Food safety is related to the physical, chemical and microbial conditions or influences under which food products are grown, harvested, stored and transported to food markets. A food safety risk is a site condition or operational factor that creates the potential to affect the safeness of produce in a negative way.
Food safety is becoming more important for consumers, retailers and governments. Retailers are looking for traceability and quality systems to track contaminated food products and identify and control food safety issues.
Federal and provincial governments have recently announced that food safety will be an item for new agricultural programs to focus on. Adopting safe food production and handling methods at the farm level is a priority with federal and provincial governments.
You are required to adhere to pesticide labelling and regulations in the selection, storage and handling of chemical products. Chemical food safety factors include:
You can reduce physical food safety hazards by taking steps to minimize the chances that foreign materials, such as metal, glass and jewelry, may contaminate fresh product.
All risks ultimately have the potential to affect the health of the consumer by causing food-borne illness. Food-borne illness occurs when a person gets sick from eating food that has been contaminated with unwanted micro-organisms or bacteria.
The most common ways grapes become contaminated with food-borne illness are through:
Wherever water comes into contact with fresh produce, water quality determines the potential for microbial hazards to be present. The food safety objective in using water is to use good quality water at the outset and to minimize the risk of cross-contamination.
Reduce food safety risk by:
While composted manure and produce waste are desirable sources of organic fertilizer and soil conditioner in tree fruits production, they are also significant sources of microbial hazards when stored, handled and used.
Reduce food safety risk by:
Farm workers can be a source of microbial hazards for grapes. The micro-organisms are spread to produce through the use of unsanitary materials and equipment, improper hygiene and ineffective sanitary measures.
The most effective way to combat worker-borne contamination risk is through education, training and supervision of workers who handle produce.
Poor management of materials, machinery and equipment on the farm can significantly increase the risk of exposing fruit to microbial hazards.
The food safety objective is to start with clean materials, machinery and equipment. Then use practices that minimize the potential for cross-contamination and monitor and detect potential hazards before they affect the food safety of your produce.
Good agricultural practices (GAPs) can reduce the potential for microbes to contaminate fresh tree fruits. GAPs that producers have control over include:
Crop production, harvesting, handling and storage activities all influence the exposure of produce to microbial hazards in some way. In agriculture, it is much easier to prevent produce from becoming contaminated than it is to sanitize later, and it is in the grower’s interest to market high quality and safe food products.
