August 5, 2014 and

Audit Ready: Worker Break Areas

The USDA GAPs and USDA Harmonized Third Party audits require that worker break areas be separate from where saleable product is handled.

Smoking areaThe GAPs audit states “smoking and eating are confined to designated areas separate from where product is handled.” An auditor completing a GAPs audit will look to see that the break area is indeed separate from production areas and that workers are using the area as they should be. If personal items, such as lunch boxes, food items etc., are found in the production area the auditor will deduct points from the total GAPs audit score. In some cases the auditor may deem the risk of contamination too great and may stop the audit.
[Read more…]

Filed Under: Food Safety
July 18, 2014 and

Farm Food Safety: Hand Washing Stations

Hand washing stations are an important part of your farm food safety goals.

Hand washing station outside of port a johnStations must be located at all bathroom facilities, ideally outside of the bathroom and in public view. Research has shown that people are much more likely to wash their hands if someone is watching them.  [Read more…]

Filed Under: Food Safety
July 11, 2014 and

Farm Food Safety: An Emergency Plan for your Portable Toilet

What would you do if your portable toilet had a spill? Operations that utilize portable toilets should have an emergency containment plan in place and all workers should be familiar with this plan.

Portable toilet The goal of this plan is to contain the spill to the immediate area around the portable toilet and to prevent contamination of production areas.  In the case of a portable toilet spill, one acceptable plan would be to immediately call the portable toilet service company and to build an earthen dam around the spill area to prevent further movement of the spilled contents.  Think about your portable toilet locations, how you would handle a spill situation and make sure that your workers are aware of the plan.

Filed Under: Food Safety
July 3, 2014 and

Farm Food Safety: Irrigation Water Sampling

Testing irrigation water for generic E. coli is something that every farm should do.  Timing and frequency of this testing varies depending on your water source.  Here is a cheat sheet: [Read more…]

Filed Under: Food Safety, Fruit, Vegetable Crops
July 2, 2014 and

Audit Ready:
Who Can Accompany You During A Third Party Audit?

Recently, a number of growers have asked:

“Who can accompany me during a third party food safety audit?”

Perhaps you had someone write your farm food safety plan for you or, you have a food safety consultant and you would like them to participate in or attend the audit.

GAP LOGOThe USDA weighed in on this question and stated:
 ” There are no written requirements restricting the number of individuals on an audit. We allow the auditor to make that decision as far as how many people they wish to accompany them. A consultant can accompany the auditor and act as an observer but may not act as a participant in the audit.”

If you would like someone to accompany with you during the audit be sure to ask the inspector where they stand on who may attend the audit with you.

Filed Under: Food Safety, Fruit, Vegetable Crops
June 13, 2014 and

Audit Ready:
On-Farm Food Safety Lessons Learned Series

If you have written your food safety plan and are preparing for a third party audit, the Rutgers On-Farm Food Safety Team offers farm “walk-throughs” to help evaluate your written plan and compliance activities. Over many years of performing walk-throughs, we’ve found some common situations that can foil the goal of making it through the audit process on the first go-round. Take a moment to make sure you’ve handled these areas that have tripped-up fellow NJ growers.

Know the Contents of Your Food Safety Manual

If a grower hires someone to write his or her food safety manual, the grower must know what is in the manual and adhere to the contents! There have been instances when the auditors came to do the audit, that it was obvious the grower did not know what was in their own farm food safety manual.

Food-Safety-Manual

Know Your Manual

  • Sit down with the person developing the manual to make sure there is agreement about what to put in the manual.
  • Once the manual has been developed, review each section to clarify and make necessary changes for the final version.

Remember, auditors use the grower’s food safety manual as the basis for the audit. If the grower does not know and understand the contents of their manual, they won’t be able to answer the auditors’ questions.

Have an On-Farm Food Safety question concerning your commercial NJ farm? Email us.

Filed Under: Food Safety, Fruit, Vegetable Crops