Melons HarvestMark SunAmerica Imports

SunAmerica Imports has become the first melon shipper from Central America to utilise HarvestMark for its imported cantaloupes and honeydew melons.

For the current shipping season, which began in December 2011, SunAmerica’s melons from Guatemala have arrived with the HarvestMark sticker – the industry-leading food traceability platform from YottaMark.

'In this day and age, and especially with melons, we want to demonstrate to our retail customers our commitment to food safety and give them the highest assurance possible,' said Drew Kislin, managing director of SunAmerica Imports. 'We’ve invested a great deal of time, energy and expense into food safety and quality assurance.'

While HarvestMark is currently in use only on melons from Guatemala, the company has implemented 'significant food safety steps' with all its growers.

'We have employed our own independent food safety company to implement and monitor our food safety protocols with our melon growers in every country we ship from,' Kislin added. 'This is on top of what Primus and other third party auditors are doing with those same farms. We also have our own quality control team in Central America headed by an industry veteran. We plan to expand the availability of HarvestMark for other production areas soon.'

Sun America Imports handles melons and tropicals from farms in Guatemala, Costa Rica, Honduras, Panama, and Peru.