United Fresh has issued a strong response to an economic modeling project that estimates the total monetary impact of foodborne illness outbreaks at $152 billion.  The study, issued this week by the Pew Charitable Foundation's Produce Safety Project, used existing data from several sources to estimate economic effect of food-related illness, including costs from lost work time, quality of life and a broad range of other factors.

"It's really a shame that, once again, advocates for food safety legislative reform are stoking unneeded anxiety about produce safety," said United Fresh President and CEO Tom Stenzel. "This report inappropriately lumps together data from all foods and all food contamination events, including those at church picnics and cross-contamination after sale to the consumer. There's no data on illnesses actually related to contamination from the farm, which is a much smaller subset cause of foodborne illness. And, there's no recognition of the reduction in the number of outbreaks in recent years related to major produce commodities, such as leafy greens and tomatoes, which have undertaken extraordinary steps to ensure safety. Contrast this with the fact that consumers enjoy more than 1 billion servings of fruits and vegetables every day without incident.

"The fresh produce industry is working tirelessly to grow and market the safest possible products," Stenzel continued. "And, we strongly support national government oversight of produce safety standards to ensure a science-based, commodity-specific approach no matter where a product is grown. What's harmful about tactics like this is that advocates are actually scaring consumers away from the very products they need to be consuming more of for better health."