Food Safety Magazine, December 2011/January 2012

News Bites

GMA Announces Partnership to Create
World’s First Global Food Safety Fund

Pamela G. Bailey, president and CEO of the Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA), joined U.S. government and World Bank officials in announcing an innovative public-private partnership that has pledged $1 million toward the creation of the world’s first Global Food Safety Fund for capacity building. To be managed by the World Bank, the proposed fund will leverage the tripartite approach pioneered in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) that enlists a wide range of stakeholders in training programs designed to enhance food safety and to facilitate trade.

“GMA was honored to be
a founding member of a
unique partnership in APEC
that inspired the concept of
the fund’s creation. In APEC,
we brought together food
safety regulators, multilateral
institutions like the World
Bank, academia and industry—
stakeholders all focused on a
common mission of improv-
ing food safety,” said Bailey.
“Building on the landmark
MOU [memorandum of un-
derstanding] between the
APEC Food Safety Coopera-
•
tion Forum and the World
Bank signed in May 2011, the
proposed fund will leverage
APEC’s unique food safety
training programs together
with World Bank international
reach to help improve the
safety of the global food sup-
ply—in APEC economies and
beyond.”
Public and private sector
stakeholders have pledged $1
million to create the trust
fund. In the next decade, the
fund is expected to
grow to $15 mil-
lion–$20 million.
The fund has three
main food
safety goals:
• Devel-
oping,
testing and validating
pilot programs in APEC
that will result in repro-
ducible training modules
that can be customized for
rollout to developing
countries worldwide. These
programs would focus on
critical needs.

In the October/November 2011 issue of Food Safety Magazine, the article “Food Safety and Risk Assessment” by John G. Surak, Ph.D. and Gustavo Gonzalez, Ph.D. had Table 1 erroneously placed into the sidebar on page 20. We apologize for the confusion.

FDA Publishes Report on Multistate
Listeria Outbreak in Cantaloupe

On October 19, 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) released a document that provides an overview of factors that potentially contributed to the contamination of fresh, whole cantaloupe with the pathogen Listeria monocytogenes, which was implicated in a multistate outbreak of listeriosis. In early September 2011, FDA, in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state health departments, began investigating a widespread listeriosis outbreak. Early in the investigation, cantaloupes from Jensen Farms in southeast Colorado were implicated in the outbreak.

On September 10, 2011, FDA, along with Colorado state officials, conducted an inspection at Jensen Farms and collected multiple samples, including whole cantaloupes and environmental (nonproduct) samples from within the facility, for laboratory analysis to identify the presence of L. monocytogenes. Of the 39 environmental swabs collected from within the facility, 13 were confirmed positive for L. monocytogenes with pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE) pattern combinations that were indistinguishable from three of the four outbreak strains collected from affected patients. Of the 13 positive environmental swabs, 12 were collected at the processing line, and one from the packing area. Cantaloupe collected from the farm’s cold storage during the inspection was also confirmed positive for L. monocytogenes with PFGE pattern combinations that were indistinguishable from two of the four outbreak strains.

As a result of the isolation of outbreak strains of L. monocytogenes in the environment of the packing facility and whole cantaloupes collected from cold storage, and the fact that this is the first documented listeriosis outbreak associated with fresh, whole cantaloupe in the U.S., FDA initiated an environmental assessment in conjunction with Colorado state and local officials. FDA, state and local officials conducted the environmental assessment at Jensen Farms on September 22–23,

2011. The assessment was conducted to gather more information to assist FDA in identifying the factors that potentially contributed to the introduction, growth or spread of the L. monocytogenes