Assessment of the Risk for Fresh Produce Primary Producers: Presenting the Example of Fresh Produce Assessment of the Risk

Growers are required to complete risk assessments for the production of leafy crops supplied either to retail or for further processing.  There is an assumption that this will reduce the risk of supplying contaminated produce to the end consumer.  In contrast to quantitative microbial risk assessments commonly used in international hygiene criteria setting, grower risk assessments (RA) are based primarily on qualitative judgements of hazard and risks at a number of stages in the RA process. This approach leads to a RA based on subjective opinion allowing different businesses to view the same hazard as posing a different level of risk and having differing levels of intervention and hence risk reduction.  This presentation looks at the reality of leafy vegetable primary production and highlights the areas of potential risk to contamination of fresh produce that require RA, namely  water used in production, manure and soil, pest incursion, equipment and worker hygiene. The second part of the presentation discusses a number of examples/scenarios using a structured qualitative assessment which requires all decisions to be based on evidence and outlines a framework for describing the decision process that can be challenged and defended within the supply chain.