 Hi, as Joan said, my name is Carolyn Orr, and I don't need microphones usually either. I taught college for 25 years. You learn to yell over everybody. I guess farming, you learn to yell over the cows. We farm in West Central Indiana, and like many people, we're part-time farmers, flashlight farmers. We, both my husband and I have full-time jobs, and we made the mistake about four and a half years ago of a greenhouse about two miles away from us, came up for sale for pennies on the dollar, and we said, oh hell, let's try. So we bought this greenhouse, and we have tried about every type of produce in it that you can imagine, and we have settled on English cucumbers, because there is no one else in the state of Indiana growing English cucumbers, and we've, they're a product that has a little longer longevity, less perishability when you are further from the center area for a market, and so it allows us, we can, we have a pickup, we have someone that picks them up once a week, and they last for a good two weeks after that. Piazza, which is a commercial operation in Indiana, delivers to white tablecloth restaurants, and they pick up at our operation once a week. But with the Food Safety Modernization Act, which many of you may, if you're not aware of yet, you will be soon, became very important to us. My husband works in the egg industry, and so bacteria and food safety is extremely important to him, so it became very important to us to find a way to wash our produce. At that time, at the time that we started was when we had problems in southern Indiana with cantaloupe, where there were problems with lettuce in Ohio, and so it became very important to us to find a way that we could afford to wash our produce. I know there are commercial washing machines, first of all, most of them are for produce like potatoes and apples, not like tomatoes and cucumbers that get skinned up very easily. And so we started looking at different ways to wash our produce and different products to use, and we applied to SARE for help in that, and came up with two different methods of washing produce. I'll talk about those two methods, and then in the last year, since we developed those methods, we have been working with Purdue University Food Safety Group to determine whether the products available to farmers to wash with actually work. And we're finding out they probably don't work very well. So we started out with, and if you've got the handout, you've got the pictures, it's on the web at SARE, we can, first of all, let me tell you, everything was done by us. We are part-time farmers, my son is 25 years old, and seems like he can do anything. When he was three, he took apart my washing machine when I was out pulling a calf. He did not put it back together. Today he can put it back together, so between he and my husband, they seem to be able, with their farmers, we can take apart and build just about anything. So we started out with, we bought an old used meat cart, stainless steel, which means everything, today everything with Food Safety Modernization Act, everything has to be washable. If you're picking apples in a wooden crate, that's not going to happen anymore. Everything you buy has to be sanitizable, it has to be washable. Everything that touches the produce has to be sanitizable. And I think even if you're growing corn or soybeans, you're going to find in the future that you're going to be liable. If you produce corn or soybeans that has a fungus in it that carries some kind of aphelotoxin, they're going to trace it, within five years, they're going to trace it and trace it back to your farm. Right now, everything we sell, granted, you may go to a farmer's market and think that you're safe, that you don't have to worry about it, but you're still, someone's going to find you liable if something goes wrong. Just look at the cases of raw milk. People that have been sued for raw milk, it's just going to happen. So we have to be prepared for it. So everything that you use has to be washable. So the first thing we did was found stainless steel. We then found, I would know this sounds really bad, flooring that they use in hog crates. Because it is covered with plastic and it is easily washable and sanitizable. And it has these little holes. So we put that over top of the stainless steel meat lug. And we, the facility we bought was a cut flower facility. And they had a cooler for cut flowers, which is fine for flowers, but it was not eligible. It couldn't be washed down. So the first thing we did was skin the whole cooler. So inside the cooler that was skinned with metal siding, so it could be washed, we went ahead and piped in hot and cold water. And we simply used hot and cold water in a wash system, a spray system, similar system for a spray system to spray on the sanitation, and then let it sit for the amount of time it recommended and washed it off. It worked well. You can do it for less than $500 if you're going to a farmer's market and you're selling tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, anything like that that you don't want to have scratched up, it works really well for it. It went on top. It's easy to wash. You can use any type of sanitation you want. Leave it on as long as you want. However, once we switch from growing tomatoes, when we started the operation, we grew tomatoes and cucumbers. We eventually went to 100% cucumbers, which means we were boxing up 50 to 100 to 200 boxes of cucumbers a day, 12 to a box. At that rate, we couldn't use that system anymore. So we were, when we put in our grant, we had come up with this idea that we're going to build this box and we were going to make this conveyor go through it and it all, well, as we thought about things, we happened upon an old dishwashing unit from a high school. The arts came from a high school, but they come from hotels. And that's exactly what that is. It's a unit with a conveyor belt and spray system that you can, that we had to, I'll tell you something that changed, but it, the, the produce goes in, it goes through three different spray systems, it goes out. It was the perfect setup and you can buy them very, very cheaply. So we picked, and it's stainless steel, it's washable, it meets all the criteria for being able to be sanitized. So we went in and the first thing you have to do on those, if you can imagine them going through a hotel, what the dishes look like going into a hotel dishwasher. Well, you didn't want that much spray power on a fruit and vegetable. So the first thing we had to do was reduce the power of the pressure, change the pressure into the washer. It was 240, drop it down to 110. There's some things like that, which you might not be able to do, but if you're interested in doing it, my son will walk you through it on the phone. We've helped several other people build these. So we lowered the pressure unit. We made it so that fresh water goes on the produce first, then sanitation. Now, depending on the product you're using for sanitizing, you may need to rinse, may need a third rinse at the end. But most sanitizing agents today, if you're not using chlorine, don't need rinsed off. In fact, the longer they stay on the product, the better. And one of the things we have found, we use Sanidate, which I'm not recommending it or not recommending it. It just has worked for us because it's not hard on stainless steel. Chlorine washes are very hard on stainless steel. So we use Sanidate. We leave it on. We leave it on the product. It does not get rinsed off. The product comes out, and then as we pack in the bag, there's still some Sanidate on it. We have found that sanitizing the product in this way extends our shelf life more than 12 days. And we found that through research with Purdue University by doing the product with and without sanitation and different times of sanitation, and then bagging the product and testing its ability to withstand shelf life and to extend shelf life. So the product, one of the other things we had to find out and Sarah helped us with was what type of thing do you wash them in? One of the first things is what do you pick them in? And the the container you pick them in is almost as important as the container you wash them in because you have to be able to sanitize that. And the cleaner that is, the cleaner the product is. So we ended up using plastic produce lugs. It worked very well, but they don't go through this washing machine. We ended up using cup washers. They're the same things that they would use in any cafeteria to wash cups. They're very smooth surface. They don't scratch anything. You can put tomatoes on them. You can put the most delicate, the ripest tomato on it and still doesn't make any intentions on the fruit. And through, so through the trial and error we found the best way to do those and the cheapest way and the amazing thing on those is they cost anywhere from ten dollars a piece depending on where you buy them. So we went ahead and did these. We now put the product outside of the room in the tray, sorted into the tray the way we want it sorted into the boxes. Goes to the washer, comes out on a stainless steel table that we also bought from a used restaurant company. There are used restaurant companies in about every major city that sell used restaurant equipment. It's always stainless steel. It's cheap. And bag them up and box them in there out. And so we cut our time down to we can now process about 200 boxes of cucumbers with three of us in about an hour and a half. Now granted, I guess if I was, you know, dull I could probably do it in minutes. But we're not that mechanized and we're not that, I guess we're not that efficient because we're not that mechanized. Since that time we have started looking at whether this is effective in removing contaminants. One of the things we have the advantage of is we grow in a greenhouse. There really is nothing, we're soil, we're in the media, we're drip irrigation. There's very little of anything that could get on that. We use gloves when we pick, we use gloves when we work the plants. The plants are coming out very clean. There's very little evidence, no evidence of pathogens, very little evidence of anything but natural flora on the plants. So we started working with some Amish people in our community that grow tomatoes. And in the handout you have you'll see the different, one of the things that we have found that's a serious issue, if you look on the second page of the handout, that native flora on tomato samples, you'll see that the GTC, GT1 and GT2 are all greenhouse. We really did not have much flora on there to wash them when they were growing the greenhouse. But if you look at the field grown tomatoes, there is a lot of opportunity for field grown tomatoes to be carrying organisms, whether it's native organisms or whether it's pathogens. And if you look, what was really shocking to us was the last column on the right hand side there, that FTT2, those were washed field grown tomatoes. And by washing them we actually increased, with Sanadate we actually increased the growth of organisms, because what it did is spread the organisms that were on the tomato in one area, it spread them around to the entire tomato. And so this year, this was at the end of last year, so this year we've done research with simulated pathogens. It's very difficult to determine, you don't want to put a pathogen on your product in your own greenhouse and then see how it goes away. We didn't want to introduce any pathogens, but with some simulated pathogens, some organisms that simulate pathogens on the products and a number of different products that are available out there, including some test products, trial products that are like eye on generating water and things like this. And to this day I still can't tell you that one product to sanitize your produce is far superior to any other product. We're going to continue that trial. We're going to continue to try and we can get a one or a two log reduction in microbiological contamination. And for those, I mean that's big words, but what that really means is we're not making a huge impact. As a food scientist, they would like to see a three or four log reduction in field grown produce, the bacteria content on field grown produce. Not only will that reduce the incidence of food poisoning, it also extends shelf life on your product. And so to this time we're still working on what products might work to give us that three or four log and how long they have to stay on there. Obviously we can't deal with that for four or five minutes. I mean that's not, doesn't make logical sense if you're trying to efficiently use your time. It has to be something that can go on and if it stays in the product when it goes in the box that's okay. But it has to be something that you can get on and move through the line pretty quickly. So maybe maybe two years from now we'll be able to give you the research, the data that you need. And I think it was really disturbing to me as I did the SAR grant research before I applied very little research out there to help us as small farmers to make our food safer. I mean Dole has their proprietary research and these cut salad green companies have theirs. But for those of us that are small commercial farmers in Indiana or Illinois or wherever, there's not much research out there helping and not many people out there helping us. So maybe through SAR we can all help each other make our food safer. So any questions? Is that a glass greenhouse or a hoop house? Yes well it's a plexiglass, yeah. It's plastic roof, plexiglass. What's the size of it? 10,000 square foot. His question was was that city water We have no city water in western Indiana. We have no paved roads in western Indiana. It's well water but it's deep well and it tests out clean every time we test it. Do you know are there any sources for washing of lettuce? Yeah in fact the woman who we work with on this is a that's what her research was at Purdue Amanda does a lot of work with Dole in Ohio and obviously they've had some errors in that because they've obviously had some serious recalls and illnesses and someone wanted us to grow baby lettuce. I'm at this point really hesitant because even in the greenhouse I mean that that's probably the highest chance of having something. It's very difficult to wash young lettuce um the dip tanks just spread it and that's what we found that if you use a dip tank to wash fragile stuff anything that's on there just goes to everything else unless you have a really high sanitation level and then you have to test it constantly. So I'm sorry at this point I don't have a really good solution or a really good sanitizer for lettuce um your real important thing is how you produce it and how clean you are in cutting it I mean dipping your scissors constantly keeping your gloves changed constantly making sure the containers you put it in are clean that's the best thing I can tell you right now it's yeah it's kind of scary amongst your customers what have you seen as far as the trends for people requesting proof of good agricultural practices and sanitation of the things you produce? We cannot sell it up to piazza unless we are even though we believe me we are way under FSMA requirements which those of you who don't know them I'm sure these guys are more than willing to tell them to you but they will not purchase without having the inspection certification the whole bit no matter how small you are they just they cannot take the chance period and and I think that everyone's going to find that out you may only be selling $10,000 with produce but if you're going to try and extend into schools or hotels or restaurants um if you're not required this year the time will come I guarantee it it's just that's how it's going to be and what changes or improvements are you anticipating making over the course of the next couple years in order to meet some of those regulations coming up Figure out a sanitizer that works I think we have the process but we don't have a chemical yet that and and anyone has recommendations for better chemicals I'd sure love to hear but right now we need it because that's the reason we are not growing lettuce because we our greenhouse you could start growing lettuce next week in our greenhouse because the way the weather is here if the sun warms up it's you know but I'm really really worried about I mean I'm in a greenhouse so I'm clean but um it's just the cost of keeping the lettuce is going to have to get more expensive that's all there is to it they're going to have to start paying us more for greens particularly local greens can you tell us a little bit more about the sanitizers you currently use so if people just eat them what's the effect and if and if you just wash them when you take it home does it completely wash it off and what about environmental effects how familiar are you with how those work because my understanding is Sanadate breaks down very quickly after it's on the product and so we've never been able to in our tests weeks after we never been able to identify the chemicals involved in Sanadate but I can't tell you about other ones um that's and that's one of the issues is what products we use that are safe because we know they're not going to wash their grapes every time they eat them we know it's not going to happen and cucumbers are the same way particularly English cucumbers they don't peel they you know kids come in the greenhouse and they pick one up and start eating on it or they go to the farmers market and they pick one up and start eating on it so you have to be really careful that and so I think that's one of the reasons I I don't I'm not prone to using the chlorine based ones um that they're really hard on equipment really really hard now we do use chlorine to wash our surfaces our hard surfaces um our plastic tables and those type of things but as far as I don't use it anymore and that and to be honest as a small grower I cannot buy chlorine that's approved for food use because there are only certain chlorines now that are approved for food use and the if you go to the store and buy bleach it's not approved for food use and we don't all pay attention to that but if you're dealing with a middle man uh someone who's distributing your product you have to start paying attention to that I'm just wondering if you were working with Purdue um before you had your farmer rancher grant I mean I think that's your grant was great and then I'm really encouraged that you're collaborating with the land grant in Indiana to do further work and that they're working with farmers to test things I'm probably a little different because as I said I taught college for 25 years uh not a not a land grant Berea College in India in Kentucky which is a I taught kids how to grow things so and also my husband runs the Indian egg board which is housed out of Purdue because we don't have a department of agriculture in Indiana so we're a little different there and we're also very um my husband's brother is the extension specialist for horticulture of the state of Virginia so we're very very attuned to food safety so I may be a little bit different um we had not worked with Purdue that closely before this and in fact why we started working with them was when we wanted to make sure we went through the certification and the training for food safety and Indiana does not have a really good program on that they they don't give the program very often and it's occasionally taught in this county or that county and so we went straight to Purdue to get it and in fact my son just went through the train the trainer program now for it but um no we hadn't been I think I had been connected with the University of Kentucky I did a sergrant on shrimp 30 years ago and that was with the University of Kentucky so we had not been that connected with the food science but when we started doing this we knew we had to find people so you need to reach out to the people in your area and if they don't have it you go to the extension you tell them you really need it and now Purdue and Illinois have both hired additional food safety people so this I mean we all know that this is the departments know that this is a huge issue now I think that's my impression