Features Business Food Safety
Food safety will be a hot topic at Fresh Summit

July 27, 2010, Newark, Del. — Food safety is a priority produce
industry issue, and therefore, will be at the forefront when PMA’s 2010
Fresh Summit International Convention & Exposition convenes Oct.
15-18.

July 27, 2010, Newark, Del. — Food safety is a priority produce industry issue, and a priority focus for Produce Marketing Association (PMA). Therefore, food safety will be at the forefront when PMA’s 2010 Fresh Summit International Convention & Exposition convenes Oct. 15-18 in Orlando, Fla., USA. This year’s Fresh Summit will feature the latest on food safety provided in a variety of settings, to help answer questions and deliver business solutions.

New this year, the exposition will give high visibility to the topic in the Food Safety Solutions Center prominently located on the show floor in booth 201 at the Orange County Convention Center. Designed as a one-stop interactive destination, the center will provide educational exhibits, live demonstrations and videos related to food safety technology in the areas of packaging, traceability, processing equipment, product testing, water purification and more.

“This center is part of the fulfillment of PMA’s commitment to help industry members get answers to their most critical food safety questions,” said Joe Pezzini, COO of Ocean Mist Farms, Castroville, Calif., and chair of PMA’s Produce Safety, Science and Technology Committee. “Food safety is the most important thing we do to safeguard and ensure consumer confidence in our industry’s products.”

Educational content at the center will complement and expand on Fresh Summit’s food safety workshops, delivering additional value and more opportunity for exploration. Industry and PMA experts will be on hand to lead in facilitated Q&A sessions to explore business solutions in sessions on the topics of product testing; successfully navigating food safety audits; your role in traceability; and how the CPS is working for you.

“We are pleased to sponsor the Food Safety Solutions Center again this year,” said Kirk Parrish, President and CEO of Famous Software LLC, Fresno, Calif. “We commend the hard work that PMA is doing on behalf of our industry, and are happy to help keep this important dialog open.”

For companies with related products and solutions, opportunities are still available to become a Food Safety Solutions Center exhibitor, sponsor or advertiser. Contact PMA’s Dot Siegfried at dsiegfried@pma.com.

Throughout the convention, several workshop sessions will examine food safety from different angles, including from the sales and marketing side in the session “Selling Safely: Are Your Marketing Efforts Putting Your Company at Risk?” Local sourcing has become a national hot topic, but how do you ensure local produce is safe? It will be one of the discussions in the session “Keeping it Local: The Pros and Cons of Local Sourcing,” with panel members Dave Corsi, vice president of produce and floral operations for Wegmans Food Markets Inc., Rochester, N.Y., Rich Dachman, vice president of produce for Sysco Corp., Houston, and Michael Spinazzola, president of DRS Inc., San Diego, handling purchasing for Subway restaurants.

While there are many unknowns in the food safety realm, the PMA-founded CPS has the results of its recently commissioned scientific research and will highlight the most up-to-date news you need to know for your business in the session “Research to Real-World: The Best of Food Safety Innovations,” moderated by PMA chief science & technology officer Dr. Bob Whitaker.

Finally, where is the industry with the produce traceability initiative (PTI), why is it important to you and how can you overcome identified challenges? Find out in the sessions “Traceability in the Real World” and “From the ‘How’ to the ‘Why’: A New Look at Traceability.”

Plan to register early and save – by Sept. 3 if registering by mail or fax, and Sept. 17 if registering online. Advance registration ends Oct. 1. For more information and to register online, visit the website.