More than 30 industry members in California's Imperial Valley gathered last week at an impromptu town hall meeting in El Centro. Hosted by River Ranch Fresh Foods, the meeting gave attendees the opportunity to talk with Dr. David Gombas, United's senior vice president of food safety and technology, about multiple issues facing the industry today, including food safety legislation and the Produce GAPs Harmonization Initiative.

"Look for similarities between the House bill - the Food Safety Enhancement Act - and the Senate bill - the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act," Dr. Gombas told the group. "Common ground like mandatory produce requirements, food safety plans, traceability, facility re-registration and recall authority for FDA are very likely to be in the final law."

Speaking about GAPs harmonization, Dr. Gombas said, "There are already over 100 technical experts involved in harmonizing the multitude of existing GAP food safety standards into one standard, one audit.  We still need more growers to be at the table, to ensure that this standard, when finished, works for large and small operations, all different produce commodities, and all regions in North America."

For more on United's work on food safety and audit harmonization, visit www.unitedfresh.org.