:35
Speaker
like on the same page about our hand washing procedures and mitigating risk out in the field as far as contamination and not allowing food or glass bottles into the field. So it kind of permeates most of our decision making when it comes to how we're allocating tasks and training.
00:03:56
Speaker
So you went through a risk assessment to identify produce safety risks out in the growing environment.
Customer Concerns and Communication Strategies
00:04:01
Speaker
Are there any that you think your customers perceive that are different than what is actually out there on the farm? Well, when I'm at the farmers market and when customers have questions about the produce, it's more related to if it was sprayed with herbicides and pesticides as opposed to
00:04:21
Speaker
the cleanliness of our habits on the farm, I guess, or like I said, our holding temperatures or our policies for compost application. That's not as much on folks' radar as much as, for example, are these genetically modified seeds that you're using. So although I will say whenever there's like an E. coli outbreak, like a couple of years ago, there was like a pretty bad one on romaine.
00:04:51
Speaker
I had a lot of questions about E. coli and lettuce, but other than that, unless there's like a high profile E. coli outbreak, I don't really get any questions about it. So after putting together your food safety plan that you mentioned, did you get better at communicating those risks or lack thereof to your customers with having it being written down?
Impact of Food Safety Plan and Certifications
00:05:18
Speaker
Honestly, it changed how I communicate internally with my crew more so than it changed how I communicate with my customers. So, internally within my crew, we're a lot more intentional about checking up with each other and making sure that we're on track to follow all of the procedures. They all have very specific trainings they go through every year regardless of if they've been
00:05:46
Speaker
crew member before or not. And so we are asking more targeted questions about contamination in the field, for example. So you mentioned earlier about communicating to customers when there's a potential outbreak in retail and in restaurants. Does being able to talk about going through the Michigan on-farm produce safety program and having a logo that you can use help you better comfort your customers? They're asking questions and wondering
00:06:15
Speaker
what they can do to protect themselves and their families? Absolutely. I feel the same way about like, for example, the Blandford farm is certified naturally grown and also NEAP certified. So when I get questions about those kinds of things as well, it's helpful to show that I've been verified by a third party as far as sustainable growing practices.
00:06:40
Speaker
concerning the watershed as well as looking to sustainable sources for seeds and soil and things like that. So I feel like having the certification of the farm produce safety and having that logo to be able to add on to our marketing will go a long way to showing that we're doing our due diligence and staying accountable for our practices on the farm.
00:07:07
Speaker
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.