Members of the 2025 Eastern Produce Council (EPC) Leadership Class received training on FSMA 204 prior to the general EPC membership meeting at Topgolf in Edison, NJ, on April 22, 2025. The general EPC membership was also invited to join the Leadership Class at this invaluable seminar.
Erik Larsen with TransformIT, a fresh produce supply chain expert, spoke on behalf of IFPA to relate the fundamentals of FDA’s new FSMA 204 Final Rule. “The goal of this rule is for the FDA to leverage technology to reduce the time it takes to conduct an investigation from 5-6 weeks to 5-6 days,” he said. “The rule requires entities that harvest, cool, pack, transform, ship and/or receive food on their Food Traceability List to establish and maintain records of Key Data Elements (KDE’s) for certain Critical Tracking Events (CTE’s). Then, be able to produce an electronic sortable spreadsheet containing this information upon request from the FDA within 24 hours.”
“Understanding the information in this seminar is crucial to the business and we felt our Leadership Class as well as our general membership would benefit from an overview of the rule and its requirements,” said Susan McAleavey Sarlund, EPC Executive Director. “Originally, this rule was scheduled to be enforced starting January 20, 2026, but FDA has announced a 30 month extension. There is so much involved in the process, it’s crucial for our members to start understanding it now.”
The EPC Leadership Program provides selected participants the chance to develop leadership skills with additional industry exposure in both field and classroom. “An event like this provides our Leadership participants with information directly relating to their business,” said Vic Savanello of Katzman Distribution, EPC Leadership Committee Chair and past EPC President. “This particular event provided tremendous value for our entire membership, which is why we opened it up to everyone. For the Leadership Class, it gave them a great industry experience, together with other leaders in our industry, to be educated about a topic vitally important to all of us. The leadership participants were also able to experience quality networking time with peers and colleagues in the industry.”
The Leadership Class will next be participating in a series of educational events with EPC partners at Rutgers University. “Rutgers brings quality leadership classroom programs and experience to our group,” said Savanello. “We continue to strive to make our leadership program the strongest and most effective program in our industry.”
Participants selected for the 2025 Leadership Class include: Marcus Albinder of Hudson River Fruit Distributors; Susie Alvarez of Dayka + Hackett; Christine Consales of Dole Fresh Fruit; Geoffrey Gero of House Foods; Drew Hennemuth of Four Seasons Produce; Garrett Josephson of Farm-Wey Produce; Drew Koeppel of Katzman Distribution; Nathan Kreiser of Four Seasons Produce; Justin Leis of CJ Brothers Inc.; Michael Lovera Jr. of JOH; Emily Naples of JOH; Tyler Schneider of Cleveland Kitchen; Taylor Sears of LGS; Aleksander Skarzynski of Wakefern Food Corp.; Casey Spencer of John Vena, Inc.; Paul Williamson of Highline Mushrooms; and Matt Zapczynski of Idaho Potato Commission.
