Critical produce industry issues took top priority in a meeting last week with USDA Deputy Secretary Kathleen Merrigan in which the new deputy secretary pledged an equally strong commitment to helping increase consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables throughout the many USDA programs.

United President Tom Stenzel, Senior Vice President Public Policy Robert Guenther, and Vice President Nutrition and Health Dr. Lorelei DiSogra met with Merrigan and key staff members to discuss the industry’s commitment to working with the Obama Administration to increase children’s fruit and vegetable consumption. Also discussed were pressing issues including child nutrition, commodity purchases of fresh produce, food safety.

Deputy Secretary Merrigan, who previously served as administrator of the Agricultural Marketing Service at USDA during the Clinton Administration, has a long relationship with United leadership, having worked together in the late 1990s to turn the inspection service scandal at Hunts Point into an opportunity to overhaul and expand training, quality control and ethical standards in produce inspection.  United was instrumental at the time in securing Congressional funding to build a new USDA inspection training center, which now provides year-round training to both AMS employees and industry members trained through United’s own educational programs.