It’s Not Just A Sheller Problem!

 All nuts are not created equal  Growing /Handling Differences  Processing Differences  What can you do to insure that the nuts the consumer purchases are safe?

 Since 2001, there have been major recalls involving lettuce, almonds, tomatoes (later determined to be peppers), spinach, peanuts and/or peanut butter, pistachios, mayonnaise, milk, chocolate chip cookie dough and most recently a possible pecan related recall  Six of the aforementioned recalls involved nuts; two almond recalls, two peanut butter and or peanut related recalls, one pistachio recall and one possible pecan recall  Three nut related recalls in past 10 months (peanut butter, pistachios and pecans).

Domestic  Almonds  Walnuts  Pecans  Pistachios  Hazelnuts  Macadamias Imported  Cashews  Hazelnuts/Filberts  Brazils  Macadamias

 Peanuts are legumes, not ‘nuts’  Grown in the soil  Porous shell  Peanuts go through a dry cleaning & shelling process

 Highly susceptible to Aflatoxin, Salmonella and E-Coli  Blanching and Roasting help to minimize micro problems  Industry is currently working on a set of GAP’s and GMP’s

 Member of the Peach family  Trees are not ‘self- pollinating’  Porous shell  Dry hulling process  Dry shelling process

 Highly Susceptible to Salmonella  Two Salmonella related industry recalls within 4 years (2001 & 2004)  FDA/Almond Board establish pasteurization requirements

 The two Almond related Salmonella outbreaks resulted in CFR 981 for almonds grown and processed in California. This CFR requires a 4-log reduction in Salmonella, not a 5-log reduction. This is different than the lethality required for other products such as juice. However, the research employed at UC Davis and Cornell determined that a 5-log reduction was not necessary in almonds.

 A process that results in a 1-log reduction will kill 99% of the target organism  A 2-log reduction will kill 99.9% of the target organism  A 3-log reduction will kill 99.99% of the target organism  A 4-log reduction will kill % of the target organism

FDA 3/9/2009 Guidance on Production of Foods Containing Peanut Derived Ingredients recommends – ‘obtain ….ingredients only from suppliers who use production processes that have been demonstrated to adequately reduce the presence of Salmonella, or that ensure that their own manufacturing process would adequately reduce the presence of Salmonella.’

 Grocery Manufacturers Association  Pushing for the entire industry to adopt GFSI standards (Global Food Safety Initiative)  Classifies suppliers as Low, Medium or High Risk; all nut suppliers are considered High risk.  Require all suppliers to be SQF (Safe Quality Food) or BRC (British Retail Consortium) certified  Wal-Mart and Kroger are requiring all suppliers to be either SQF or BRC certified

 Federal Food Safety Legislation  As currently drafted, nuts will be considered ‘High’ risk  Will add traceability requirements, HACCP plans, third party audits, several FDA inspections per year for high risk plants, additional record keeping requirements, etc.  May add some testing requirements for imports

 Visit Food Quality & Safetywww.almondsarein.com  Food Quality & Safety Program 1) Documentation 2) Employee Training 3) Fertilizer & Soil Amendment Practices 4) Water Quality & Source 5) Orchard Floor Management 6) Field Sanitation and Employee Hygiene 7) Pest Control 8) Summing Up

 Visit – Food Quality & Safetywww.almondsarein.com  Good Agricultural Practices (GAP’s)  Use of Manure/Chicken manure in orchards  Avoid pooling of water on orchard floors  Don’t let product sit on orchard floor longer than necessary

 The E. coli contamination in pecans that arose in the 1950’s was addressed with either (or both) sanitizing solutions and heated water immersion to destroy any coincidental environmental contamination on whole pecans. The USFDA’s “Guide to Inspections of Manufacturers of Miscellaneous Food Products – Volume 1” – p7, sec.4 states “Evaluate the firm's tempering and sanitizing of in-shell nuts to determine if these processing steps are adequate to prevent contamination of equipment down stream which could result in contamination of nut meats with E. Coli. If the firm is using hot water for this purpose is processing time and temperature adequate to sanitize in-shell nuts [see chart, attachment 4 for E. coli heat resistance (moist heat)]?” Attachment 4 states that the required time at 75C(167F) is 2 seconds. There are no additional heat requirements for processing pecans.

 Dr. Larry Beuchat-Center for Food Safety, University of Georgia  Initiated by the NPSA. NPSA has agreed to fund $16, of the costs  Will evaluate various shelling processes to determine which work best in the elimination of Salmonella  Industry needs to follow-up with Industry wide GAP’s & GMP’s