Salinas Valley’s spinach growers and processors are proposing a plan to federal and state health officials to tackle food safety concerns in light of the unfolding nationwide E. coli outbreak according to a report by Dania Akkad in the Monterey County Herald.
About 75 local producers and trade association representatives met at the Monterey County agricultural commissioner’s office in Salinas to zero in on areas of their work where there is the greatest potential for contamination.
The plan comes in response to a meeting at the Western Institute for Food Safety and Security in Davis in which regulators told industry representatives they needed to outline actions to prevent future outbreaks.
Federal and state investigators also said a bag of Dole baby spinach found in the refrigerator of a person sickened by E. coli in New Mexico was contaminated with the bacteria — the ”smoking gun” that investigators have sought for the origin of the deadly outbreak.