Are California Cantaloupe safe to eat?

California cantaloupe growers took a big financial hit last year. The demand was down for cantaloupe because of two major major recalls in other states. These recalls resulted in  thirty deaths and hundreds of illnesses. People became afraid to eat cantaloupe.

To alleviate people's fears the California Cantaloupe Advisory Board proposed a mandatory inspection of all California Cantaloupe growers. They devised 57 safety rules that the cantaloupe growers would have to follow.

In agriculture these inspectors are called auditors. This auditing program is much better than other auditing programs around the nation. Publix grocery stores initiated the auditing system. They were not happy with  the FDA inspection program because the FDA only inspects every four to seven years. If the FDA inspector finds something wrong they don’t come back to make sure it has been corrected. Publix required audits before they would buy from a farmer or packing house. Most others large groceries chains followed suit.

The Audits required by Groceries stores are however, problematic. The farmer or packing house often hire an outside firms to audit. The auditor knows if he gives a very bad report the farmer might hire another firm to audit.  One auditing company, inspected Jenson farms where 30 people died from listeria last year, lost a lawsuit by those who were infected and the firm went bankrupt.

The grocery audits do not have any universal standards to use to rate the farms and packing houses. There are no standards about what training the the auditors should get. The audit’s give a report that shows a percentage of the things that they were doing right. a 96% would seem like a good score. But it could be a very bad score depending on how important the things the farm or packing house got wrong are to food safety.

The California auditing system is much better. Even though the farmers still pay for the audit, the auditors are from the California Department  Of Agriculture and are trained by United States Department of Agriculture. If the auditors find something wrong they will continue to come back until the situation is corrected. This auditing system covers everyone, not just the farms that sell to large grocery chains.

My hope would be that these methods of auditing would spread across agriculture. we would have a lot less food borne disease.