Food Safety Program
At California Giant Berry Farms, our goal has always been to deliver you the berry best. For over 40 years, we’ve partnered with our growers to set the expectations and standards for food safety. Our goal is to deliver you top-quality, nutritious and safe berries. To ensure this, we adhere to the following key practices:
From field to fork we go to great lengths to ensure our berries are consistently delicious and safe, and we take great pride in our high-quality berries.
As part of our food safety program, California Giant Berry Farms employs third-party auditors to ensure Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) are followed by all growers. We diligently monitor for any possible risk to ensure we grow and harvest the safest berries for you.
Our food safety program validates and verifies information and documentation on soil testing, water testing, trace back capabilities and more.
We conduct regular training programs with our harvesting crews, growers and Food Safety team members on food safety practices and industry guidelines.
GOOD AGRICULTURAL PRACTICES
California Giant Berry Farms strictly adheres to the guidelines set forth by the FDA’s Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs). All California Giant Berry Farms growers go above and beyond the guidelines to mitigate the risk of microbial contamination. In addition, California Giant Berry Farms employs third-party auditors to ensure our growers are always in compliance with GAPs and regulatory requirements.
More Food Safety practices to ensure we deliver you the berry best:
Product Traceability
PRODUCT TRACEABILITY
Using Glasschain™ integration software through the IBM Food Trust and other blockchain platforms, a customized all-encompassing event database, California Giant is linked to its customer’s planning software and provides transparent, real-time visibility, including the location of which the berries were grown, harvest date and advanced shipping notifications to distribution centers. This high level of detail provides end-to-end visibility of product freshness, supply chain performance, and market arrival quality.
- The permanent information allows all parties of the supply chain involved to be better informed with improved instantaneous data.
- Blockchain enables parties involved to track food from farm to store and helps ensure it is fresh and safe upon point of purchase.
We encourage you to use this traceability service (www.calgiant.com/trace) to learn where your berries were grown.
Pesticides
At California Giant Berry Farms, the first line of crop defense is to practice Integrated Pest Management (IPM), working with nature first by utilizing beneficial pests and cultural practices against pest pressure. Integrated Pest Management is an effective and environmentally sensitive approach to pest mitigations. Pesticides are used only as the absolute last line of defense.
We understand that you are concerned about the use of crop protection tools and opt for organic produce. California Giant Berry Farms offers a full line of USDA certified organic berries, available at a grocer near you.
If you’re interested in learning more about pesticide use, potential risk and exposure, we encourage you to visit www.safefruitsandveggies.com and utilize the Alliance for Food and Farming’s (AFF) pesticide residue calculator to determine the real risk of pesticide residue.
Auditing
All California Giant Berry Farms operations — from packaging and facilities to our grower’s fields — are required to meet and/or exceed the standards set forth by the Global Food Safety Initiatives (GFSI). Global Food Safety Initiatives standards are the highest level in Food Safety management, in which all our operations have met and exceeded all requirements.
Our Food Safety Program has always provided verifiable information and documentation on soil testing, water testing, product traceback capabilities, field sanitation and pesticide use to ensure our berries are produced in the safest possible manner. Our audit results are published here.
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