The food safety spotlight was turned on pistachios in March, when Kraft Foods discovered salmonella in pistachios from California-based Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella after routine testing. Setton Pistachio withdrew its entire 2008 crop, and there were no reported illnesses.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) praised the company’s handling of the situation at the time, saying it exemplified how the food safety system should work, ensuring that products were withdrawn as a precautionary measure, rather than as a reaction to illness.
Now the industry is taking steps to ensure such a recall does not happen again. Dr Bob Klein, manager of the Californian Pistachio Research Board and the Administrative Committee for Pistachios told FoodNavigator-USA.com that the outbreak has caused the industry to entirely reexamine its handling practices. It is considering asking processors to submit a treatment plan and to use a validated kill step for salmonella – possibly roasting or pasteurization, he said.
“We are doing a very preliminary risk assessment,” said Klein. “We’re not sure what process we need…We have a number of research projects going on now so we can do a more comprehensive plan.”
The industry would need a state marketing order to establish mandatory safety protocols, with either state or federal government oversight.
Salmonella surprise
Klein said that the discovery of salmonella in pistachios earlier this year came as a surprise to the industry, as the product is nearly always roasted prior to consumption – widely recognized as an effective kill step for salmonella.
“Clearly we didn’t expect to see any salmonella from pistachios,” he said. “…All our food safety processes are ongoing. We thought we had a low risk product and it turned out it’s not as low risk as we thought.”
But Klein insisted that the review of the industry’s food safety procedures is not simply a case of image management.
“It’s not just a matter of perception,” said Klein. “We realized we had a contamination issue we had to solve. We want to make sure we have a safe crop that consumers can feel safe about purchasing.”
And pistachio handlers and processors have already started to implement new food safety procedures, including complete separation of raw from processed pistachios – which was the FDA’s theory as to how Setton Pistachio’s nuts became contaminated – something that had not been vigilantly undertaken by all processors due to the fact that very few pistachios are sold in a raw state.
Klein said that the industry was basing its new food safety procedures on lessons learned by other sectors, including almonds.
The 2009 pistachio harvest started last week, and initial safety procedures, such as separation of raw and roasted nuts, are expected to be in place across the industry before the crop is shipped.