Posts Tagged “listeria”
Colorado is the fourth leading shipper of onions by volume in the USA, and 
loadings not only with onions, but other vegetables begin this month from the northeastern part of the state.]
In the San Luis Valley, which at an elevation of 7,600 feet, is the highest and largest commerical agricultural valley in the world, potatoes from the 2011-12 season should be finishing up soon, just in time from the new crop of russets to get started. Colorado ranks in the top 10 among potato shipping states.
The Rocky Ford area of Colorado has started shipping cantaloupe, but loading opportunities will be off a whopping 70 percent this season. Much less acreage was planted following the disasterious 2011 season where a food borne illness – listeria – killed 32 people, plus sickened nearly 150 people in 28 states. Only about 180,000 cartons of Colorado cantaloupes are forecast to be shipped, and distribution will not be nationwide this year, as in the past.
San Luis Valley potatoes – grossing about $1600 to Dallas.
The Westside district of the San Joaquin Valley is now shipping cantaloupe 
and other melons. However, after the Colorado listera outbreak last season involving a number of consumer deaths from eating cantaloupe, sales across the USA were affected. As a result, even though California cantaloupes were not associated with the outbreak, shipments were impacted. As a result fewer Westside district acres were planted this season.
The early portion of what is expected to be record breaking table grape shipments from the San Joaquin Valley is building. Best volume is currently coming out of the Arvin district near Bakersfield. Within days however, there will be light volume of grapes available from as far north in the valley as Fresno and Tulare counties. Including the grapes from Coachella (which are finished), California could ship over 100 million, 19-pound cartons this season.
There’s also other items now being shipped such as tomatoes from the Tracy, CA area, and a number of vegetables from the Fresno area and other parts of the valley.
You may be surprised at the amount of onions California ships, with the heaviest volume coming out of Fresno, Kern and Tulare counties. However, since you can haul onions in everything from flatbed trailers to dry vans, rates are significantly lower.
San Joaquin Valley onions – grossing about $5400 to New York City.
San Joaquin Valley fruit, veggies, melons – about $7500 to New York City.
If you haul cantaloupes out of the Rocky Ford area of Colorado during the 
summer, better look for something else this year. Thanks to the 2011 outbreak of listeria at Jensen Farms that killed 32 people and sickened others in 28 states, melon shipments from this area will be much less this year. Acreage from this district in southeastern Colorado will amount to only 500 acres, compared to about 2,000 acres of cantaloupe each year before the disasterous outbreak.
The Colorado cantaloupe industry has taken steps to improve their food safety programs, including having safety audits by the Colorado Department of Agriculture. Still, it’s too late, the damage has been done. The whole cantaloupe industry in the United States suffered because of the lax safety standards of a company, not to mention lives lost and ruined. As consumers become more confident, cantaloupe shipments will return to Rocky Ford as they had in the past, and other shipping areas around the country will recover as well.
It’s kind of like having one careless driver acting like a an idiot in an 18 wheeler. The whole trucking industry’s image suffers — deserved or not.