DIMARE COMPANY AND FOOD SAFETY
TONY DIMARE TESTIFIES BEFORE HOUSE AG COMMITTEE ON FOOD
SAFETY PRACTICES
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FFVA board member Tony DiMare (shown here in Tallahassee)
testified
to the U.S. House of Representatives about food safety measures his
company and others in the industry have incorporated.
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When it comes to food safety, FFVA producer member DiMare Company
shines. So much so that the U.S. House of Representatives invited him to
share his insights.
Tony DiMare, vice president of DiMare Ruskin and DiMare Homestead,
testified April 2 before the House Agriculture Committee at a food
safety hearing. The committee learned how companies address food safety
within their own operations, both domestically and with imports.
Joining DiMare were representatives of universities and the retail
sector, other members of the agriculture industry and former USDA and
FDA officials. At 80 years old, the DiMare Company is
one of the largest vertically integrated tomato companies in the United
States. It grows, packs, re-packs and distributes many varieties of
fresh tomatoes.
DiMare’s testimony outlined the rigorous food safety processes in
place at the company. He reviewed in detail the company’s
on-farm practices as well as procedures in the packinghouse and
re-packing operations.
“The DiMare Company started a Food Safety and HACCP Program as
early as 1990 at our Tampa, Florida, repack facility,”
DiMare told the committee. “Food safety is not new to our company.
We then expanded the food safety program to the remainder of our growing
and packing facilities in the mid-1990s.” HACCP, or the Hazard
Analysis and Critical Control Point program is a systematic, preventive
approach to food safety that addresses problems at key intervals
(critical control points) during production, packing and shipping rather
than simply relying on inspections at the end point to detect
contamination.
IT ALL STARTS AT THE FARM
At the farm level, DiMare emphasized that the company routinely tests
irrigation water to ensure it is free from harmful pathogens. He
mentioned that they have built fences where animal intrusion had been a
problem. And worker education is important. “Our field workers are
trained prior to the start of each crop season on awareness of food
safety procedures. They are also educated on proper personal hygiene.
Proper hand washing after restroom use is one example. Our key personnel
have been educated to identify worker illnesses and health issues, such
as tuberculosis, and report them immediately to management.”
Key personnel, DiMare said, have also been trained in food security
to pay special attention to any unusual activities and be aware of any
unauthorized people who may be on company property.
FOCUS ON PACKINGHOUSE SAFETY, TRACEABILITY
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Dirk Sampath, DiMare Company's food safety director, inspects
equipment during the off-season at the company's grape tomato packing
line in Ruskin, Florida.
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Moving to the packinghouse level, DiMare described worker-training
sessions held before the start of every season. He stressed that the
water used to wash and rinse product is of potable quality and is tested
seasonally to ensure its quality. He described how tomatoes are sent
through a chlorine bath wash procedure followed by a water rinse, and
then one final sanitizing rinse before they are sorted for quality and
sized for packaging. “We very closely monitor our bath wash water
on an hourly basis, recording chlorine levels, pH, and the water
temperature, which are critical for ensuring proper kills of any
bacteria or pathogens, and prevention of infiltration of these
contaminants into the tomatoes,” he told the committee.
He also outlined the company's recall and traceback program, and
walked the committee through each step of a mock recall that was
conducted during the height of the salmonella saintpaul outbreak in July
2008. DiMare described how a carton of tomatoes in a quick-serve
restaurant in California was traced back in less than an hour to the
individual farm and field from which they were harvested.
Wrapping up his testimony, DiMare shared with the committee the
proactive actions taken by the Florida tomato industry in developing a
mandatory food safety program encompassing all farms and packing
operations.
A FEW SPECIFICS
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Well-equipped hand-washing stations are an important part of DiMare
Company's food safety program.
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The day before DiMare testified before the House Agriculture Committee,
he shared more details about the safeguards his company has in place.
"If there is ever an issue, we have enough time to react and correct the
problem, and we don’t have to destroy the product,” he
explained. "For example, if the chlorine levels fall below minimum
levels in the dump tank in a packinghouse, there’s a warning light
that notifies management immediately." A dump tank is a type of water
flume system that carries freshly picked tomatoes into the packinghouse
for grading, packing and shipping.
“We also sanitize the equipment as a policy at the end of the
run every night. And we conduct swab tests on the equipment to make sure
that the sanitizing we’re doing is effective. There are measures
and backup measures and buffers to make sure that the procedures are
being followed and the procedures that you are doing are
effective,” DiMare said.
When crops are produced in a natural setting, there's no such thing
as zero risk. “A lot of the procedures we have in place are for
prevention," DiMare said. "Some of them are for minimizing risk, because
we all realize there are no absolute guarantees in food safety. You can
have all the steps in the world put in place to help prevent problems.
But really, what you’re doing is minimizing risk in order to
prevent contamination. There’s exposure at many different levels
– from the farm, to the packing operations, to the middle person
and then at retail and finally at the consumer level."
IMPORTANCE OF COOPERATION WITH PRODUCERS
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A warning system alerts packinghouse personnel about possible
probems.
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DiMare also shared some thoughts on how the food safety efforts his
company and others make could help in any future incidents like last
summer’s salmonella saintpaul outbreak. He emphasized that
growers’ expertise could have helped the Food and Drug
Administration pinpoint the source of contamination in that outbreak
much sooner.
“There’s no doubt in my mind that if we had known the
specifics that they were looking at – like individual restaurant
names – with our industry’s knowledge on origin, shipment
and distribution, we could have probably been able to eliminate a lot of
the legwork that they did,” DiMare said. “We’re not
asking to run the investigation, but we are asking to be part of the
process and provide information that could be extremely helpful in
narrowing down an investigation, eliminating some of the false leads and
maybe even identifying the source of the problem,” he said.
“Hopefully [the FDA] got the message and can learn from this
experience that it may be better to chance divulging information that is
in the long run better off for everyone involved than be concerned about
an individual company or person."
DiMare’s written testimony submitted to the House Agriculture
Committee is posted at ffva.com’s Member Resource
Library and on the House Agriculture
Committee’s Web site.