innovation
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Improving Food Safety UMD Leads $9M Effort to refine standards for salad veggies
pounds of tomatoes are consumed each year by the average American.
75 percent of the spinach eaten in the U.S. comes fresh, not frozen.
90 percent of the shrimp eaten by Americans originates from overseas.
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A salad made from fresh greens and tomatoes
has to be healthy, right? The answer is “yes”—unless the lettuce is irrigated with bacteria-laden water, or the tomatoes are grown next to large-scale livestock or poultry pens emanating airborne pathogens. The University of Maryland is leading a national effort to develop the scientific knowledge needed to implement a series of food safety metrics—involving water, environment, handling and supply chain variables—for leafy greens and tomatoes. The Specialty Crop Research Initiative announced in October joins Maryland researchers with scientists at six other universities and two federal agencies to help prevent food-borne illnesses like the 2006 E. coli outbreak
in spinach that killed three people and sickened hundreds of others in 26 states. Funded by an almost $5.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture along with similar funding from the produce industry, the three-year project will address risk factors and control systems involving every level of the food industry, from local farmers to international corporations. “The USDA is looking for science-based benchmarks that are stringent, yet can be adapted for different regions and climates across the country,” says Robert Buchanan, director of the university’s Center for Food Systems Security and Safety and lead investigator of the project.–TV
Testing, Testing... The university, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Waters Corp., a manufacturer of food safety testing equipment, launched the International Food Safety Training Laboratory in September in College Park. The lab is training foreign food service professionals in how to inspect food shipments bound for the United States.
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Bacteria illustrations by Patti Look
1/24/12 2:46 PM