The National Mango Board (NMB) will host its first Mango Food Safety Conference on March 6, in McAllen, Texas. The daylong conference is scheduled the day before the America Trades Produce Conference jointly hosted by the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas and Texas international Produce Association. The NMB’s conference comes nine months after 127 persons in 15 states were reportedly infected by Salmonella Braenderup in mangoes imported from Agricola Daniella of Sinaloa, Mexico. The outbreak initiated a massive recall of mangoes by four major distributors as well as related recalls by fresh-cut produce companies and over half dozen retail chains.
The Perishable News spoke with Bill Vogel, president of Los Angeles, CA-based Vision Produce Company and chairman of the NMB about the upcoming conference:
PN: What served as the impetus to this inaugural conference?
Vogel: The National Mango Board has been funding several research projects in post-harvest and best practices which have involved food safety. Food safety is always a priority for the NMB and the mango industry, and deemed important enough and beneficial to the industry to have a conference where we could bring together most of the current knowledge and understanding of food safety and mangos. Also, even though we don’t know exactly how the new Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) will be implemented and how it will impact growers and suppliers who provide mangos to U.S. consumers, this conference will help the mango industry stay ahead of that curve.
PN: How did you go about setting up the conference agenda? What are the crucial areas you hope to cover?
Vogel: We have been working on various research projects and want to share what we have learned. Specifically, we had a food safety expert, Sergio Nieto-Montenegro, Ph.D., traveling in the producing countries and visited the packinghouses; we also wanted to bring together industry veterans who were involved in the mango outbreak, and also others in the fresh produce industry who have experienced either recalls, outbreaks, or are dealing with FDA actions on pathogen contamination.
PN: Could you give us a sneak peek preview of some of the keynote speakers and the information they will share with conference attendees?
Vogel: Myself, NMB executive director William Watson, NMB research director Leonardo Ortega, Greg Goldin of Amazon Produce Network and chairman of the NMB’s research committee and Wade Shiba of GM Produce designed and put the program together. The conference starts off with Nieto-Montenegro who will review his findings when he visited import facilities in the U.S., followed by Ortega talking about food safety guideline certifications. The morning finishes up with a panel of importers and exporters, who are seasoned produce executives and who will share their experiences about a food safety crisis. This panel includes someone in the mango, cantaloupe and papaya industries who will talk about how they dealt with government agencies, the protocols, testing process and what a food safety outbreak means to a business and the related industry. Basically, what happened, what we’ve learned and what we could do differently. After lunch, NMB retail program manger Wendy McManus will lead a retail/foodservice panel that includes Dominic Pelosi from A&P and Jeff Mann from Maggiano’s. They’ll discuss their respective industry’s expectations for food safety. The last will be a panel of government representatives who will discuss the FSMA.
PN: How many attendees do you expect?
Vogel: Since we are timing our conference to be the day before the TIPA/FPPA Expo in McAllen Texas, we expect a good turnout of 100 or more people. We had also scheduled our conference to take advantage of any grower/packer/exporters who might be attending from Mexico.
PN: What outcomes would you ideally like to see from this conference?
Vogel: We would like to see our findings and information about food safety to permeate thru the mango industry from distributors/handlers thru importers to packinghouses, the grower community and retailers. Retail is a big part. Retail is a big part. It has been the larger retailers and food service segment that have so very rightly elevated their suppliers consciousness and demanded action regarding food safety. We want to make the statement that the NMB takes the Food Safety issue very seriously and will participate to the extent of its charter in assisting the industry to learn what it can. And, take steps to enhance and ensure that the latest tools and information about Food safety in the mango production/distribution chain are readily available to the entire industry.
Source: Perishable News