Some 58 percent of mothers are making more home-cooked meals to save money, and 77 percent are using more leftovers, according to a study by the Marketing to Moms Coalition. However, the majority of mothers claim they are not scrimping on the quality of food for their children.

Related to the home-cooking trends in this study, PMA consumer research conducted this year found that consumers who believe “fruits and vegetables are very important parts of their diets” are more likely to employ healthier cooking techniques such as baking (80%), boiling (69%), grilling (65%), and steaming (62%). The PMA survey also noted that the top five most popular cuisines for these consumers are Italian, Mexican, Chinese, Spanish, and Vegetarian. Interestingly, the “Mediterranean diet” which has been lauded for its heavy use of fresh produce, was the eighth-ranked most popular cuisine.

For more about the Healthy Eating Trends 2009 study, visit Consumer Research Online on the PMA Web site.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack told a Senate panel in mid-November that all foods sold in schools should be regulated to improve kids’ nutrition. He also said USDA must improve school meal standards, quoting an Institute of Medicine report that said the average five- to eight-year-old child in America consumes about 720 empty calories a day. Among his comments he said: “Our young people are eating far less dark green and dark orange vegetables than they need… We must do better.” Vilsack also addressed food safety in schools.

We continue to see a strong push from the Obama administration for healthful diets for children, both from a regulatory standpoint, such as this, and from a direct purchasing standpoint as USDA buys a lot of food that moves through the school meals and other programs.

We expect child nutrition reauthorization to move forward in Congress next year. We’ll be calling on you to contact your legislators to ensure that more fresh fruits and vegetables are served at school – for the health of the nation’s children and the health of our industry. If you’re not a part of PMA’s grassroots network of member advocates, GROW, e-mail Cyndi Clifton for more details.

Last week, the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee that Senator Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) chairs passed food safety legislation. Senator Richard Durbin (D-Illinois) along with a bipartisan group of 13 Senate cosponsors drafted and introduced the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, S. 510. By a voice vote, the HELP Committee sent the bill to the Senate floor. In July, the House passed its version of food safety reform.

At the Senate hearing, several senators raised potential amendments even though they did not ask for a vote on them during the hearing. This was a signal that during the floor debate – or even before that time – the existing Durbin bill may undergo considerable changes, even though the bill has cosponsors from both political parties. It is not yet known when the bill will come to the floor.

On the eve of the Senate committee’s markup and vote on the bill, PMA and other food organizations wrote Senator Harkin to express support for food safety reform legislation and to pledge to work with Congress to make “important improvements in S. 510 before it is taken up by the full Senate.” Even a good bill is strengthened by input from affected stakeholders. We expect issues affecting traceability, testing, potential restitution, jurisdictional issues with USDA to occupy a center stage in advance of the upcoming debate.

When the Senate does pass its version of the bill – likely next year – the work continues. Negotiators for the Senate and House must resolve the differences between the two bills. Because the conferees are restricted to considering the approaches taken in the two bills, it is critically important to avoid bill language that would result in reforms that are unworkable, run counter to existing efforts to enhance food safety, or are not based on sound scientific principles. PMA remains engaged in this effort to ensure that what comes out of Congress is consistent with industry practices and actually protects public health.

I attended the Nov. 12-13 meeting of the National Fruit & Vegetable Alliance, which is a unique confederation of government, nonprofit groups and industry working collaboratively and synergistically to increase consumption of fruits and vegetables to improve public health. It was created in January 2001, a decade after the Produce for Better Health Foundation and the National Cancer Institute co-sponsored the national 5 A Day for Better Health program. Its vision is to increase fruit and vegetable consumption by 75% of Americans to 5 A Day by 2010.

As a group, our work is to boost consumption, and we’re moving ahead with a lot of priorities and getting work and tasks completed. As I was involved with that work, though, it struck me that we need to take a step back and see how amazing this group is. Here were members of government agencies, consumer groups, and industry organizations coming together in common purpose. This is not unlike our work with the Partnership for Food Safety Education, where a similar group of organizations unite behind consumer education about food safety.

Just as PMA members come together in PMA to accomplish goals they couldn’t on their own, organizations like PMA can come together for greater strength and effectiveness.

Recently Compass Group North America’s customers experienced many seasonal flavors as the company’s nationwide locations implemented an “Eat Local” campaign. During the event, Compass’ cafes featured locally grown produce, conducted on-site farmers markets, sponsored farm tours and promoted selections that featured local ingredients in an effort to provide visibility to the many benefits of buying locally.

And in going local, fresh fruits and vegetables played a major role – with purchases totaling near $3 million. At some locations, farmers markets have now become a mainstay and are featured regularly.

We’ve talked about Compass Group’s ongoing commitment to sustainable agriculture and wellness before here on Field to Fork. If you know an organization that has implemented sustainable or socially responsible programs, please let us know. We’re always looking to highlight industry efforts in the sustainability arena on the PMA Web site.

The 2008 Farm Bill paid more attention to specialty crops – the bulk of which are fresh produce – than ever before. We rejoiced when it happened, but the real benefits come when those provisions in the legislation become real to our industry. On November 18, USDA took a big step in bringing some of that to reality by awarding more than $46 million through the Specialty Crop Research Initiative (SCRI) to solve critical specialty crop agriculture issues, address priorities and solve problems through multifunctional research and extension.

That money will go to projects that develop and disseminate science-based tools to address the needs of specific crops in five focus areas: improve crop characteristics through plant breeding, genetics and genomics; address pest/disease threats; improve production efficiency, productivity and profitability; develop new innovations and technologies; and improve food safety.

Though it will be a while until we see the results of the research, we have to remember that projects like these can bring significant benefits to the industry over time. It’s easy to lose the connection between legislation intended to help our industry and the real-world results down the road. That’s why we push for such laws, because they do pay off in the end.

You may have seen the recent Institute of Food Technologists’ Food Product Tracing Report that was commissioned by FDA. It’s encouraging to see that so many of the recommendations from that well-respected group jive with the Produce Traceability Initiative. Though the recommendations are for all foods, not just produce, they call for industry action in areas common to the PTI. They recommend global standards and simple systems. They recognize the different needs for internal (within a company) and external (between trading partners) traceability systems. They recommend that all records be kept electronically; for those keeping paper records they allow that third parties might be used to convert paper records to electronic records (probably daily). They do not exclude anyone (traceability should be required farm to retail/foodservice), but do not expect traceability to the consumer.

These are the key data elements IFT recommends be kept by food industry so they can be supplied to FDA if necessary:

• Physical location at which the product was last handled, whether the manufacturer or not;
• Incoming lot numbers of product received;
• Amount of product manufactured or shipped;
• All physical locations to which cases were shipped;
• Lot number(s) shipped to each location;
• Date/s and time/s product was received and/or shipped to all locations;
• Date/s and time/s each lot was manufactured or harvested;
• All ingredients used in product, with lot numbers, facility at which they were manufactured, and date/s and time/s they were received;
• In addition, lot number and manufacturing facility should appear on each case of product, and lot number/s, quantity, and shipping location should appear on invoices and bills of lading.

There are still some differences between these recommendations, the PTI, and the conversations about federal legislation and regulation on traceability, but many of the core concepts are the same. As the Senate moves forward today with the markup of its food safety bill, we move closer to federal legislation on food safety that will include a traceability component. Stay tuned!

Organic foods now occupy prominent shelf space in the produce and dairy aisles of most mainstream U.S. food retailers and marketing of these products pushed retail sales of organic foods up to $21.1 billion in 2008 from $3.6 billion in 1997, notes the Marketing U.S. Organic Foods report from USDA’s Economic Research Service. Historically, fresh produce has been the most popular organic category and it continues to be just that; growth in retail sales of fresh produce averaged 15 percent a year between 1997 and 2007.

While the ERS study looked at overall organic trends, a survey conducted in early 2009 for PMA’s Consumer Research Online program found that nearly four in ten primary shoppers purchased organic fresh fruits and vegetables over the last year. Moreover, organic purchasers appeared to be loyal customers with almost all of these consumers (92%) expecting to buy more organic produce in the upcoming six months. The major reason organic purchasers will buy more in the upcoming months, is a perceived health benefit of organic produce, although a lack of chemical pesticides and better taste are also on the list of reasons. For more on this study and additional PMA consumer reports, visit Consumer Research Online on the PMA Web site.

Recently on the “Ask Dr. Bob” audio blog, PMA’s Chief Science Officer Dr. Bob Whitaker discussed risk assessment and risk management and how they fit into building an organization’s food safety culture. Dr. Whitaker noted that many in the produce industry are already risk managers (based on factors such as weather, market, returns, etc.) but too often risk assessment is skipped because some food safety plans may be based on someone else’s audit process. He adds that “your food safety plan is only going to be effective if you own it, if it is specific to your business, and if your employees understand it in that context.”

Note: this was the first in a series of posts on risk assessment from Dr. Bob Whitaker. For future updates, you can visit his blog directly and sign up to get new additions via e-mail.

When it comes to the “green” words that resonate with consumers, ‘natural,’ ‘recyclable,’ and ‘renewable’ are top of mind with about 84 percent of consumers, says The Green Revolution study from Grail Research. The study also found that although the majority of consumers refer to “green” products as those that minimize the impact on the environment, about one quarter also consider products to be “green” when offered by a socially responsible company. Interestingly, only 30% of consumers consider reducing water usage to be a green practice. When it comes to future purchases of fruits and vegetables produced in a “green” manner, 27 percent of respondents said they do not feel a need to purchase these products and 26 percent said they are too expensive and not worth the money.

To learn more, visit the sustainability research page on the PMA Web site. We have been adding external sustainability studies to this page, along with summaries of PMA’s own original research on this topic.