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Finest For Our Product
Thanks to our deep relationships with growers all over the world, Mission Produce is the world’s largest source of trusted, highquality avocados all year long. We source and grow our avocados from the regions we believe will provide our customers, and their consumers, with the world’s finest avocados. All our avocados are harvested by hand, and our field to fork model is managed by the best in the business to provide healthy, safe and quality fruit.
The BRC Global Standard for Food Safety, which drives best food safety management practices throughout global supply chains The PrimusGFS Food Safety Audit, covering both GAP and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP), and Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) The International Featured Standards (IFS) for auditing food manufacturers
Product Quality and Safety
Food Safety
Food safety is top priority in every aspect of growing, packing and shipping avocados to market. We have a centralized department comprised of scientists, engineers, project managers, sanitation professionals and food safety experts that manage the global uniformity for all food safety programs.
We implement Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Good Harvesting Practices (GHP) where we grow and conduct quarterly food safety training for our grower network in California. We also have boots-on-the-ground grower support teams to certify our growers. In California, approximately 66% of our volume is certified by the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), a globally accepted standard to ensure food facilities and growing areas are producing safe food for consumers. We aim to increase our GFSI certified volume to 68% this year. Additionally, we conduct trainings on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) to advise our growers on regulatory requirements.
We are accredited by the following organizations which are benchmarked under the GFSI:
Additionally, two of our Mission staff serve on the Board of Directors for the Ventura County Food Safety Association, as President/CEO and Parliamentarian. We have served as a platinum sponsor since the inception of the association in 2016, donating facility space for board meetings and community training sessions.
We have implemented a centralized, standardized food safety program that holds all facilities globally to the same level of food safety. With 90 years of collective experience, we partner with research and laboratory science experts, and academia to provide and analyze the following, annually:
• 4,800 microbiological swabs
• 100,500 hours of sanitizing facilities
• 1,200 employee trainings, delivered to those in our facilities, as well as outside growers
• 9,500 collected documents, including all logs that are required to be maintained for food safety audits and regulatory bodies
Throughout our supply chain, we have a responsible procurement program in place to ensure marketplace compliance. This involves an emerging global supplier partnership program that works with over 50 copackers, 17 packaging suppliers and hundreds of growers to ensure regulatory and customer compliance throughout our network. It also provides consulting and guidance on food safety, security and social compliance programs, ensuring that our suppliers are up to date on food safety requirements. Our sanitation practices involve daily contact surface cleaning, third party validation, sanitation staff and microbiology-based risk assessments to determine sanitation scheduling and hygienic zoning. We also incorporate complete traceability from sourcing to final product distribution on all raw materials. Across global locations, we collect more than 400 swabs monthly using a composite swab technique to test for pathogens, including Zone 1 coliforms, Listeria, E. coli, Salmonella and Zone 2-4 pathogens.
Bacterial Reduction Validation Study
We are the first to partner with BioSafe Systems to launch a validation study, which we completed in August of 2020, on a proprietary blend of hydrogen peroxide and acetic acid used in our hydro-cooling and fruit wash systems in order to reduce the microbial load found on avocados. These chemicals act as a bacterial reduction, or, intervention step, before packing.
At our packing house in California, the study resulted in a 69.2% reduction of general bacteria on fruit in the hydrocooler and a 47.4% reduction on fruit in the fruit wash. In addition, the study resulted in a 76.4% reduction of coliforms on fruit coming out of the fruit wash. These intervention steps, in conjunction with our sanitation and microbiology programs, validate the reduction of bacteria on our products.
Product Quality
Quality matters and our advanced supply chain and methods are built around this philosophy. We have set the standard for quality processes and procedures to ensure we deliver the highest quality fruit to our customers at all times. It starts in fields with our expertly managed groves and grower support. Once the fruit enters our possession, we keep the avocados temperature-controlled until it reaches our customers to extend shelf-life and preserve the quality of the fruit.
Across the globe, we perform thorough inbound and outbound inspections on all orders, assessing the fruit quality, specifications, defects, labeling requirements, pulp temperatures, packing dates, dry goods integrity, and verifications of the customer and quantity. We perform dry matter inspections by the country of origin, as well as weigh all fruit boxes. Additionally, we conduct weekly equipment calibrations and cooler temperature inspections to ensure we are operating at our best. These practices ensure the highest quality fruit for the consumer.
In locations of elevated heat, we are the only handler to use hydro-cooling within 24-hours of picking to enhance fruit quality and shelf life.
