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January 1997
FDA meeting message - juice making isn't business as usual

However the fruit juice industry chooses to deal with the question of bacterial contamination, one reality is becoming clear - what worked in the past can't be counted to work now or in the future.

One of the themes arising from a two-day Food and Drug Administration meeting held in Washington, D.C. in late December was that E. coli and other pathogens are evolving and that present current fresh juice practices do not guarantee product safety. That could mean adoption of general management practices based on the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HACCP) concept.

No action came from the information-gathering meeting, which included representatives from citrus as well as tree and small fruit juice makers. The exchanges were described as "very informative and occasionally passionate" by Julia Stewart Daly, director of communications for the U.S. Apple Institute.

Robert Buchanan of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service described the dynamic nature of E. coli and other pathogens. He said the list of top pathogens today is entirely different from that of 50 years ago. E. coli itself was first identified in the 1890s and not considered pathogenic. He urged more attention be given to controlling the presence of pathogens.

Patricia Griffin of the Centers for Disease Control explained that the first foodborne illness linked to fresh juice was recorded in 1922. CDC recommended the apple juice industry strengthen its practices and regulations and label unpasteurized product. In the meantime, the agency is warning at-risk segments of the population not to consume fresh apple juice.

"The situation is changing, and fresh juice producers need to understand that," said Daly. "The bacteria are always evolving to better survive in their environment, so we need to be vigilant and respond to the threat."

If safety is to be enhanced, it will come either through better use of existing technologies or through new technologies. John Cherry of USDA-ARS and Dan Bernard of the National Food Processors Association offered some of the alternatives.

These technologies fall into two categories - chemical and engineered. The chemical technologies include acidulants, chlorine, sodium benzoate, hydrogen peroxide, trisodium phosphate, ozone, carbon dioxide, high pH or any combination of these. Engineered technologies include irradiation, flash pasteurization, surface pasteurization, high intensity pulsed light pasteurization, microwave pasteurization, high pressure pasturization, UV light sterilization and any combination.

A current industry priority is to gauge current practices. The U.S. Apple Institute surveyed 800 producers and have so far received 450 responses, said Daly.

Research is another top priority of the association, and was discussed in-depth at a separate meeting during the FDA sessions. Researchers and juice producers presented their views on what work is needed to be done to answer the key questions.

"The researchers said we first need to understand how the pathogen interacts with the fruit once the two come in contact, and understand how they come in contact. For example, if E. coli just stays on the surface of the apple, then that tells you to research surface sanitizers," said Daly.

U.S. Apple is awaiting results on the first phase of its research project which began in September. This phase is comparing the microbiological levels of apples in different scenarios, such as tree run vs. not tree run. Then researchers will evaluate the effectiveness of current industry standard procedures, such as washing, brushing, use of chlorine and others.

Another piece of information still needed is the exact source of the contamination at Odwalla, Inc., the California company which produced the cider responsible for last autumn's outbreak. A recall retrieved 700,000 units of Odwalla juice. FDA's investigation included testing of more than 400 separate juice samples. Only one of those samples turned up positive, and that one was an unopened container returned by a consumer, said Fred Scholl of FDA's San Francisco office.

Plant records on the date of production, Oct. 7, were then checked. The lot of apples which yielded the tainted cider had a much higher incidence of damaged fruit than other lots, to the extent that extra workers were needed at the sorting tables.

The state of California attempted to trace this lot of apples back to its origin, but poor shipping records only allowed investigators to identify five farms and one packer as a possible source.