At Dole, food safety is an open book

Food safety is the foundation upon which all Dole Fresh Vegetables are grown, harvested, and produced; a 120-page, 46-policy manual has been written; a new electronic tracking system has been implemented; and its knowledge and practices are shared without reservation across the produce industry.

In the natural environment of a produce field, there are a lot of factors that cannot be controlled. It is for that very reason that controls are critical.

“At Dole Fresh Vegetables, food safety is, by far, the number one priority of our business. We have a tremendous emphasis, first and foremost, on prevention in the field,” said Vice President of Technical Services Thomas Mack, who oversees the food safety of Dole Fresh Vegetables, a subsidiary of Dole Food Company. The preventive programs are so extensive, in fact, that when Secretary of Agriculture Thomas Vilsack visited a Dole Fresh Vegetables field wearing the required hairnet, he said he felt as though he was going into a surgery room, Mack said.

But food safety prevention and controls don’t stop at the field. “All of our decisions—who to buy from, new equipment to purchase, etc.—is looked at through the prism of food safety,” Mack said. Headquartered in Monterey, Calif., near its growers in the Salinas Valley, Dole Fresh Vegetables has processing locations across the U.S.; has facilities in Bessemer City, N.C., Springfield, Ohio, and Soledad, Calif.; and grows and markets leafy greens and other vegetables, as well as berries.

Fresh fruits and vegetables are attractive to consumers because they are natural, wholesome, unprocessed products. But it is the attributes that make produce healthy that also make it highly susceptible to undetected microbiological contamination.

It is a lesson that was learned the hard way across the produce segment in the 2006 spinach E. coli outbreak. “All the companies were in shock,” Mack said. “We were stunned. The outbreak was a wake-up call for the industry, and it became the driver of change.”

Click here to read the full article in October's issue of QA magazine.