The Produce Marketing Association will hold an interactive town hall meeting and a series of educational workshops on food safety as part of its Fresh Summit International Convention and Exposition, which takes place in Orlando, Florida on 24-27 October.
The association says recent high-profile foodborne illness outbreaks demonstrate that substantial changes are needed to restore consumer confidence in produce safety, and to address the concerns of regulators and legislators.
“We continue to discuss ways to improve food safety practices within the produce industry – but our consumer research and government interactions make it clear that we need to do less talking and more changing to retain our customers an avoid more government involvement in our business,” said PMA president Bryan Silbermann. “If it is not already, food safety must become an integral part of your company’s culture.”
A town hall meeting on the recent Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak has been added to the convention’s food safety educational track. This two-hour interactive meeting, to be held on Friday, 24 October at 2:45pm, will rely heavily on questions and content from the audience. The session will seek to review lessons learned from the outbreak, with the assembled public health authorities, government officials and industry experts on hand to answer industry members’ questions.
“Food safety will also be a major theme in my annual ‘State of the Industry’ address, and I expect it will also be a prominent feature in the comments of outgoing chairman Bruce Taylor and incoming chairman Dave Corsi,” said Mr Silbermann.
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