FAQs
What is the Arizona Leafy Greens Food Safety Committee?
The Arizona Leafy Greens Food Safety Committee represents an industry wide commitment to food safety. The program is designed to keep you, the consumer, confident in Arizona leafy greens through mandatory food safety standards and audits by government-certified inspectors.
Who belongs to the Committee?
The Arizona Leafy Greens Food Safety Committee is a partnership of companies that ship and sell lettuce, spinach and other leafy greens products. Working with hundreds of farmers, the 36 member companies of the Committee ship and sell more than 85 percent of the leafy greens products consumed in the United States and Canada from November through March. These companies provide leafy green products – both raw and processed – to the grocery stores, restaurants and institutions, in which you shop and eat at.
Why was the Committee formed?
The growers, shippers and sellers of leafy greens wish to keep the industry alive in Arizona, but more importantly, they strive to provide a safe stream of produce from farm to fork. While the federal government has some safety standards in place for growers and shippers, the Committee felt it was in the best interest of the industry to come together and develop a stricter set of standards and protocols – so that you can be assured that Arizona leafy greens are among the safest in the world.
Who is in charge of the Committee?
The Committee is an industry-driven entity that is administered by the Arizona Department of Agriculture. It is subject to the same open meeting statues and regulations as other state government bodies.
What are the Committee’s safety practices?
The Committee enforces mandatory good agricultural practices, developed by a panel of industry experts and reviewed by government regulators. The food safety compliance requirements cover five main areas:
- General requirements: Member companies are required to have a complete food safety compliance plan, an up-to-date list of growers and a written trace-back program.
- Environmental assessments: Pre-season and pre-harvest assessments are required to make sure conditions that can affect food safety, such as animal intrusions, flooding, proximity to animal feeding operations, etc. are not present, or have been properly mitigated.
- Water: Extensive testing and record-keeping for all sources of water are required.
- Soil amendments: Extensive testing, certification and record-keeping for all sources of compost and fertilizers used in the production of leafy greens are required.
- Work practices and field observations: Field audits verify that farmers are in compliance with the committee’s requirements in the areas of worker practices and field sanitation.
What happens if the Committee’s food safety practices are not followed by a member?
Members of the program and their products are held to strict qualifications and regulations. All member companies are subject to mandatory and random audits to ensure that food safety requirements are being applied.
Arizona Leafy Greens member companies are audited by licensed government auditors. If a member is not following any of the five areas of food safety practice, that company will face a range of penalties, the most severe of which is decertification. When a member company is decertified they are suspended from using the Arizona Leafy Greens Food Safety Committee Service Mark, which identifies members that are in compliance with the best food safety practices and other Committee requirements.