let's go ahead and get started all right I'll give a quick intro uh hello everyone and thank you for being here again tonight my name is Anna Withers and I'm the farmer Outreach coordinator for Springfield Community Gardens we are a nonprofit based in Springfield Missouri whose vision is a community where everyone has access to healthy local food and this workshop on pack houses and produce food safety is generously sponsored by Community Food projects or c FP Grant from the USDA National Institute of food and agriculture our speaker tonight is University of Missouri uh extension Horticulture field specialist Patrick buers and I will let him introduce himself further in a moment but just some housekeeping before we do get started if you have any questions throughout the night please ask as we go you can click on the Q&A button at the bottom of your screen and type in your question there um and we'll stop periodically to chat with Patrick about them so rest assured your questions will get answered there's also a separate chat feature at the bottom of your screen you're welcome to use this but please use that primarily for comments and that will help uh me keep track of the questions and make sure that we get everything answered also once you leave this Workshop a screen will pop up with a link to a post Workshop survey and that survey is used in Springfield Community Gardens report in to the USDA and also helps us provide meaningful workshops for you in the future so we'd really appreciate it if you could take a few minutes to fill that out after this Workshop um also if you would like to refer to this Workshop later or any of the others we've put on it will be available on our uh on scg's agriculture Workshop playlist on YouTube and I will put that link as well as our website and social media channels tonight's exit survey everything in the chat in just a moment so I think that's it for me thank you all again for being here tonight and I'm going to hand it off to Patrick thank you Anna I'm Patrick buers I'm a Horticulture field specialist with University of Missouri extension and I'm so excited to be partnering with Springfield Community Gardens and the USDA in a series of workshops focused on specialty crop production and tonight our topic matter is pack houses and produce food safety uh I should mention that about 50% of my appointment at present is focused on produce food safety I've been working in this in AR Arena since 2009 and I find that issues related to pack houses are one of the most fascinating aspects of produce food safety and obviously one of the most concerning so we'll be spending the next roughly 90 minutes uh talking about pack houses and how they interface with produce food safety and and your desire as Farmers to to grow and market and provide crops that are as safe as possible for the people who enjoy them so let's go ahead and get started okay Anna can we see the screen looks good okay very good so our subject matter tonight is pack houses and produce food safety and I've introduced myself I'm also a farmer formerly group peaches now growing elderberries and as I mentioned before as well in addition to working with with especially crop Farmers on production I also work in the area of produce food safety so this is the outline for what we're going to do tonight first we'll have some introductory comments then we'll talk about pack house design and there'll be some general comments here but I'll be interlacing issues related to produce food safety into this discussion as well then we're going to spend some time talking about water use at Harvest and post Harvest and of course this is a critically important topic because water can take a small problem spread it and create a big problem and water has to be managed correctly during the post Harvest period in the pack house then we'll talk about cleaning and sanitizing and finally some comments on managing pack houses okay so what is a pack house well looking at this picture we can see pack houses the picture on the right is a fairly uh basic pack house it's an open air pack house we'll see more hear more about this pack house a little bit later on but this is an example of of what might be a typical entry point pack house that many small farmers might might consider right off the bat on the left we see a very sophisticated pack house this is a blueberry pack house where crop is brought in from a number of farms run through sorting line and then um using automated techniques uh sales packages are filled and and scarcely a hand touches these berries from the time they enter the uh the pack house again an example of a sophisticated um automated pack house and these might be thought of as two extremes but really they do the same thing they receive crop they manage and handle crop and they send crop out so again not all pack houses are the same there are open air pack houses these can be open to the environment they may or may not be covered I've seen pack houses as basic as as a table in in a garage or on a patio and then again we can have very sophisticated pack houses that have doors and windows with Roes uh some ability to control entry into the building from the standpoint of people and also potential problems so uh pack houses run the Spectrum from again very very straightforward perhaps even primitive installations up to very sophisticated automated installations but again they all have the same purpose and they all can serve that purpose and can be made safe from the standpoint of produce food safety now when we think about pack house design there's three basic areas uh the first area in a pack house is the reception area and this is the area where crop comes in from the field and it's received into the pack house the part of the pack house that sees the most activity is the area of preparation and packing and in this part of the packing pack house depending upon the crops there may be washing and pre-cooling there may be grading and sorting there could be an area of packaging crop for storage there could be an area of storage Cold Storage perhaps cool storage or some other type of storage and then there could be an area where crop is then packaged for sales and then the third area is the dispatch area where crop is sent out from the pack house through loading and delivery to markets so again most pack houses share these three basic areas let's get into a bit more detail so what happens in a pack house well a number of things first of all crop as it's brought in from the field becomes produce ready for sales this sounds simple enough but crop sometimes comes in from the field with soil on it perhaps it comes in in a non-processed form and it leaves clean and perhaps minimally processed and ready for sales crop comes in at field temperature and then it's cooled or otherwise managed to extend shelf life and to prevent uh the degradation of the crop another thing that happens is the crop is harvested into field packs and it's brought into a pack house and then it's handled and it goes out in packaging for sale so again these are some again some fairly General statements but interesting things to think about from the standpoint of the overall uh um management of operations in the pack house now let's talk a little bit about food safety in pack houses and this is just an introduction we will delve into these topics in more detail a little bit later on this evening first of all all water use in pack houses at Harvest and post Harvest this water must start out as pble which means that it must be drinking water quality there should be zero U level of contamination so zero coliforms and zero generic coli pack houses should be protected from the weather now I mentioned that there are pack houses that are open to the weather well these carry risk you know birds can fly over and leave feces behind and and quite frankly working in an open air pack house can be a bit uncomfortable during weather extremes pack houses should include a handwash station as we'll see a little bit later on uh health and hygiene very important from the standpoint of people working in pack houses make sure that all surfaces are easily cleaned and sanitized we'll talk more about this uh pack houses except those that are are for large scale commercial operations typically are built so that the equipment within the pack house can be moved yes there may be some fixed installations but in general from the standpoint of flexibility uh in in in smaller pack houses frequently we can move things like tables and equipment around into different configurations this allows us to change the layout of the pack house based upon the type of produce and the volume of produce coming in whenever possible keep dirty areas of the pack house separate from clean areas and again when we think about the flow of crop crop frequently comes in from the field in a dirty State and it leaves the pack house in a clean State and it can be a challenge to maintain this process if the areas where where dirty crop comes in and clean crop leaves are close together or adjacent and if you're storing materials in the pack house perhaps you're storing packaging materials or sanitizing chemicals or or other other materials they should be kept in area separate from produce so some general things to think about as we go through the the remainder of our material tonight now let's talk about the the components of a pack house in a bit more detail and we'll start with the reception area for produce now not many of us are growing pineapple as we see in this picture here but this would be a typical example of a reception area uh perhaps an area with a loading dock or a place where we can bring carts uh where we can bring trucks perhaps we can bring wagons up close to the pack house and unload the crop now we want to think about efficiency from the standpoint of the reception area again frequently having it close to the production fields uh from the standpoint of the orientation of the pack house makes for an efficient setup make sure that the drive areas around a pack house allow for efficient loading and unloading of produce both loading in the field and unloading at the reception area in the pack house frequently we have an area and equipment for initial washing of produce and we see two pictures here the first picture is a continuation of our pineapple operation where the crop is unloaded and placed into a flu where it's washed and cooled initially before it moves further into the pack house if we look at the right we see an example of of a uh an area for washing produce and here we have two different stages the first stage is outside of the pack house and you can see the uh the farmer washing produce in an open area where the water is then allowed to drop to drain away in this case these are root vegetables which come in with soil clinging to them and they are washed before they enter the pack house they're then transferred into the pack house onto a uh a draining area as we can see in this picture where they can be then handled uh further inside of the pack house once that field soil has been removed grading and sorting equipment isn't this an interesting picture this is potatoes in a large scale uh grading and sorting facility but the same thing can happen on a much smaller scale in in a pack house typically we have an area where the crop can be laid out and examined and and uh pieces of produce that are damaged or diseased or otherwise of quality that does not meet standards can be removed this can also be an area where we can sort crop by size or by degree of ripeness but again frequently we have an area where we lay crop out we examine it and then we grade it and sort it packaging for storage oftentimes crop is not going to be moved out initially upon arrival at the reception and Grading and store and and sorting area and in this case the crop may be placed into larger bins that are then placed into storage perhaps cold storage for those crops that require cold conditions cool storage for something like um tomatoes for example or perhaps even warm storage for crops such as uh Ginger or turmeric but whatever the case might be there's frequently an area in the pack house where crop is moved from the grading and sorting area into an area where it's packaged for storage we oftentimes have a packaging area for sales here we see blueberries that have been packaged and ready to be sent out for sales and so we may have an area where where we package crop now in some pack houses where we're not storing crop the crop may move immediately from from grading and sorting into a packaging area for sales and that that may be the case for example with h with the farmers market uh Growers who who just don't have a long period of time from Harvest to when the crop is marketed we may have cold storage in other storage areas and again looking at this picture we can see a creative use of a uh a storage container turned into a cold storage unit you can see the air conditioning units mounted on the end of the storage container and inside we would see coolbot controls that allow us to use a typical air conditioner as a cold storage unit cooler where we can bring the temperature down to the the desired range perhaps even as low as as the mid-30s again the temperature that we maintain in Cold Storage is related to the type of crop that we're storing and frequently we may have cold storage areas where we can maintain different levels of temperature for different crops we may also have other storage areas you know for example as I said warm storage areas for for some crops or cool storage areas for other crops and then we have the dispatch area for produce where produce is sent out uh from the pack house to the market and this could be an area again similar to the reception area frequently with the dock or some other type of a setup where we can move product on pallet jacks or on carts close to the vehicles that we'll then use to transport the produce to Market and again it could be something as basic as we see here which is a converted van or it could be reefer trucks or other refrigerated storage but whatever it might be the dispatch area is a very important area to consider frequently we have storage areas in the pack house storage areas for post Harvest bins as we see in that larger picture perhaps a storage area for chemicals so we may have areas where we store packaging or equipment but uh as I mentioned earlier it's best to have dedicated storage areas that are separate and distinct from the areas where produce is being handled and then we have equipment in our pack house here's a picture of a smallscale pack house notice the roller belt there in the very front uh we may have equipment for washing and sanitizing you can see a three Bas sink behind the uh the uh roller belt we may have salad spinners we may have RIT washers and we have have lots of different possibilities from the standpoint of equipment for washing and sanitizing perhaps tank bubblers and other types of things then we may have equipment for sorting and Grading and again this can be as unsophisticated as a table surface where we lay produce out or it could be a u automated uh high-tech sorting line where the sorting and Grading is done through automation frequently we have equipment for draining perhaps a salad spinner or something along those lines we frequently have equipment for weighing wrapping and packaging product and especially if we're if we're uh uh packaging at the pack house for final sales we may have equipment for weighing the product that's going into packaging and then we frequently have carts pallet jacks and other types of equipment to move products around and again if we look at this picture here we can see again the roller belt in the front we can see the three Bay sink we can see in the back a table for grading and sorting and we can see off to the right the cooler again all of these in a fairly small scale pack house now as I mentioned before anytime you can separate the reception area where crop frequently comes in with soil adhering to it from the area where crop is sent out for Market that is an advantage and on that subject let's talk about the flow of activities in intelligent pack house design so in in in the the best case scenario a single level building with a receiving area at one end and a dispatching area at the other will oftentimes be the most convenient Arrangement it works great from the standpoint of reducing the risk of cross-contamination because in this sort of a setting the crop that comes in with soil is separated by distance and by time from the crop that goes out in a clean condition to Market with this approach we also tend to have fewer problems with congestion frequently the reception area is an area of congestion as is the dispatch area and anytime we can separate those two we can streamline and make more efficient the flow of operations in the pack house so again think of building that has a perhaps a large door at one end and a large door at the other end and then in between are where all of those other operations take place that we just discussed now the pack house that I just showed you in the picture actually had a U-shaped flow produce where the produce comes in one side moves through the pack house goes into the cooler and then eventually leaves the cooler and comes out the same door that it entered and again this is typically not as desirable as a situation with receiving area and the dispatch area that are distinct from each other again we run the risk of congestion and the possibility of cross-contamination as well on the subject of intelligent pack house design let's talk about surfaces for a moment and when we think about surfaces we're thinking about the risk of cross-contamination keep in mind that any surface the contacts produce becomes a food contact surface and if we look at these examples here let's let's let's take a quick look so over on the far right the upper picture this is a stainless steel surface it's it's easy to clean it's very smooth there are very few places for bacteria to Lodge in that surface now in time you can get deep gouges that they can be an issue but in general stainless steel or metal surfaces are among the easiest to clean and sanitize moving in a clockwise fashion we see a tile surface now the tile itself is frequently very very hard very durable very non-porous and easy to clean the problem here are the grout lines and if we notice on this particular surface these grout lines are are already discolored and quite frankly they are very difficult to clean and sanitize so again a tile surface would be less desirable than a smooth surface such as a stainless steel surface moving next counterclockwise we see the uh the I'm sorry clockwise we see a a wooden surface in general wooden surfaces might start out smooth easy to clean and sanitize But as time goes by and as they experience wear it becomes very difficult to adequately clean and sanitize again looking at this particular table we can see lots of crevices creases areas holes where bacteria can Lodge where biofilms can form and where problems can start uh now does this mean that we can't use wooden surfaces in pack houses of course not but we definitely want to take measures to make sure that these surfaces don't become a source of contamination as they contact produce the U next picture shows a a composite surface again a very smooth surface with the stainless steel triple wash sink now a couple things to notice the surface itself is just fine but notice the area where the sink overlaps the surface this becomes again an area where debris can Lodge where bacteria can Lodge an area that can be difficult to clean and sanitize so not only do we want to think about the surface itself but we want to think about the surface and how it interfaces with equipment sinks and other things that might be found in the pack house here's an example of a tomato storage room and uh if we look at this picture at you know again first glance there there no don't seem to be any serious issues but if we look at it through the lens of produce food safety and surfaces we can see several areas of concern of course the box of tomatoes is on a wooden table the surface of this wooden table would be a challenge to clean and sanitize and you can kind of see how it's already experienced where the paint is worn off of it if we look behind uh against the wall we see a surface that is tile it's a little hard to see in this picture here these are larger size tiles but there are still grout lines that have to be done and again an example of a surface that can be challenged to keep clean and sanitized now the wall surfaces in the ceiling surface and the floor in this pack house are excellent the floor is concrete uh it's a smooth concrete very easy to clean and sanitize the walls are made out of a composite material similarly easy to clean and sanitize now one thing I'll mention in case I forget to later on but if you'll notice the light fixture against the wall we see examples of fluorescent tubes and we also see an incandescent bulb in general in pack houses it's best to have enclosed fixtures or fixtures that don't actually have glass as part of the fixture because glass upon breaking can very easily become contaminant in produce so keep this in mind as well when you're thinking about the way that you light areas in the in the pack house another thing I'll point out uh this grower is using the the storage area as the the Tomato storage area also as a storage area for packaging which is generally not a best management practice now thinking about equipment um hygienic equipment design is a very important thing to consider uh equipment in a pack house should be very easy to break down very easy to separate into its components and very easy to clean and sanitize and if we look at this conveyor we can actually see some problem areas right off the bat looking closely we can see areas where the paint has worn off of equipment we see areas where metal comes together there are creases and indentations again a challenge to adequately clean and sanitize and we see a roller bed that is very hard to disengage the rollers from the conveyor and we notice that these rollers are already showing some evidence of of of soiling so again it's going to be a challenge to adequately clean and sanitize the rollers on this conveyor so again when when when purchasing new equipment very important to think about hygienic design so again the Five Points to consider with equipment um surfaces should be visible and easily reachable they should be smooth and cleanable there should be no collection points they should be uh of compatible materials and there should be ways to prevent contamination in the first place with equipment so again with new equipment very important consideration when looking at used or or older equipment there may be need may be the need for modifications so that it does become uh a situation where it meets these criteria more easily okay let's take a quick look at a video and we'll be looking at the pack house that is used by Springfield Community Gardens at their uh their Market Garden so let me go ahead and uh stop sharing and we'll bring up our first video okay Anna can we see the video uh yep it looks good okay hi everybody my name is Kevin Prather I'm the lead farmer with Springfield Community Gardens um I oversee three soon to be four Farm incubator sites where our goal is to provide our neighborhoods with awesome organically raised veggies but also do some training as well well we've been growing here at the market Garden here at Fairbanks for about 5 years um and as you can see um the pack shed isn't quite finished up yet so still at this point um we're doing all of our processing outside it is doable um but this was a much better option for a variety of reasons number one um we can't really of course control the elements when we're outside as easily as we can when we're in a building um so for Farmer's Comfort um it's definitely nice to be enclosed with four walls um secondarily uh food safety concerns you know there's birds outside and things falling from the sky you know um and and inside we can control sort of um what comes into contact with food better than we could outside and we can also keep our equipment much cleaner inside than we could outside as well which has food safety implications um another reason why a pack shed was really important to us was for storage um over the last few years going to Market we would have to harvest pretty much um just before going to Market maybe the night before and try to jam-pack things in the refrigerators um in our homes or what have you and now of course we have a a large insulated walk-in cooler um we can not only store our produce in there but also seeds and things of that nature well right off the bat um one of the most important things in a pack house is being connected to water we're hooked up to Municipal Water here it's clean it's safe it's tested regularly by them we can trust it as it's coming in through our pipes um that's really important for handwashing and for just making sure we've got good clean water when we're processing and cleaning our produce um for now the handwashing sink is plumbed over there but we'd like to actually move it over here right inside the door because in our mindset we want to go very linearly and very clearly from Dirty to clean and that begins by washing your hands before using your hands to handle the produce as it moves down the line so we'd like to see that move over here um using this kind of in the interim before it's finished um we don't have a lot of surfaces and a lot going on in here but the surfaces we do have we've selected to be very easy to clean and wipe down that goes for you know the tables where we're we're setting things down also our our equipment for um for washing for drying um and it even includes the wall so in here there's going to be lots of lots of water spray most likely things like that we wanted to make every surface possible as easy to clean as possible um we're going to be putting in a different material up here on top um so this is this is fiber reinforced plastic FR FRP it's pretty expensive so we're mainly just using it in the in the areas that are going to see lots of splashing as I mentioned before we're still in the in the in the middle of filling this out finishing it up um but in the in the interim right now we're using a three compartment sink um to wash our greens uh this obviously it's stainless steel so again very very easy to clean um um very easy to wipe down uh another really important surface uh is the floor um If This Were gravel or anything else you know it it's you can't really clean gravel that well so having a slick nice floor um with these safety mats um uh it makes it very easy to you know squeegee stuff down the drains keep this dry um the drains then empty into uh this some pump down here which we have the option of either sending it to a graywater catchment outside just for soaking back into the ground or flipping to sewer so primarily it's left on sewer um so we can be in code and things like that next up here are our totes um we use these ones specifically for uh produce we don't use these out in the field to harvest we use different bins for that that way we make sure um that there's not cross contact between clean produce um and produce that's dirty might be leaving extra debris and stuff in the bins they're all the standard size um it makes it really easy um you know I can just guess looking at a bin like 5 lb boom that's a 5 PBS of greens easy for quick math I mean for judging kind of what you have in storage at any given time um yeah very few little nooks and crannies very easy to keep clean um and then we keep them on these little carts so they're e easy to move around as well I would not say that that Illustrated how easy it was to move okay and now on the cold storage this is a pretty simple structure um it's just framed out with uh 2x4s and some 2x sixes um we have two layers of I think it's r19 or something like that um insulated foam board um not terribly expensive two layers of that and then much like the rest of the pack house we have this fiber reinforc panel F FRP um so that we can keep these walls very clean it's easy to spot if something's on the wall this is a converted AC unit well the AC unit is not converted from anything but uh there's this product called a coolbot which basically just convinces the AC unit to go much colder than it otherwise is programmed to go um so yeah we keep between 38 and 34 in here at any given point which is also very important for Cold Storage longevity and food safety okay let's go ahead and return to the uh presentation okay I think at this point Anna do we have any questions uh we don't yet but I'm wondering if at some point I assume you will but are there just Goto resources for people to know um more of like these regulations for pack house safety like where would someone go if they wanted to just see a list or see some information from an authority on that yes um very very good point and at the very end I have a list of resources uh the University of Vermont has taken the lead in pous produce food safety and so there are a list of resources which include downloadable PDFs and vide from Vermont that are very helpful very helpful to me as an educator and very helpful to Farmers as they plan and build uh pack houses I'll also mention that the uh food safety modernization act produce safety Alliance training that's that daylong intensive produce food safety training includes several modules that focus on Harvest and post harvest in pack houses and so that's an excellent way to have an in-person experience in understanding produce food safety in the pack house perfect thank you that's all for now okay let's talk a bit now about water use in the pack house and as I said before this is a critically important area because uh water of course is is necessary in in in many pack houses but if we don't use water correctly we can have issues with the the spread of contamination from a a very isolated situation to a perhaps a crop wide situation so let's let's take a look at water use in the pack house now there's an obviously an important reason to focus on water at post Harvest because you can't eliminate all the food safety risks in the field there frequently are issues that are going to be in the field that will make their way into the pack house and we have to remember that post Harvest water as I said has the potential to spread contamination widely if we look at that picture there the yellow squash if we had a few yellow squash in that bin that were contaminated with with bird feces and we dump it into this tank it could spread and contaminate a large quantity of of produce in in short order so the the focus on post Harvest water is very important now we use post Harvest water for lots of things in the pack house now we certainly use it for rinsing and washing and frequently that's what comes to mind first but we also use water to move commodity remembering back to that picture of the pineapples that was a flume moving pineapples down the line to a a grading and sorting area we also use water to cool crop you know crop that comes in at field heat can be cooled by placing it in water we might use water for ice making we might use it if we're applying post Harvest fungicides or waxes to uh product we certainly use water to wash our hands and we use water when we clean and sanitize food contact surfaces you know when we scrub down a table or a piece of equipment we're going to be using water for that so again we're using a lot of water during post Harvest now from the standpoint of managing water at post Harvest first of all we need to know its initial quality and then we need to know how we're going to use it and then if we decide to use a treatment an antimicrobial treatment then we have to understand how that water interacts with the treatment now keep in mind that uh when we talk about antimicrobial products such as sanitizers we don't add sanitizers to water to to wash produce in many cases if produce is contaminated in in the field it can be very challenging to remove that contamination what we're doing is we're using sanitizers to prevent cross contamination we're using sanitizers to keep issues on one piece of produce spreading through water to other pieces of produce sanitizers in the water can can uh eliminate any bacteria any viruses or or well primarily bacteria that might be present in the water that is circulating around the crop keep in mind too that these anti microbial products these sanitizers are regulated as biological pesticides so they have to be labeled for what you intend to use them for so if you're going to use them in water if you're going to use them to contact fruits and vegetables or if you're going to use them on food contact surfaces they must state that on the label and this can be tricky there can be the you know two two uh jugs of of very similar products same active ingredients same concentration one may not be labeled for with produce one maybe and the one that is not labeled if it is used with produce it's being used in in a situation where where it's not in accordance with the label and this is breaking the law now there's lots of sanitizers available we'll get into that here in a moment including organic options now cross-contamination so where can problems come from well you know certainly we can contaminate produce lots of ways uh when we think about um uh cross-contamination it might come from uh other pieces of produce it might come from materials in or on harvest containers it might come from water that is contaminated it might come from food contact surfaces that are contaminated it can come from your hands it could come from workers clothing from containers from tables conveyor belts water and tools anything that comes into contact with produce if it's not in a clean and sanitary condition can cause cross-contamination now um when we think about the criteria for water at Harvest and post Harvest this is the starting point this is a very important thing to remember is the water used in in h Harvest and post har post Harvest activities must have no detectable generic ecoli for 100 ml sample in other words it should be potable drinking water quality if we're going to use that water to directly contact produce if we're going to use it to contact food contact surfaces if we're going to use it to make ice or if we're going to use it to wash hands and we must not use untreated surface water for these purposes in other words untreated water from a lake a stream a pond rainwater that's been captured off a building from a spring these are all untreated surface water and in nearly every situation they carry some load of contamination and they must not be used for these Harvest and post Harvest activities now as far as testing untreated groundwater and Public Water Supplies which are the types that can be used for post Harvest these are the uh the current requirements of the produce safety Rule and for untreated groundwater you know for example a well the water should be tested four or more times during the growing season uh initially and then once a year following if a grower is using public water perhaps water that is supplied by a county or a city or a public water uh uh delivery uh service then the uh grower should request a copy of the test results or current certificates of compliance that demonstrate that this public water supply is indeed pable and has indeed been tested so again pretty straightforward uh from the standpoint of harvest and post Harvest only untreated groundwater or Public Water Supplies can be used and that untreated groundwater again must be poble a quick question Patrick yes um and I'm not sure actually how to pronounce this word but someone's asking about using aqua Aqua is Ozone for washing and processing a qua o u s ozone does that sound familiar U I have heard of that material I have to confess I've not examined the label so I would need to take a look at the label to really you know give give information on whether or not that can be used uh for Harvest and post Harvest uh uses again to contact produce or to contact food contact surfaces so check the label and uh and see what it has to say there are as I said before there are many different types of sanitizers that can be used but they must have on the label that they are are labeled for use on produce or on food contact servfaces do we have any other questions um no just another comment that uh this person asking uses it to sanitize Winery equipment so just some food for thought yeah yeah certainly um there are a number of of sanitizers that can be used in in you know various types of food processing such as a wine making beer making canning freezing those sorts of things and again in in those cases those sanitizers must be labeled for that intended [Music] use okay let's talk about um how we actually use water during Harvest and post Harvest and uh we should Define a couple of terms and the first term is single pass water and single pass water again as is the case with any water should not have any detectable generic E coli when it's used um the uh have to remember that that the the uh FDA the food safety modernization act produce safety rule which is an FDA law does not actually require any water treatment so you don't have to use water treatment but in many cases it can be a very good idea now you can add antimicrobial products such as sanitizers uh one of the things that these sanitizers do you know what what we should talk about this is that they can help from the standpoint of managing biofilms and we should Define a bofilm a biofilm is a sticky layer that's found on surfaces it can be found on equipment on tabletops on grading lines even on tools and these biofilms are made up of sticky substances typically polysaccharides and embedded in these biofilms are bacteria and these biofilms are a primary source of contamination during Harvest and post Harvest and a lot of our risk management when it comes to to managing food safety during Harvest and post harvest in the pack house is to do everything we can to reduce the buildup of biofilms if you want an analogy a bofilm is a lot like that film that develops on your teeth and when you think about cleaning your teeth this is something that is done with with vigorous action with your toothbrush same thing applies to cleaning biofilms off of equipment and food contact surfaces and we'll talk more about that here in a moment now single pass water we use once if we look at the pictures here we can see water being used to rinse these carrots off in the uh the lug and that water is then draining away and it's not going to be used again so this is what single pass water is in general single pass water carries less risk than multiple use water which we'll talk about next so recirculated in batch water this is a situation where we're going to use the same container the same Flume the same batch of water for more than one group of produce we may use it several different times now as is the case with a single pass water this water must start out clean no generic eoline and we must take measures to maintain that water in a safe and adequate sanitary quality throughout its use in other words uh it starts out clean but we shouldn't be using that water to the point where it's no longer safe to be used used now again treatment is not required but this can be a very very good idea when using recirculated to batch water again to help maintain water quality again if you're using an antimicrobial product it must be labeled for use with fruits and vegetables and you need to have in place a schedule for changing batch water or a process in place for minimizing the buildup of organic matter in the water you know as this water is used uh Time After Time After Time it's going to develop a load of contamination and you have to have a plan in place that guides when you're going to change that water now in some cases this plan might be based on time you know perhaps I change the water every hour every half hour or perhaps it's based upon the number of batches of produce that Mo move through it I changed the water after every third batch of produce but you should have in place guidelines and you should have justification for those guidelines we'll talk about what those justifications look like here in a moment now when we think about the variables in water the first thing of course to think about is quality at the at the start of using that water and again as I've as we've said several times we'll probably say several more times tonight water at the start of use in in the pack house must have no generic eoli must be poble now some other factors of the water that that need to be taken into consideration the pH of the water this is the whether or not the water is acidic or alkaline and the reason this is important we do choose used to use an antimicrobial treatment of sanitizer its activity may be impacted by high or low PH temperature is important as well because temperature plays a direct role in the problem of infiltration and infiltration is where a situation where water can actually move inside of produce through cut surfaces bruises or other points of entry and it can carry contamination internally into the produce and obviously at that point the produce cannot be cleaned up and so we want to do everything we can to minimize infiltration we'll talk more about that here in a moment as well and then the fourth criteria is turbidity and this is basically the load of debris and U suspended solids that the water is carrying and you know as you look at water as it's used Time After Time After Time it quite frankly becomes dirty and that can be one of the criteria to help guide the decision to change the water now pH uh fairly straightforward to to monitor pH uh it's important to monitor pH especially if you're using a chlorine based sanitizer you can use test strips you can use a handheld pH meter there are various ways to do that we could see this picture here a sample of water in the cup and a pH test strip was dipped in the water and then it's the color change on the Strip is compared to a a standard and this gives us an idea what the pH is now keep in mind that as we add sanitizers particularly chlorine to water can change the pH so once you've added the sanitizer it's important to take the pH again now you can adjust pH as needed by adding acidifying agents typically that's what what was done there's also other agents that can be added to raise pH but it's important to keep the pH in the optimal range because when the a pH is in the optimal range the sanitizer is most effective if the pH is outside of the optimal range to some degree and perhaps completely the sanitizer will lose effectiveness temperature now what we're talking about here is the temperature difference between the produce and the bulk tank water that we're going to dump that produce into and the rule of thumb here is if there's more than 10 degrees difference between the temperature of the produce and the temperature of the water we can have issues with infiltration and um how do we measure temperature well yeah pretty straightforward in in the dunk tank how do we measure the temperature of the produce well we can use a a thermom that has a probe on it and just poke that into a piece of produce to give us a feel for what the inner temperature is of the produce keep in mind that produce that's harvested during the heat of the day will come in quite warm there's also an issue with temperature and how it affects the uh the activity of certain antimicrobial products again oftentimes chlorine sanitizers are the ones that we're most concerned about and if we're using for example a a water temperature that is too high and pH that is too low the sanitizer can actually release chlorine gas which is toxic and it can become a health acid for workers so again important to monitor temperature and pH especially with the use of chlorine based sanitizers now a little bit more about infiltration this is an interesting picture this is a cantaloupe and um the cantaloupe was put into cold water that had a blue dye in the water and you can see how the water has moved into the Flesh of the catalog wherever you see a blue stain that's where the uh the uh water moved into the cantaloupe and if that water had been contaminated it would carry bacteria with it to the inner flesh of the cantaloupe and obviously would be impossible to clean up at that point now wounded bruised fruit have a greater risk of infiltration infiltration is also worse the deeper the piece of produce is in the container and this is one of the reasons why frequently in pack houses we use fairly shallow tanks from the standpoint of of placing produce into the water because the deeper it is the be more the the greater the pressure differential the more likely the water will infiltrate into the produce but the main factor again is temperature so anytime the produce is warmer than the tank water there's the likelihood of infiltration taking place and infiltration is particularly Troublesome with tomatoes with h melons and with uh certain types of fruit and then again the fourth criteria is turbidity and looking at this picture here we can see examples of water at different levels of suspended solids you can see on the on the left clean water and then all the way over to water that is quite cloudy high high turbidity and the ways that we monitor turbidity we can use turbidity meters we can use a SEI disc which is a a circle that is has black and white quadrants painted on it and it's it's placed down into a cylinder of water and you look through the down the top of the cylinder and if you can see the divisions on the disc then the water is not turbid but the uh the higher the level of turbidity the less visible the SE disc is now why is turbidity an issue well turbid turbid water will reduce the effectiveness of any sanitizer treatment the turbidity the suspended solids bind with the sanitizer and make it less effective and you need to add more sanitizer to maintain Effectiveness so again having a a handle on turbidity is very important from the standpoint of understanding if you're your sanitizer is actually doing what you intend for it to do now when should you change your water well this is a a question that is not answered in detail in the federal laws this is a decision that is left to the the grower but it is important that the the water be be maintained in a clean and sanitary condition now you have to manage post Harvest water and again the the factors that might enter into when you change the water could be based upon organic load you know the amount of debris you have in the water turbidity measurements the volume of produce that you're running through the water the type of produce an example here is zucchini zucchini always carries a load of debris and the sap coming from the stems and and that sort of thing and so frequently water that's used to with with zucchini has to be changed more frequently than water used with other types of produce water used with red vegetables will need to be changed more frequently the product flow and operating conditions need to be taken into account the type of the antimicrobial product that you're using and the type of equipment all of these are factors that play into that decision of changing the water if you're using water for multiple passes now what do you do with your used water well you have to dispose of it in a way that it meets regulations you also want to dispose of it in such a way that it doesn't become a source of contamination you know water that runs off from a pack house into a produce field is a a is not a good situation because that's likely to be a source of contamination water that falls into the ground where people walk into it and then they walk into produce fields or into the pack house can also be a similar situation that can result in cross-contamination handwashing stations they should have a catch Basin if they're not collected to a sanitary drain and again a check with with regulations State local and EPA as far as discharging this uh used water into sewers leech fields and or surface waters this especially the case if if you're using sanitizing agents in that water okay do we have any questions at this point Anna not right now okay now let's talk a bit about how you choose an antimicrobial product so chlorine sanitizers are used a lot they're affordable they're available they have some negatives corrosive and they're highly reactive especially if the water temperature is high and the pH of the water is low in many cases chlorine sanitizers are not allowed by organic certifiers so this has to be kept in mind as well we also have other non-chlorine chemical options these are typically based upon ozone peroxy acetic acid hydrogen peroxide that sanitizer that was mentioned earlier is one of the ones that's based on ozone we also have organic formulations so these are are U frequently recommended during Organic certification so organic materials such as tsunami Spectrum sanidate bigo these are all materials that will be approved by most organic certifiers but it is important to check with your certifier when you're choosing an antimicrobial product and as I mentioned before these products must be labeled for their use on produce again always follow the label read and follow label instructions and again looking at this particular material this is ultra Ultra Clorox which is a commonly used sanitizer and we can see mentioned on the label for fruit and vegetable washing so again this is the sort of language that you would expect to see on a sanitizer that's used for uh in situations where it contacts produce u in in in in the course of of a harvest and post Harvest activities now if you you choose to use an antimicrobial treatment such as a sanitizer it's important that you have in place a plan to monitor its level because if you're using it if you're relying upon it then you need to be able to document that it's actually doing what you what you intend for it to do and again there each each sanitizer has specific ways to monitor levels frequently would be things such as a a test strip as we see here uh we could also use various types of instrumentation to measure the effectiveness of San izers and frequently the suppliers for sanitizers will also Supply the test kits and the test strips needed to to monitor the level of sanitizers once they've been placed into the water okay now let's watch another uh video clip here this was a video clip taken at an open pack house and uh again a bit of a contrast to the pack house that we saw with Springfield Community Gardens but in this video we'll be hearing the farmer talk about the use of sanitizers and also an interesting towards the end an interesting discussion of how to keep poses in a pack house from C causing cost contamination uh the uh audio is not real loud but uh I think that the farmer does get his message across so let's take a quick look at this video e okay Anna can we see the video yep it is out okay wash three times one two three everything else can be washed two times um they also want you to put sanitizer in one of the sinks probably the second or the third um we do that on some stuff we haven't completely wrapped our heads around um what that looks like every day we do a lot of is we're starting to uh weigh whether we want to sell lettuce to people requiring food safe because as soon as you start washing lettuce it starts to deteriorate it's very hard to get dry but it is one of the highest risk in terms of food prod lettu uses that's why they want you to wash it three times and why they want you to use sanitizer in the water as well again sanate 5.0 1.95 Gall so we have actually a measuring stick that has a line on it put it in bring the water up to that level you measure it you make sure the water's up to that line you know it's 15 Gallons then we put in 1.95 to 2 oz of the sanate we use uh I don't see one of our cups over here this is not it this would work but you can see the lowest is 4 oz and you can't eyeball I mean you could eyeball 2 O in here but because it tapers towards the bottom you kind of just rolling the dice of whether it's proper or not we have smaller cups they're like smaller plastic Dixie cups that have it down to an ounce so you can easily see 1 o 2 O um I pull one of those out then they would come back and spray the sanitizer and let it sit for one minute the sanitizer is the other bottle that's labeled sanitizer um let that sit for one minute and then they're ready to go we did the same thing for the drying um except they would use a different brush they'd use the green uh tape P brush for that um one thing I should mention about the wash station there's a couple regulations that need to happen with that which is your hoses um cannot be laying in the sink cannot have your hoses laying in the sink um we just use these small little hooks here that are easily found at at the hardware store just to keep the somewhat fixed so you can actually turn the water on um and your hose in and walk away while it's going up um you're not wasting time standing here with the hose H cannot be in the sink um your drainage needs to be going out of the wash station does not have to be going underground does not have to be going into a drain on the concrete pad you either need Concrete in your floor in the wash station or gravel much easier we find it much easier to use gravel um pulling a con not the hardest thing in the world but it can be a little costly um it is important that you have it pitched a certain direction you have to have a drain and then that would have to be P away as well the gravel um as long as you have a little bit of sand and two inches of gravel and the and your wash water is draining out of the wash station it's fine does not have to be underground it just need to be out of the wash station ours drains through a little uh ditch over there and then drains back towards the creek which is on the back side the bamboo okay let's go ahead and return to uh presentation and Patrick was was he saying that you do like even when rinsing lettuces you do put a sanitizer in that water to rinse it or did I miss here it's a frequent situation with with the Lett uses and other greens that they are rinsed in a three BAS system where you have an initial rinse then you have a rinse in water that does have a sanitizer in it and then a final rinse in potable water and then the uh the uh greens are then spun and and uh then they're packaged so yes um sanitizers are frequently used with Greens Greens are considered to be higher risk crops because they're grown in close contact with the soil and frequently they do carry some load of of soil into the pack house so hence the idea of a triple wash sink for greens now some comments on on that video um again this was a fairly primitive pack house but uh this video was actually shot during a tour of produce food safety inspectors and we went through that place with a fine tooth comb yes we had some concerns you might have noticed the wood surfaces and the uh the uh screening the grading that was put over wood where the vegetables were drying but the farmer was able to demonstrate to our satisfaction that uh he was able to keep these surfaces cleaned and sanitized and so again even though it it was you know wasn't a very sophisticated pack house that certainly met the needs and the crops moving through that pack house were not exposed to any risk that uh or any serious risk that that couldn't be uh manage from the standpoint of the management of the pack house okay let's go ahead and continue now some Sops standard operating procedures for post Harvest water uh you want to have a process in place for monitoring adding and adding antimicrobial products if you choose to use them you want to be monitoring and modifying pH if necessary you want to be measuring water and uh product temperatures you know the temperature of the water the temperature of the uh the produce you want to monitor turbidity and change and add water as necessary and make sure that your instruments your thermometers and your sensors are calibrated now there may be some situations where you need to take corrective actions first of all if you if you find out that there's a problem relative to your procedures you know perhaps your your antimicrobial treatment is actually below the effective level when you check it perhaps your inventory is being used faster than expected or maybe your pH readings are out of whack perhaps someone's reported a problem or perhaps your you're monitoring and record keeping are not correct okay any questions on on the material we've covered so far uh not at this time okay now let's talk about cleaning and sanitizing you know we've touched on that already we we've talked about the fact that the water should be potable and we've talked about that any sanitizers for these uses must be labeled now let's get into a little bit of of in-depth and talking about cleaning and sanitizing now it's really important that you keep things clean again because anything that contacts produce can be a source of contamination so again anything it could be packing and picking containers it could be packing equipment it could be your hands it could be your clothing it could be the water that you use it could be the buildings or it could even be the vehicles that you're transporting produce in so some basic concepts uh again you know keeping a clean pack house is is really important keep floors Sweat Keep countertops and walls clean keep sinks clean U make sure that um that uh you have facilities in place so that workers can do what need to be done uh do everything you can to eliminate pests and debris both inside and outside of the pack house and do everything you can to minimize standing water so pools puddles those sorts of things are are just problems waiting to happen and then when you clean and sanitize use a four- stepped cleaning and sanitizing process we'll talk about what that is here in a moment but you should be able to with with uh with good planning be able to reach all surfaces the contact produce and clean them using a four-step process now some basic things to think about um workers should not Harvest produce that is contaminated with feces from from Birds animals or or anything else and workers should not Harvest produce that has fallen to the ground okay it's it's frequently a situation where you know perhaps during Harvest a piece of fruit or a piece of vegetable is dropped to the ground the likelihood that it'll be contaminated at that point is very high and so Federal rules restrict the use of U produce that has been dropped to the ground now obviously in some cases produce that's grown on the ground this you know melons for example cucumbers Etc these when they're harvested are not considered to have been dropped because they haven't had again that that risk of of being damaged and then uh it's important that workers take seriously health and hygiene practices so again clean clothing and Footwear glove hairnet jewelry policies make sure that that break areas are used handwashing areas and restrooms all of these are important from the standpoint of worker training now we need to reduce risks in all packing areas and here are the things that we talked about earlier but again avoid standing water keep pests under control keep things organized have good hygiene facilities keep things clean and have designated break area where people can can congregate that is separate from produce now how do we assess the risks we want to map the flow of produce as it moves in from the field through the pack house into storage and then out to Transportation this should be physically done and as we map this out we want to be thinking about the areas that produce contacts directly okay and these are what are called Zone one surfaces they could be the insides of a harvest container they could be the table that we lie produce out on to grade and sort it could be uh uh the uh hands that touch produce it could be the equipment that or tools that touch produce and all of these are considered to be Zone one and these Zone one surfaces need to have special attention devoted to them to reduce the risk of cross-contamination so again this is a diagram that gives you a feel for what the zones of Interest are Zone one is our primary interest and this is direct through contact surfaces Zone zones 2 three and four certainly we want to be concerned about these but they carry less risk than Zone one does so we're going to focus on Zone one so again the biggest concern is if it's contaminated it could very easily result in cross-contamination produce Zone one surfaces Harvest and storage bins workers hands conveyors belts brushes rollers sorting tables racks and utensils this is where you want to put your attention this is where you want to put your energy and if NE necessary this is where you want to put money to help eliminate the risk of cross-contamination and when I say money you know for example some of those tables that we saw earlier in the presentation that were made out of wood maybe we need to replace those with metal tables or at least plastic surface tables as we heard about in the uh Springfield Community Gardens pack house now we want to implement practices that reduce risks you know we've thought about the risks in the pack house and we want to think about all of the these things you know establishing Pest Control programs cleaning and sanitizing any surface that contacts food we might have to convert to equipment that can be easily clean and sanitized you want to make sure that coolers and and other places where we're storing produce are clean and sanitized and we want to make sure that the transportation vehicles that we use both bringing produce from the field of the pack house but most importantly moving it from the pack house to sales are clean all right I promise to tell you about cleaning and sanitizing these are not the same terms there is a difference and it's very important it does matter so cleaning cleaning is where we physically remove dirt and soil from surfaces and frequently we use clean water and detergent sanitizing sanitizing is a treatment of a clean surface to reduce or eliminate microorganisms I was doing a produce food safety training with a group of uh FFA students high school students and I asked them the difference between cleaning and sanitizing and after this discussion they said cleaning is removing what you can see sanitizing follows and it removes what you can't see and I think that's a pretty good way to to look at it now again you cannot sanitize a dirty surface you must clean first and then sanitize I love that metaphor I love looking at it that way I do too I think we have a question about actually the slide before where you were uh someone asking about you know what about good enamel coatings on wood I think it was a slide previous oh okay yeah when we think about wood surfaces and how we can make those uh less of a risk particularly if they're Zone one surfaces we can paint them with a durable paint we can cover them with a laminate we could even cover them temporarily with something like a thick piece of plastic but there are ways that we can take a wooden surface and make it suitable for from the standpoint of uh uh Zone one surfaces you know all is not lost you don't have to to burn all of your wooden tables but remember that a a a uh a bare wood surface in time is going to be very difficult to clean and sanitize and I guess I'm not familiar with enamel specifically does that apply like something more than enamel I think we may be talking about an enamel paint a very durable paint okay we'll see if they have a followup to that but po if I haven't answered that question fully please uh please give me another question in the in the Q&A okay so here are the four steps first step is to remove any obvious dirt and debris from the surface the Second Step really quick yes it was it was enamel paint you were right okay okay very good so again the first step is to remove U in the debris that we visibly see the second step is to apply an appropriate detergent and scrub the surface now can you just rinse it off with water and spray a little bit of soap on it and then rinse it off again no no you need to use vigorous physical action to remove those biofilms that we discussed again thinking about your teeth if you just rinse your mouth with water and spit it out you have not removed the biofilms it takes toothpaste and it takes some brush action to get rid of those biofilms and the same thing applies to scrubbing during the the cleaning process so it's important yes to use a detergent and to vigorously scrub step three rinse the surface with clean water making sure to remove all of the detergent and soil and step four this is the point where we apply the sanitizer again it must be approved for use on food contact surfaces uh read the label some labels will say rinse after use others say let the the uh sanitizer dry on the surface but at any rate let the surface air dry before using it for produce okay do we have any questions before I move into a few special topics related to pack houses no it looks like you can go ahead okay so sanitary design of equipment we touched on this already and I wanted to reinforce it again food contact surfaces should be non-toxic non-absorbent durable able to withstand corrosion and able to be easily cleaned and sanitized using that four step process that we just described and again the equipment should be designed so that it's easy to clean and sanitize so we should be able to access all parts of the equipment especially all parts of Zone one surfaces and we should be able to take it apart easily we should be able to pull out brushes rollers and nozzles to clean and sanitize them individually here are some examples of U of hygienic design on on tools and notice in these cas is that the bristles on these brushes are actually molded into the brush they're not just inserted then glued in placeat with the types where the bristles are inserted and glued the insertion point becomes a collection point for debris and bacteria whereas these types of brushes don't have those surfaces the brushes themselves are much easier to keep in a clean and sanitary condition now again we've talked about wooden equipment uh again there there are often times our ways to use older wooden equipment it is important to keep these surfaces clean perhaps to devote more attention to them than we would a a uh a more suitable surface we may have to have a more frequent cleaning schedule to reduce contamination risks and prevent biofilms uh very important to air dry wooden surfaces after washing there may be some things that need to be uh discarded quite frankly or we may need to modify these things now as we think about new equipment and new buildings let's design these from the get-go to be easily cleaned and sanitized again we saw the uh the pack house for Springfield Community Gardens at that point it was still under construction but obviously the people who were going to work in there had put a lot of thought into designing a facility that is easy to clean and sanitized retrofitting equipment um frequently we have equipment that's has been retrofitted for various uses but we got to be careful that these retrofits don't result in increased risk of contamination please we look at this piece of equipment we can see a welds that were put in place after manufacturing and these welds unfortunately become a lodging point for bacteria and other debris so again it can be a challenge in to to retrofit or modify equipment it's oftentimes a better situation where we may need to just purchase new equipment that doesn't have these issues and keep in mind there are some materials that cannot be clean and sanitized for example carpet or other similar materials cannot be clean and sanitized frequently carpet has been used in the past in in uh Harvest carts and other things to cushion uh produce but again that carpet cannot be clean and sanitized and should not be used in a situation where it's going to contact produce do what you can to reduce risks before things come into the pack house so again clean your Harvest bins before using them do what you can to make sure that your Harvest bins don't contact the soil or if they do make sure that you leave that soil in the field before you enter the packing in the storage area again we want to do everything we can to keep soil and and dirt from entering the pack house this reduces the risk of contamination once you're in the pack house it reduces any organic load in your washwater it reduces the frequency at which you have to change your wash water and as you stack your your produce bins on top of each other reduces the risk of cross-contamination there as well now make sure that you regularly inspect the equipment in your pack house again you want to make sure it's in good order make sure that you don't have any dripping or condensation from it make sure that Parts aren't dirty or Rusty and and make sure that you train everyone so they know how to identify and reduce risks you should have everyone's eyes looking out for problems in the pack house packing containers uh the containers that you use for produce uh particularly those containers that are are point of sale containers they should be new and they should be single use okay if you are using reusable containers they should be of a type that can be easily cleaned and sanitized as we look at this picture here those pulp uh boxes that are holding the strawberries cannot be clean and sanitized so they should not be reused but again there are some uh types of containers and we saw examples in the Springfield Community Gardens pack house that can be clean and sanitized uh packing containers and materials should be stored in an area that is a away from p windblown dirt or other contaminants and they should be stored off the floor and they should be stored in areas that are not adjacent to areas where we're handling produce keep pests at Bay do everything you can to keep pests out of the pack house make sure there's no holes seal any cracks between floors and walls make sure door seals are in place uh in open pack houses do everything you can to keep birds out of them uh do everything you can to keep Vermin out of open pack houses it can quite frankly can be a challenge to keep open pack houses free of pests cut the grass around pack areas make sure that you don't have piles of debris garbage or coals around pack houses clean them up every day and when you're bringing produce in if it has to stay outside for any like the time keep it covered whenever possible it's a good practice to monitor for pests in the pack house and uh the federal rules do not allow you to use baited traps you have to use baited traps to monitor activity inside the pack house you can use baited trap stations outside of the pack house and it's a good practice to to uh have baited traps around the the outside perimeter of pack houses to intercept any pests as they might be entering the pack house make sure that you you uh regularly monitor these and particularly any monitoring traps that might be inside you don't want to to catch um catch pests in these traps and not remove them promptly keep your pallets of produce at least 12 in away from the wall so that you can shine a flashlight back there and look for problems make sure everyone is looking for problems and make sure that that you're keeping things under control your cold storage arrings your coolers these should be inspected regularly to make sure they're clean and to make sure that the equipment is functioning properly again you you don't want condensation or dripping on produce you want to make sure that your seals on the doors and on windows are intact that you should be monitoring your cooler temperatures and at the beginning of each day you should be recording the temperature you should have in place a standard operating procedure to clean coolers and also to keep pests under control now again you don't have to use cooling it's not required by by federal law but if you do use it make sure that you do it properly now ice and ice slurries again if you're going to use ice it must be made from water that is potable it's free from detectable generic Eola and uh the equipment that you use to make ice should be clean and sanitized it should be stored in clean containers and don't store boxes of produce that contain ice produce above other boxes you don't want dripping and the risk of cross-contamination onto boxes below okay transporting produce uh many different ways that you can transport produce it can be an open truck closed trucks vans Etc um be cautious if you're using the same vehicle for purposes on the farm you know perhaps to haul equipment or to to haul soil amendments or chemicals or fertilizers you must clean vehicles uh before using them to haul produce if you use these vehicles for other purposes now if you're using a truck for example that has a bed that is difficult to clean perhaps a clean liner can be placed over that bed before stacking produce into the truck as you as you uh send produce out from the pack house uh make sure that you expect any Vehicles before you pack produce into them if they smell if you see physical debris or if you see other evidence and that vehicle should be cleaned uh cleaned and sanitized so some standard operating procedures that you'll want to have for your pack house monitoring for pests uh using uh cleaning and sanitizing Solutions properly cleaning and sanitizing produce washing lines cleaning and monitoring cold storage areas inspecting trucks prior to loading fresh produce and cleaning vehicles used to transport frush produce so you should have uh Sops in place that that that describe how you do all of these things now before we before we finish I did want to mention you we focus primarily on microbial risks especially bacterial risks but there are other types of contamination that you want to guard against in the pack house and those are chemical risks and physical risks so chemical risks might be contamination for pesticide sides or detergents sanitizers at the wrong concentrations or perhaps other chemicals petroleum based chemicals for example now to to reduce the risk of chemical food contamination in in the pack house keep your chemicals locked and stored in an area away from produce make sure that you have in place Sops so that people understand where to store these products uh keep your labels and your safety data sheets for chemicals on hand in case of an emergency make sure that any lubricants that you use on equipment that is going to be uh uh uh handling produce you know such as a grating and packing line sorting line you use food grade lubricants oils and chemicals and use them according to their labeled use and always good to use non-reactive materials will not leech into produce you know for example there are some U Uh Wood treatments that if applied to a a food contact surface can actually leech into produce over time time so don't use these types of materials and then for physical food safety risks here that here's that same pack house that we saw before and again notice the glass fluorescent tubes in the fixtures and also the incandescent bul there it would be a better situation with enclosed fixtures and perhaps even moving towards LEDs where there's not glass involved at all so again screen or cover overhead light light fixtures inspect bearings and other moving parts of your equipment so that they're not going to throw pieces of metal or pieces of wood into uh into produce and then cover cover packing materials and produce containers between uses so that you reduce the risk of anything physical entering into packaging or into uh into your your Harvest containers so a quick thought on some corrective actions if you've identified a food safety risk in your pack house immediately assess the situation try to figure out if produce has been affected if it has can it still be sold or doesn't need to be thrown away figure out the cause of the problem what do you need to do to correct it and then do it you know adjust practices to take care of these risks keep records and monitor to make sure that what you've done is fixed the problem so some examples where you might need to take corrective actions perhaps you've noticed pests in the pack house here's an example pigeons roosting in in an open pack house perhaps there's a situation someone working with produce on a grading and sorting line has cut their finger and there's blood now on the on the the grading line uh perhaps there's a sharp edge where someone cut their finger perhaps there's a drain that's backed up and and is is overflowing into a produce handling area but again any situation that poses an immediate contamination risk to produce could be an example of when corrective actions need to be considered what about the records you need to keep as as a farmer in the pack house so you want to keep records on post Harvest handling and sanitation based upon cleaning and sanitizing you know how frequently you clean and sanitize your tools your equipment and your containers you'll also want to keep records related to Pest Management to the maintenance and monitoring of buildings especially your cold storage areas here we see a a farmer who's uh recording the temperature in the morning of a of a cold storage area uh you want to to train everyone on Sanitation make sure that you have records related to your packing area and Cold Storage cleaning and monitoring and make sure you keep records of cleaning and inspecting Vehicles Prior to loading so again we've gone through a lot of material tonight um this is a again an overview of pack houses and produce food safety for more information the uh the produce food safety or the food safety modernization act produce safety Alliance food safety training is an excellent excellent exercise for anyone who is seriously considering especially Crop Production handling and marketing so I really really recommend that um the video tonight as Anna mentioned will be posted as a resource on the Springfield Community Gardens YouTube channel but just to to summarize what we've talked about all packing areas regardless of AG Your Design need to have sanitation practices the minimize contamination risks uh we've talked at length about the importance of water quality so please keep that in mind remember the importance of maintaining food contact surfaces in a clean and sanitary condition you know focus in on those Zone one surfaces as produce moves into through and out of the pack house we talked at length about cleaning and sanitizing remember they're not the same thing remember that four-step process and remember you must first clean and then sanitize and then food safety practices such as cleaning general maintenance and housekeeping and Pest Control need to be in place just as a a general rule in the pack house and Patrick we had one final question come in really quick um someone asking about lot numbers for recalls or any problems that do occur yes um the uh produce safety Alliance training has an entire module on food safety plans and recall plans and yes it's a good practice to develop a recall plan based upon lock codes and uh you know that that's that's a subject that really deserves its own workshop and I will say a few words about it a lot code is an identifier for a particular group of produce and for a lot code to work you have to have what's called a clean break before and after that particular group of produce so let's say for example you want a particular lot of produce to represent a day's Harvest of strawberries well if you're going to bring those strawberries in and lay them on a table to to grade and and pack them you you need to clean and sanitize that table before the strawberries arrive then you can handle them on that table pack them and then when you're done clean and sanitize that table that way we know that there is no risk moving into the management of that particular lot of strawberries and there's no risk as we leave that lot of strawberries so if there was a problem it's confined to just that group of strawberries and then we develop a an identifier that we can use on each box or or each flat of strawberries and that identifier will include information on where the strawberries were grown on the farm the day they were harvested and packed perhaps some information on who harvested them and on the variety of the strawberries and that information frequently is developed or is included in a code and this code may be alpha numeric and may be a bar code there are different ways that it can be done but then the uh the code for that lot then follows that lot as it leaves the farm and if there's a problem with one of those boxes of strawberries the person can bring in the lot codee and then it can be traced back to the farm and the farmer can use the lot code to trace it back to a particular day of harvest in a particular place on the farm so lot codes are an excellent idea to help manage uh to help manage the the need for a recall and if you have more questions on that please feel free to reach out to me directly um I'll mention at this point that uh you know our Workshop tonight is is remote we we really can't sit down together and talk about your realities but please feel free to reach out if you'd like to talk at length about the situation on your farm or perhaps the situation you're contemplating on your farm I'd be happy to do that as I mentioned I have an assignment in produce food safety and I'd love to visit with you about the situation on your farm now here are some resources and these are all from the University of Vermont they've done a bang-up job in developing resources related to pack houses and you can see all of the subjects that they've covered in in uh the these uh various educational areas on their website so hygienic and sanitary design for produce Farms finished surfaces floor design backf prevention cooler construction greens Spinners hanging hoses and bins buckets baskets and totes so certainly recommend checking all of these out for more information on managing produce food safety risks in the pack house so that brings us to the end of our prepared materials tonight and we have plenty of time for any questions yeah and thank you again for offering yourself and your resources like you are always a wealth of information which is so appreciated um and you know I think that we have answered all of our questions very good well I want to thank thank everyone for joining us tonight and for sharing my interest in produce food safety and pack house management please feel free to reach out as I've mentioned and Again the video will be posted here shortly thank you