United Fresh Senior Vice President Food Safety and Technology Dr. David Gombas addressed the produce industry's comprehensive efforts toward whole-chain traceability yesterday in front of a panel of FDA and USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) officials at the joint agencies public meeting on traceability.

"This industry is committed to developing the effective and timely capability to track the source of our products from retail stores and restaurants back to their original farm source and from any point in the supply chain forward to all other affected products," said Gombas.

Speaking at length about the Produce Traceability Initiative, Dr. Gombas also acknowledged produce traceability's role in the food safety arena.

"As an industry," he said, "we are moving to develop every possible means to find the specific source of a foodborne illness outbreak as quickly as possible, to protect public health, but also to free the rest of the industry from suspicion."

Designed to help FDA and FSIS determine what short and long term steps the two agencies should take to enhance current tracing systems for all foods, the meeting also provided a venue to discuss the core elements of product tracing systems, gaps in current product tracing systems and mechanisms to enhance product tracing systems for food.

For a full transcript of Dr. Gombas' testimony, please click here, and for more on United's efforts toward whole-chain traceability, contact United Fresh Vice President of Supply Chain Management Dan Vaché at 202-303-3400.