Purpose: Following several alerts and to address this food safety issue, a fruit company chose to integrate viruses in its HACCP plan.
Methods: To set up the HACPP plan, several steps were as follows: 1) theoretical education of food safety managers; 2) working with food safety managers to identify the critical points of the production and transformation processes; 3) visits on the field with agricultural and food safety managers to confirm the identified critical control points; 4) analyses on fruit and water samples to set up the initial level of contamination.
Results: The potential sources of contamination were: food handlers and the environment (irrigation water, phytosanitary treatments, process water). Identified sources of contamination were confirmed by norovirus analyses: level of contamination ranging from 104 to 107 genome copies/l in water and from 100 to 104 genome copies/25 g in fruits. The complete details of corrective actions put in place will be detailed. Briefly, to educate operators, actions have been implemented via the creation of a fact sheet detailing the problem and the importance of good hygiene practices. Restrooms near the fields were installed and wearing gloves mandated for manipulators. A control plan has been set up to evaluate the persistence of norovirus in environmental samples before use in production and on the fruits after harvest and before transformation. In case of a European alert, a communication plan has been established to inform the company and track the potential origin of contamination.
Significance: Implementing actions have helped to effectively reduce norovirus risk as no contamination has been found in food products since that time. These data demonstrate that by introduction of simple actions, it is possible to integrate viral risk in a HACCP plan to ensure consumer safety.