Thread: Strict safety guidelines enforced as produce travels from Me

Strict safety guidelines enforced as produce travels from Mexico

07:18 AM CDT on Monday, June 30, 2008

By ALFREDO CORCHADO / The Dallas Morning News
acorchado@dallasnews.com

SAN JOSÉ ITURBIDE, Mexico – Glenn Fry helps run Taylor Farms de Mexico's new $14 million plant here. He picked the land where it sits and designed just about every facet of it, down to the statue of the Virgin of Guadalupe at the entrance and the jacaranda and palm trees.

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Strict food-safety rules govern harvesting, shipping of Mexican lettuce

He manages more than 800 workers who plant, harvest and package produce – including lettuce, onions and broccoli – for export to the U.S.

And he reminds his workers often that their future lies in ensuring safety for the products headed to places like his hometown of Dallas.

"In the United States you can stumble once, two, three times and still survive," Mr. Fry says he tells his workers. "Not in Mexico. Because of a perception problem, all you need is one problem to destroy your entire operation."

About 60 percent to 70 percent of all produce consumed by North Texas households and throughout the state originates in Mexico, says Mr. Fry, 67, noting that operations such as Taylor's are an important new source of jobs in central Mexico, which has traditionally sent many of its workers to the U.S.

"This plant here, this investment, is a return on the people of Mexico," he says. "Exporting safe food and easing the flow of exports to the United States represents the salvation and future of Mexico."

Taylor Farms is just one of a handful of U.S. companies lured by Mexico's ideal year-round growing climate, proximity to Texas, low labor costs and plentiful workforce. At least three others have begun operations here, and competition will be stiff.

Mr. Fry agreed to allow a reporter and a photographer from The Dallas Morning News to follow the journey of a load of lettuce from the state of Guanajuato to Dallas. He offered the same kind of unfettered access to his customers, who routinely fly on Taylor's company plane to check the operations firsthand.


Attention to details

It's 9 a.m. on a cold, misty Monday, and harvesting is delayed by two hours as supervisors wait for the fog to lift and the dew to dry from rows of lettuce plants.

Quality-control supervisor Laura Patino breaks the silence, barking at workers, who quickly form a line.



JAMES A. BLACK/DMN Staff Artist
Lettuce's route from Mexico farm to Dallas warehouse
Two young women carry a container to sanitize knives, gloves, hairnets, masks and aprons. Safety supervisors check fingernails for polish and lips for lipstick – both banned for safety reasons.

Check closely for "anything that will touch the lettuce," yells Ms. Patino, 37, a six-year employee.

No detail is lost on her. An aide monitors workers coming out of the mobile toilets at the end of the fields to make sure they wash their hands before returning to work.

"Many of our workers don't even have toilets at home, so this is new to them," Ms. Patino explains. "We've literally taught many of them how to go to the restroom. It's that basic."

The lettuce field – owned by Oscar A. Bitar Macedo and leased by Taylor – is fenced off from outside "contamination." Heavy strips of yellow plastic keep out dogs, cattle and other livestock.

Mr. Bitar, owner of Rancho Don Alberto, leases all of his 100 hectares (about 247 acres) to Taylor. And he's responsible for maintenance, water wells, monthly water testing, fencing, security guards and, yes, even toilet paper.

He has invested more than $140,000 in improvements that he believes will pay off as more U.S. agricultural companies head south.

The potential for Mexico is enormous, as is the responsibility, he says.

"I often tell U.S. farmers, 'In the United States you're supervised with a magnifying glass,' " Mr. Bitar says. "Here we're under a microscope. Any outbreak here is not just bad for that farmer, but for the country in general."


Safety checks

Within two hours, 24 boxes, each holding about 850 pounds of lettuce, are transported to Taylor's plant a few miles down the road for the first of several safety checks.

At the entrance, 19-year-old Efigenia Rosas checks the boxes to make sure they're labeled with bar codes identifying the owner's farm, crew supervisor, field and time of harvest – a crucial step in the process. If a consumer later finds a problem, Taylor can trace the produce back to the field and farmer.

The lettuce then goes into a giant cooler where two workers check a dozen or so pieces for odd coloring or possible contamination with E-coli or salmonella. If a problem arises, company officials are alerted and the entire load is checked. If not, the lettuce is cooled to 35 degrees and transported to the warehouse.

By 4 p.m., two Taylor employees – one of them a bioterrorism specialist – check the truck that will carry the lettuce north. Employees look for tampering or secret compartments that can be used to smuggle weapons or drugs.

Workers load the lettuce into the refrigerated trailer; lock the doors and seal it with a special barcode devised by a Laredo customs broker and U.S. Customs to protect against tampering. If unlocked by unauthorized groups, officials inform customs brokers, who alert U.S. Customs officials.

At 6 p.m., driver Roman Ayala, an employee of Flensa Trucking, begins the drive north on Mexico's Highway 57.

He's in no rush because he has no chance of getting to Nuevo Laredo before Customs shuts down the bridge at 11 p.m. And it won't reopen until 8 a.m., something that frustrates Mr. Fry to no end.

"How can the U.S. government be serious about food safety when they shut down the border overnight and perishable goods have to sit there and wait?" he asks.

Just past San Luis PotosÃ*, Mr. Ayala stops for dinner, circling the truck-stop parking lot until he finds a spot where he feels comfortable.

He's on the lookout for drug traffickers, he says, who are there to entice drivers with a few extra dollars in exchange for smuggling coke or dope north. He has never been tempted, but he knows drivers who have. One was caught a few weeks ago after he agreed to take a few kilos of marijuana in exchange for $8,000.

"Can you imagine?" he says. "He's in jail now for just a few thousand dollars."

Outside Saltillo, Coahuila, Mr. Ayala pulls over for a four-hour nap as trucks loaded with TVs, clothes, food, beverages, candy and other exports zoom past, headed to the U.S.

"Anyone who thinks Mexico hasn't changed needs to take this road, the NAFTA highway, and witness for themselves," says Mr. Ayala, who has been hauling goods for more than 22 years at about $100 a trip.

He arrives in Nuevo Laredo about 8:30 Tuesday morning.


Across the border

By 10 a.m., the trailer carrying the lettuce is hitched to a different truck that will ferry it across the U.S.-Mexico border.

ERICH SCHLEGEL/DMN
Mexican farm workers don sanitized aprons, gloves, hairnets and masks before harvesting lettuce at Rancho Don Alberto. Much of the produce consumed in North Texas originates in Mexico, says Glenn Fry of Taylor Farms.
View larger More photos Photo store An hour later, the lettuce begins its final roll into the U.S. – past an endless line of trucks idling atop the commercial bridge and awaiting customs inspection. The Taylor truck moves into the Fast Lane, a sort of HOV lane for those companies with unblemished records.

Taylor's trucks used to be checked 100 percent of the time, but five years and thousands of exports later – with no violations – that number is down to less than five percent. That's still too high for Mr. Fry, who has been lobbying the Federal Drug Administration in Washington and Dallas and hopes for some relief by the end of the summer.

"Our biggest obstacle is that international bridge, no doubt," Mr. Fry said.

The truck finally pulls into the J.O. Alvarez Inc. warehouse in Laredo, Texas, at noon, where customs brokers check the bar-coded seal – still intact.

Remigio "Mico" Gonzalez, a broker for the customs house of J.O. Alvarez who has been waiting on the shipment, pokes a gauge inside a lettuce box to make sure the temperature has remained constant. He calls for a different truck, which is promptly attached to the trailer.

At 1:30 p.m., the truck heads north toward Dallas on Interstate 35, arriving in Cockrell Hill eight hours later.

Workers there unload the lettuce, inspect it, wash it and repackage it into smaller boxes, which are carted off to stores and restaurants. Within a week, the lettuce will be on dining tables across North Texas.

Mr. Fry, having flown home to Southlake, may be one of those consumers.

"I very well may have eaten my own lettuce," Mr. Fry says. "And I can't complain."

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No detail is lost on her. An aide monitors workers coming out of the mobile toilets at the end of the fields to make sure they wash their hands before returning to work.

"Many of our workers don't even have toilets at home, so this is new to them," Ms. Patino explains. "We've literally taught many of them how to go to the restroom. It's that basic."

Ok ,this right thee explains a lot about issues of the tomatoes and some of the produce problems up here. As well, this verifies my friends cherry picking story. As well, my own mother verified that at her work, a large dry cleaners, have found it necessary to "toilet train" new people.

As well, where were they going? Have they literally never seen a toilet and know what to do with it? Were they just doing it behind a bush?

It does not make me feel any better about things, it only justifies all of our worries about our produce being picked by these people. I think it is high time to start looking into mechanized ways to harvest ALL produce.