Tuesday, May 13, 2008

By GARANCE BURKE
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

last updated: August 31, 2007 04:29:42 AM

FRESNO -- Consumer advocates and lawmakers called for stricter oversight of produce growers Thursday after a Salinas Valley company's recall of 8,000 cartons of fresh spinach because of a salmonella scare.

Advocates said Wednesday's recall by Metz Fresh, a King City-based grower and shipper, showed that the voluntary food safety regulations California's leafy greens industry adopted after an E. coli outbreak from spinach killed three people a year ago were insufficient.

As part of the voluntary program, California auditors visited Metz Fresh's fields and plant twice earlier this month and found no significant problems, according to the executive who runs the program.

Whether that clean bill of health shows the new, industry-sponsored approach is succeeding or failing was something activists were ready to debate as they called for a national, mandatory inspection and testing pro- gram overseen by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

"Eight thousand cartons left the plant for distribution in the U.S. That's 8,000 too many," said Jean Halloran, a food safety expert with Consumers Union. "At this point, we are relying on the leafy green industry to police itself."

Industry officials disagreed, characterizing the Metz Fresh recall as an example of the voluntary system working just the way it was supposed to. No illnesses have been reported from eating spinach linked to the company.

The company issued the recall after a routine sampling of spinach it was processing for shipment tested positive for salmonella, spokesman Greg Larsen said. The same batch, which was picked Aug. 22, had tested negative in earlier field and production tests, he said.

By the evening of Aug. 24, Metz Fresh issued a hold on the cartons that had gone out from its plant and more than 90 percent of the potentially contaminated spinach never reached stores while follow-up tests to confirm the presence of salmonella were conducted, Larsen said.

"The first thing we are looking at right now is making sure this product, as much as possible, is under our control," he said.

"The next step is to back up and take a hard look at how this happened."

Metz Fresh has complied with the California Leafy Green Prod- ucts Handler Marketing Agree- ment, a set of voluntary food safety rules drafted after last year's E. coli outbreak. By join- ing the program, participants also agree to have their fields and plants checked for compli- ance.

Some legislators said the latest recall showed the Food and Drug Administration had yet to im- prove a patchwork produce safety system critics believe is vastly understaffed and poorly monitored.

"This is a food safety concern for consumers who wonder if it is OK to serve this produce to their families, and it is an agricultural concern for growers who face another blow to sales of their product," said Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who chairs the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. "It is long-overdue for the FDA to exercise more oversight of food safety practices."

FDA and state public health officials said Thursday they were investigating the company's rec-ords, tests and products.

The recall covers 10- and 16- ounce bags, as well as 4-pound cartons and cartons that con-tain four 2.5-pound bags, with the following tracking codes: 12208114, 12208214 and 12208314.

The California Department of Public Health and the Food and Drug Administration are inves-tigating the Metz Fresh processing facility in King City.

Salmonella sickens about 40,000 people a year in the United States and kills about 600.

On the Net:

www.metzfresh.com.