FDA: Some romaine OK to eat now
Agency advises to look at labels for harvesting dates and regions; area growers welcome news
Yuma County produce growers can begin shipping romaine lettuce to local and national markets following a Monday announcement from the federal government lifting its advisory to the public not to buy or eat the product.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s new directive requires all products containing romaine to be labeled with the harvest date and growing region it originated from, and tells consumers not to buy or eat it if that information isn’t provided.
John Boelts, first vice president of the Arizona Farm Bureau and a Yuma lettuce farmer, said how soon romaine reappears on grocers’ shelves depends on how quickly the market reacts.
“Product is hardly ever cut if it hasn’t already been committed to being sold and moved,” he said. “So it’ll be interesting to see. I expect most companies will start harvesting (today), and I’m hopeful that there’s good demand for the product from the public, so we can get back to harvesting, and harvesting as many of these fields as we can, at this point.”
Boelts said he’d heard a couple of shippers started harvesting romaine over the weekend in case the ban was lifted, though all had been honoring the FDA’s advice not to send any out, in the interest of public health.
The current romaine supply is found primarily in the Yuma area including Imperial County, Calif., Mexico, Florida and a few other areas, according to the FDA notice issued by FDA Commissioner Dr. Scott Gottleib.
“At this time, the FDA has no information to suggest any of these growing areas are involved in the current outbreak, which began well before any romaine lettuce from these winter growing locations was available for harvest,” Gottleib said.
Lettuce grown hydroponically or in greenhouses also had been eliminated as potential sources, he said.
The labeling will help assure buyers that none of it came from the Central Coast region of California, which is believed to be the origin of an E. coli outbreak that has sickened 42 people in the U.S. and another 22 in Canada, as of Monday. No deaths have been reported.
FDA investigators believe this
outbreak started from “endof-season” lettuce from this area, the announcement stated.
Yuma growers took another hit after the initial advisory was issued a week ago today, as they were just beginning to put their own romaine back on the market after it was named as the source of last spring’s E. coli bacteria outbreak, which came at the end of the last winter vegetable season.
That epidemic led to 210 cases reported between March and June, including five deaths. Produce growers in Arizona and California established a food safety task force and adopted additional measures based on the FDA’s findings in the Yuma outbreak, including more frequent water testing and a larger buffer from livestock ranches.
Gottleib said in the statement that government officials had been meeting with produce industry leaders since the most recent outbreak, and romaine lettuce providers have committed to making the new labeling a permanent standard for their product.
He said the broader leafy greens industry has also agreed to form a task force to work on these new labeling requirements, which could be extended to other products, and improving traceability of crops, from the farm to the plate.
Boelts said the earlier “do not eat” advisory for romaine will have affected about three to four weeks’ worth of crops if production ramps up quickly, from approximately 60,000 or 70,000 acres in the Yuma area.
Crop insurance is not available to help growers recoup losses when it comes to lettuce or other vegetables, he added.
Boelts went viral on Twitter over the weekend when he posted a photo Friday of a pile of romaine dumped on the ground, which had been harvested just before the first advisory.
“Dumping #romaine today that was harvested Wednesday and had no association whatsoever with the current EColi #outbreak. Will the next fields get harvested? Wish we could have at least taken it to the #FoodBank,” he wrote.
By Monday evening it had been retweeted 464 times and garnered 88 comments. Boelts said it was a rather strange experience, but he was gratified by the amount of interest it got from the public.
“Folks were watching it, picking up on it, we saw some commentary from folks in D.C. and from places across the country who are key experts in food safety and water quality, so it was a great opportunity to talk to people directly about the reality.
“I must have answered hundreds of questions and I know lots of other people did on that thread,” he said.