QA is rarely spoken about in fond terms.
It’s often placed somewhere between an unnecessary demand and cost inflicted by retail, wholesale, processing and food service customers; and someone else’s problem, usually government.
Many growers see QA as an administrative burden on their business, the so-called non-productive overhead—something that you have to do that subtracts from the business’s bottom line rather than adding to it.
And after all, no one gets sick from our clean, green and healthy produce and if they did, it’s self-service practices at retail that make people sick, isn’t it?
Reality
Unfortunately, reality is once again different to how we’d like it to be.
The fact is that consumers do get sick from that same clean, green and healthy fresh produce. However, we are comparably fortunate in Australia not to have the sort of incidents that have led to many fatalities and hospitalisations in North America and Europe in recent years.
QA a worthwhile investment
Growers and packers who implement QA with an eye to getting their processes right and avoiding rejects, repacking and returns; having staff trained to do their jobs right the first time not the second or third time; and using records to benchmark and improve performance across the board, find that the cost of having a bit more discipline in the business is well worth it.
They call it an investment rather than a cost. That’s why they say that the better growers have the least to gain from QA!
PMA Australia–New Zealand
PMA Australia-New Zealand, the leading fresh produce trade association serving member companies from every segment of the fresh fruit, vegetable, and floral supply chain, is serious about food safety.
By working across the whole supply chain, PMA A-NZ is taking the lead to get QA on the positive side of the balance sheet.
PMA A-NZ CEO Michael Worthington and his Board believe that getting the right combination of outreach, education and research is consistent with the PMA A-NZ mission to make good businesses better businesses.
They believe that having one entity (the Fresh Produce Safety Centre) covering all fresh produce industries on all matters to do with better food safety outcomes is the best way to help reduce overlap of effort and unnecessary duplication of industry expense.
Recruiting food safety specialist
One of the first steps taken by PMA A-NZ is to recruit Horticulture Australia Ltd food safety specialist Richard Bennett to the team.
“Like many in the apple, pear, summerfruit and cherry industries, I can remember the devastating effect of the negative publicity surrounding Alar® in the late 1980s,” Richard said.
“I worked with the AAPGA team, led by Cam Stafford, on firstly trying to put out the fires created by this crisis, then putting in place processes to restore the industry’s reputation and manage future risk.
“We’ve been trying to manage that risk ever since, and effective QA is the foundation of that.
“We do QA first and foremost to produce safe food every day and thereby manage business and industry risk and generate consumer trust.”
Fresh Produce Safety Centre
PMA A-NZ will launch the Fresh Produce Safety Centre soon but in the meantime, it has stepped up its outreach activities through www.freshproducesafety-anz.com.
Any industry member can subscribe to receive topical articles and analysis of food safety issues through this site, with more developments to be rolled out over time.
For further information, or to contact Richard Bennett, see Tree Fruit April 2014
