Dr. David Gombas, United Fresh senior vice president of food safety and technology, continued to lead an ongoing dialogue among more than 30 stakeholders from the fresh tomato supply chain last week as they work to draft standardized food safety audits for this commodity.

"We have a critical mass of the North American tomato supply chain at the table, working together on specific food safety requirements for all commercial fresh tomato growing and handling operations," he said.  "It's impressive how the entire supply chain is coming together to assure that the standard procedures and controls important for safe tomato handling are agreed upon throughout the chain, and then can be audited with transparency."

The group has now drafted modules for open field production and harvesting as well as greenhouse, packinghouse and repacking operations.  They will next meet in May to consider metrics for field packing, fresh-cut processing and retail/foodservice handling of tomatoes.

Please contact David at 202-303-3411 for more information.