Issue link: https://read.dmtmag.com/i/283151
www.goodfruit.com GOOD FRUIT GROWER APRIL 1, 2014 41 "We want to be partners with you and on the same team," she said. "We do try to understand what you [growers] do." It's taken time and incentives to get the grower- members of Chelan Fruit Cooperative to complete the company's food safety program, Jim Colbert reported during the panel discussion. But only 9 out of 225 grow- ers didn't pass certification audits last year. Colbert, Chelan Fruit's food safety director, said the cooperative's management began working on food safety certification in 2008. Speaking about Chelan Fruit's efforts to implement food safety, he said management first had to select a food safety scheme. They chose GlobalGAP, an international certification program, and then hired a consultant to organize and compile the program's policies and record- keeping forms in a single binder. They also hired food safety field staff to help growers to comply. "We had varying degrees of acceptance," Colbert said, noting that conditions varied in the field. Grower costs to implement the program were also wide ranging, depend- ing greatly on the grower's level of sophistication for things like chemical storage and hand-washing facilities. Chelan Fruit used incentives to entice grower partici- pation, holding cash drawings to help offset compliance costs. They even gave away an all-terrain vehicle. "Maybe it took longer than we thought, but we got there," he said. Panelist Derek Allred of Mountain View Acres, Inc., a diversified grower in Royal City, Washington, said food safety certification programs are all about trackability and traceability—keeping records to track all the steps followed and be able to trace product. His farm follows the GlobalGAP program. Food safety must become company culture, he said. Buy-in from all employees is key, and it takes effort to get everyone in the mode of documenting things. He believes that traceability has been a positive step for his farm and helps him sleep better at night. "No one wants to produce an unsafe product. We have an inher- ent incentive to do our best when it can be traced back to us." • Karen Killinger, Washington State University Jim Colbert, Chelan Fresh Cooperative Milinda Dwyer, Costco Derek Allred, Mountain View Acres