2023/2024 California LGMA Annual Report

ABOUT THE

LGMA The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) is a food safety program for leafy green handler members, as well as their growers, harvesters and other service providers. The LGMA incorporates sciencebased standards with government oversight and a system for continuous improvement.

LGMA members produce the vast majority of the nation’s lettuce and leafy greens, totaling more than 55 billion servings per year.

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ANNUAL REPORT / 3

LGMA MEMBERS

CALIFORNIA GROWING REGIONS

C E N T R A L VA L L E Y

C E N T R A L COA S T

I M P E R I A L VA L L E Y

SA L I N A S

SA N TA M A R I A

VENTURA OX N A R D

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CHRIS DREW,

SA L I N A S VA L L E Y

OCEAN MIST® FARMS “Farming in the Salinas Valley isn’t just about crops—it’s about cultivating a legacy. This fertile land, often called ‘America’s Salad Bowl,’ provides the perfect climate and soil for growing an abundance of fresh produce, sustaining families, and feeding the nation. And lettuce is a huge part of that. We’ve been growing and expanding our full line of leaf and head lettuces in the Salinas Valley since the 1970s.”

JOHN JACKSON,

BEACHSIDE PRODUCE

SA N TA M A R I A VA L L E Y

“The Santa Maria, Arroyo Grande, and Lompoc Valleys all provide superb coastal/temperate weather for growing leafy green products. The area produces lettuces for nine months of the year and a variety of other leafy greens year-round.

Supported by multi-generational farming expertise, this region ensures consistent quality, satisfying both discerning customers and regulatory bodies alike, making it a trusted and sought-after hub for leafy green procurement.”

MEGAN CHEDWICK,

CHURCH BROTHERS FARMS “Growing leafy greens in the Imperial Valley is vital to our business as it allows us to supply product year-round. Its climate is perfect for winter production months, and it has accessible water supplies and land leases, making it an area we keep coming back to. Plus, we know that Imperial Valley growers adhere to LGMA metrics, giving us peace of mind and confidence that food safety is a top priority.”

I M P E R I A L VA L L E Y

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2 0 2 3 / 2 0 2 4 MEMBERS 68 Produce, LLC, Salinas Agro-Jal Farms, Inc., Santa Maria Amigo Farms, Inc., Yuma, AZ Babé Farms, Inc., Santa Maria Baloian Farms, Fresno Beachside Produce, LLC, Guadalupe Bella Vista Produce, Inc., Santa Maria Bengard Ranch, Inc., Salinas Bonipak Produce Co., Santa Maria Boskovich Farms, Oxnard Braga Fresh Family Farms/ Braga Fresh Foods, Soledad C & E Farms, Inc., Salinas Church Brothers Farms, LLC/ True Leaf Farms, Salinas Cinagro Farms, Inc., Fillmore Classic Salads, LLC, Salinas Coastal Fresh Farms, Westlake Village Coastline Family Farms, Inc., Salinas Creekside Organics, Inc., Bakersfield D’Arrigo Brothers of California, Salinas Dan Andrews Farms, LLC, Bakersfield Deardorff Family Farms, Oxnard Dole Fresh Vegetables, Salinas Duda Farm Fresh Foods, Inc., Salinas Durant Distributing, Santa Maria Dynasty Farms, Salinas EpicVeg, Inc., Lompoc Field Fresh Farms, Watsonville Fresh Choice Marketing, Inc., Oxnard Fresh Express, Inc., Salinas Fresh Kist Produce LLC, Nipomo Fresh Venture Farms LLC, Oxnard George Amaral Ranches, Inc., Gonzales Gold Coast Packing, Santa Maria Golden West Vegetables, Inc., Oxnard GreenGate Fresh, LLLP, Salinas Grimmway Organics, Bakersfield Harbinger Group, LLC dba Misionero, Salinas Heritage Farms, LLC, El Centro Hitchcock Farms, Inc., Salinas Ippolito International, Salinas J. Marchini Farms, Le Grand Jayleaf, LLC, Hollister

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Joe Heger Farms, LLC, El Centro Kenter Canyon Farms, Inc., Sun Valley Lakeside Organic Gardens, LLC, Watsonville Mainas Farms, LLC, Holtville Mann Packing Company/Del Monte Fresh, Salinas Marmolejo Farms, Inc., Oxnard Mike Abatti Farms, LLC, El Centro Muranaka Farms, Moorpark Muzzi Family Farms, Moss Landing Ocean Mist® Farms, Castroville organicgirl, LLC, Salinas Pablo’s Produce, Inc., Oxnard Pacific Fresh Produce, Inc., Oxnard Pacific International Marketing, Salinas Pajaro Valley Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Distributing, LLC, Watsonville Peter Rabbit Farms/Amazing Coachella, Inc., Coachella Premium Valley Produce, Inc., Scottsdale, AZ Ratto Bros., Inc., Modesto Ready Pac Foods Inc./Bonduelle, Irwindale River Fresh Farms, LLC, Salinas Royal Rose, LLC, Salinas Sabor Farms, LLC, Salinas Salad Savoy Corporation, Salinas San Diego Farms, LLC dba Fresh Origins, San Marcos San Miguel Produce, Inc., Oxnard Silva Farms, LLC, Gonzales Spinaca Farms, Inc., Gilroy Steinbeck Country Produce, Spreckels Sun Coast Farms, Santa Maria SunTerra Produce Traders, Inc., Newport Beach Sunsation Farms, Inc., Monterey Talley Farms, Inc., Arroyo Grande Tanimura & Antle Fresh Foods, Inc., Salinas Taylor Farms, Salinas The Nunes Co., Inc., Salinas The Salad Farm, LLC, Salinas TLC Custom Farming Company, LLC, Yuma, AZ Vessey & Company, Inc., Holtville Visionary Vegetables, LLC, Salinas Western Harvesting, LLC, King City Zada Fresh Farms, LLC, Salinas VISIT LGMA.CA.GOV FOR AN UP-TO-DATE LIST OF CERTIFIED MEMBERS

L G M A CERTIFICATION The value of LGMA Certification is that it’s not only good for the health of the industry and the consumer, but it’s also good for business.

Through a rigorous set of processes and guidelines, the Certification builds trust across the supply chain, from the grower, packer, and shipper to the retail fresh produce department, foodservice operator, and the ultimate consumer.

use the Service Mark after they have been audited by California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) auditors and submitted any corrective actions to the LGMA Compliance Officer. Buyers can verify that handlers are members of the LGMA by checking the website and by looking for this Service Mark on bills of lading.

LGMA members must maintain 100 percent compliance with the LGMA food safety standards to be certified. The LGMA requires that members correct all findings cited during audits and that preventive measures are continually in place to protect public health.

LGMA is vitally important to leafy green growers in California because it is an important guide and resource to enable them to grow safe and quality produce. Having government-trained inspectors auditing routinely, helps farmers achieve their goals of continuing to minimize the risk of contamination.

This Service Mark signifies that the member has been verified to be in compliance with the LGMA food safety practices. Members of the LGMA are only allowed to

This association has the ability to help growers feel even more confident in the food safety programs that they have in place on their farms.

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L G M A’ S

REVOLUTION F

or four years I’ve stood at the helm of the California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA). In that time, I’ve witnessed a revolution within our industry driven by our member’s commitment to the continual advancement of food safety.

diligently to advance the priorities identified in the plan. From our Smarter Audits, Traqtion database, Romaine Test & Learn program, renewed training programs, and buyer/regulator/legislator collaborations, we have moved this association forward at a rapid pace.

This report highlights some of the cutting-edge projects underway at the California LGMA, all of which advance the safety of leafy greens. The timeline insert demonstrates our commitment to continuous improvement, and the evolution of food safety standards as new science or findings informed our efforts.

The goal of Smarter Audits is to evaluate our current audit checklist and identify areas of improvement in a multi-phase approach. LGMA members should be focused on the field, not paperwork. By lasering our focus on the most critical elements, we’re getting to the least common denominator so there’s less paperwork to review and more data to understand our path forward.

When asked if we are making a difference, we need only point to our timeline insert to demonstrate that commitment to produce safety.

To do our part in continuing to lead this charge, we have implemented several key programs.

Following the strategic plan conducted in 2022, LGMA worked

And for the first time ever, Romaine farmers will be sharing data to advance leafy greens food safety in our Romaine Test & Learn Program.

As always, it takes committed industry partners to be successful, and we are grateful for all that help in our advancements.

TIM YORK, C H I E F E X E C U TI V E O F FI C E R , C A L I FO R N I A LG M A ANNUAL REPORT / 9

R E VO LUTIO N IZING

DATA

R

omaine Test & Learn represents the most significant change the LGMA has made to benefit food safety since its inception. The program is an unprecedented win for the leafy greens industry, and for the agriculture community as a whole.

It will allow our members’ individual testing data to collectively provide meaningful, aggregated data to better understand potential risks.

This first-of-its-kind program creates the foundation for how we share and analyze industry-wide data.

The program was inspired by the Aviation Safety Information Analysis and Sharing program that helped revolutionize commercial aviation through the aggregation and sharing of safety data. To our knowledge, the Romaine Test & Learn Program is the first of its kind in the fresh produce industry.

We have started gathering Romaine pre- and post-harvest pathogen test results from LGMA members who are currently conducting testing. A data analysis committee, made up of industry food safety experts and scientists will provide

valuable insights to the project and help provide context to the data collected.

Although we don’t yet know what we will find, this foundational project will help create the mechanism for the industry to share information and create the process for how to learn from the information being aggregated.

Within this report, we’ve also included a timeline of LGMA’s efforts since our inception. We are often asked, “How do you know LGMA is making a difference in reducing foodborne illness in leafy greens?”

This has been a challenge to answer because we cannot point to any one single thing as the answer.

The LGMA food safety program is complex, robust, and ever evolving.

Over the past 18 years, we have followed data, learnings, and science to pivot as needed to improve our metric/standards. This timeline provides a road map of our journey and the significant work undergone by our members over years—all with the goal of providing the freshest and safest leafy green possible.

JAN BERK, C H I E F E X E C U TI V E O F FI C E R , SA N M I G U E L P R O D U C E ; C H A I R , C A L I FO R N I A LG M A 10 / 2023-2024

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FOOD SAFETY

VE R I FIC ATIO N AN D E N FO RCE M E NT AU D ITS Audits are how the California LGMA verifies that our members are using the LGMA Food Safety Standards in their growing and harvesting operations. The goal of the LGMA program is to conduct a scheduled audit of each member approximately every two months

during active harvest. Additionally, the program aims to conduct an unannounced audit of each member annually. All audits are conducted by the California Department of Food and Agriculture, with oversight from the United States Department of Agriculture.

MEMBER AUDITS | 2023 – 2024 ANNOUNCED AUDITS

358

UNANNOUNCED AUDITS

59

TOTAL

417

CO M P LIAN CE The LGMA compliance process is both rigorous and unique: LGMA members are required to maintain 100 percent compliance with the food safety standards. That means every audit citation must be corrected.

CATEGORY

INFRACTIONS

MINORS

MAJORS

FLAGRANT

TOTAL

GENERAL REQUIREMENTS

0

8

0

0

8

RECORDS

0

5

0

0

5

PERSONNEL QUALIFICATIONS & TRAINING

1

20

0

0

21

ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENTS

0

7

0

0

7

WATER USE

7

45

7

0

59

SOIL AMENDMENTS AND CROP INPUTS

0

14

0

0

14

FIELD SANITATION

29

93

1

0

123

FIELD OBSERVATIONS

13

13

3

0

29

SOIL FERTILITY

0

0

0

0

0

TRANSPORTATION

0

1

0

0

1

WORKER PRACTICES

15

14

2

0

31

TOTAL

65

220

13

0

298

The LGMA does not score our member audits, but to put the number of citations into context: The LGMA conducted 417 audits and found members to be out of compliance 298 times which is approximately .7 citations issued per audit conducted. All citations are required to be corrected.

CITATI O N S E XP L AI N E D :

INFRACTION – the least serious

MAJOR – a serious violation, but

MINOR – a less serious violation

FLAGRANT – a violation that

violation, which can usually be corrected during an audit

that does not necessarily result in unsafe product

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that does not necessarily result in unsafe product

significantly increases the risk of delivering unsafe product

ENFORCEMENT The LGMA Compliance Officer reviews every audit, assigns citation levels, and works with government auditors to ensure that every citation has been corrected. If a citation is severe, or if smaller citations are not corrected, the Compliance Officer will start the decertification process. Decertification can last from two weeks up to a year.

ALYSSA LICATA, COMPLIANCE OFFICER “California growing regions experienced several heavy rain events in January and March of 2023 that resulted in flooding on or near some leafy greens ranches. The LGMA conducted member outreach and provided resources to help educate on best food safety practices. The LGMA also increased the cadence of its audits in April of 2023 by conducting field only audits that included flood related questions to verify that members were complying with the LGMA standards. All flooded ranches were verified to be in compliance with LGMA requirements.”

DECERTIFICATION There were no decertification actions taken during the 2023 – 2024 year.

However, one company did refuse an unannounced audit. This is extremely rare and the company was issued a Major Citation.

If a company is decertified, they cannot present themselves as a certified LGMA member, nor use the LGMA Service Mark. Government agencies and produce buyers rely on LGMA certification for supplier verification.

Loss of certification potentially means a loss of sales, including product being turned away from international borders.

An up-to-date list of LGMA members and their certification status is always available at www.lgma.ca.gov.

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OPERATING EXPENSES Included here are the audited operating expenses for the fiscal year April 1, 2023 – March 31, 2024.

•

$1,036,697

ADMINISTRATION: $1,036,697 AUDITS & CDFA FEES: $1,029,989

$116,282

COMMUNICATIONS: $353,696

$286,996

$1,029,989

TECHNICAL: $286,996 DC OUTREACH: $116,282

$353,696

TOTAL: $2,823,660

BOARD AND STAFF 202 3 –2024

ADVISORY BOARD

ALTERNATE MEMBERS

LGMA STAFF

• • • • • • • • • • • • • •

• • • • • • • • • • • • •

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Tony Alameda Matt Amaral Tony Banegas Jan Berk Todd Brendlin Megan Chedwick Kathleen Chrismer Chris Drew Scott Grabau John Jackson Drew McDonald Colby Pereira Ron Ratto Jack Vessey

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Steve Church Larry Cox Cynthia Dominguez Armando Figueroa Nob Furukawa Steve Junquiro Brian Mansfield Tim McAfee Gurmail Mudahar Jake Odello Ryan Reed Marcus Shebl Chato Valdes

Tim York Chief Executive Officer

•

Greg Komar

•

Alyssa Licata

•

Brooke Palmer

•

Connie Quinlan

•

Jennifer Scherpinski

•

April Ward

Technical Director

Compliance Officer

Administrative Assistant

Program Coordinator

Project Coordinator

Communications Director

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