Skip To Content Primary Navigation Secondary Navigation
Nature Fresh Farms Logo Nature Fresh Farms Logo

Naturefresh Logo

  • Products
    • Organics
    • Tomatoes
    • Peppers
    • Cucumbers
    • Strawberries
  • Recipes
    • Tomato Recipes
    • Pepper Recipes
    • Cucumber Recipes
  • Learn
    • Educator Resources
    • Greenhouse Education Center
    • Eating Healthy 101
    • In The Kitchen
    • Discovery Center
  • Blog
  • About
    • The Grow-To People
    • Peter Quiring
    • Food Safety
    • Building Partnerships
  • Sustainable Growing
  • Contact Us
  • Careers
  • Sustainable Growing
  • Contact Us
  • Careers
  • Products
    • Organics
    • Tomatoes
    • Peppers
    • Cucumbers
    • Strawberries
  • Recipes
    • Tomato Recipes
    • Pepper Recipes
    • Cucumber Recipes
  • Learn
    • Educator Resources
    • Greenhouse Education Center
    • Eating Healthy 101
    • In The Kitchen
    • Discovery Center
  • Blog
  • About
    • The Grow-To People
    • Peter Quiring
    • Food Safety
    • Building Partnerships

The Importance of Greenhouse Food Safety Practices

Why Is Food Safety So Important?

As a greenhouse grower, Nature Fresh Farms takes food safety very seriously.

We believe that our overall success depends on our ability to supply food to our customers that meets or exceeds the highest standards for product quality and safety. Now more than ever, people are acutely aware of the foods they eat, where those foods come from, and the journey that food takes before winding up on their tables. We are committed to ensuring this journey is as safe as possible so our customers can place their full trust in their favorite Nature Fresh Farms products to fuel their families!

With that said, we also believe it is the responsibility of our entire team to support the development and implementation of food safety systems, standards, and practices within our company. When our team rallies behind this common goal – to provide our customers with the safest produce possible – we can continuously achieve new levels of food safety excellence.

Let’s take a closer look at how we use food safety practices and procedures to protect our produce!

Food Safety at Nature Fresh Farms

Our food safety procedures are designed to protect our products against risks related to biological, chemical, or physical contamination. Each potential risk is addressed with Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), which are reviewed yearly, or when changes in the process occur.

Every day, each of our Supervisors completes pre-operational and post-operational food safety checks to ensure we are complying with all food safety rules and regulations. Our team also receives food safety training on an ongoing basis, so everyone stays informed and up to date on changes or improvements to food safety protocols.

Our Compliance Team

When it comes to food safety, the Compliance team at Nature Fresh Farms plays an important role – it is their responsibility to perform internal audits, verify food safety checks, validate our sanitation procedures, and review food safety documents and forms.

Internal Audits

While we bring external auditors into our facilities at least 4 times a year to review food safety compliance, it is up to our internal Compliance team to make sure we are always adhering to food safety practices – especially when no one is watching!

When performing internal audits, the Compliance team checks to make sure all SOPs are being followed at every location, and that food safety standards are being upheld by all team members.

Operational Checks & Sanitation

We have great confidence in our team members as food safety stewards, but it is always important to double-check our actions to mitigate risks. This is why our Compliance team verifies that pre-operational and post-operational checks are being completed each day by our Supervisors.

Validating our sanitation practices is also an incredibly important responsibility of our Compliance team. We clean our facilities rigorously, but we use ATP tests to discover in seconds how effectively we have been cleaning our surface areas. We also perform micro-checks once a month where we send swabs of our surface areas to be tested in a lab setting to further validate our sanitation efforts.

Supplier & Customer Food Safety Reviews

Our partners – from packaging suppliers to retailers – take food safety just as seriously as we do. We work together with all our partners to keep each other accountable, ensuring food safety standards are met or exceeded by each party. To keep these partnerships strong, our Compliance team takes care of performing all supplier reviews, as well as providing up-to-date food safety documentation and certifications for the convenience of our retail partners.

Who Holds Us Accountable for Food Safety?

Ensuring proper food safety is critical to our company’s success, so we look to a few different parties for support and guidance when checking our adherence to food safety practices.

In addition to our internal Compliance team and our partners, third party auditing companies come to our facilities and perform extensive food safety audits at least 4 times per year.

PrimusGFS is a Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) recognized audit certification program that regularly performs our food safety audits. GFSI is a global food safety coalition that aims to build consumers’ trust in the food they buy by improving food safety management practices. GFSI is the industry benchmark when it comes to food safety management, providing GFSI-accredited Certifying Bodies (CBs) with the credibility and influence they need to ensure food businesses are meeting the highest standards for all things food safety.

When it is time for us to be audited by PrimusGFS, our Compliance team works diligently to complete a host of modules that review our overall performance and ability to follow food safety protocols, SOPs, and regulations. The modules we complete with PrimusGFS include:

  • Module 1 – Food Safety Management System
  • Module 3 – Indoor Agriculture
  • Module 4 – Harvest Crew
  • Module 5 – Facility
  • Module 6 – HACCP

What is HACCP?

HACCP, which stands for Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points, is a program with specific principles related to food safety risk mitigation. Any food safety system that is accredited is based on the principles of HACCP.

Using HACCP principles, our Compliance team develops a process flow for each product we handle. This process flow helps our team identify where potential contamination can occur throughout the production process. Whether it’s while our Tomatoes are still growing on the plant, or when they are being packed into cases for shipping, it’s critical for our team to use HACCP to prevent any type of contamination within our workplace.

Food Safety & COVID-19

There has been a lot of discussion and research conducted on whether there is a risk of COVID-19 being a foodborne illness. From what health organizations and food safety experts tell us, it has been proven that COVID-19 cannot be transmitted through food. To learn more, explore the Canadian Produce Marketing Association’s list of resources related to COVID-19 and food safety.

The food safety practices we have in place at Nature Fresh Farms are designed to mitigate foodborne illnesses from being transmitted to our customers. Before we knew whether COVID-19 was potentially a foodborne virus, we were already taking the right actions to protect our produce and the people who eat it from contracting foodborne illnesses.

Although COVID-19 cannot be transmitted in this way, it is always important to wash fresh fruits and vegetables before eating them, as well as wash our hands regularly. While we take special care of our products as they are picked, packed, and shipped to the store, your Tomatoes, Peppers, and Cucumbers (and all fresh produce, for that matter) have still passed through many hands before arriving on your table. That is why it is always best practice to rinse fresh foods in cold water before eating!

Learn More About Food Safety

Interested in taking a deeper dive into our food safety practices? Head to our Food Safety webpage to learn more about our commitment to achieving food safety excellence.

2020/09/28

  • How We Grow icon How We Grow
View all posts tagged with Compliance Compliance View all posts tagged with COVID-19 COVID-19 View all posts tagged with Food Safety Food Safety View all posts tagged with GFSI GFSI View all posts tagged with HACCP HACCP
Photo of Nature Fresh Farms

Nature Fresh Farms

  • Email
  • Website
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube

Snack smarter with our guide to snacking healthy on-the-go!

Our guide includes healthy eating tips, delicious recipes, and inspiration from our community.

Get the guide

Categories

  • The Kitchen icon The Kitchen
  • Newsroom icon Newsroom
  • How We Grow icon How We Grow
  • Healthy Lifestyles icon Healthy Lifestyles
  • Community icon Community
  • Green In The City icon Green In The City
  • The Grow-To People
  • Uncategorized icon Uncategorized
  • The Bug Brigade icon The Bug Brigade

Tags

Tomatoes, Greenhouse Grown, Healthy Eating, Bell Peppers, Cucumbers, Sustainability, Grow To People, Community, Education, Innovation, GreenInTheCity, Fresh Produce

Authors

  • Nature Fresh Farms

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube

Latest Tweets

Visit our team at the upcoming Viva Fresh Expo in Grapevine, TX and discover how we’re Changing the Flavor of Fresh with new products like our Hiiros™ Tomatoes! Come say hello at Booth 201 https://t.co/zLVwmHAxTE

@Nature_Fresh 4 days ago

March is Nutrition Month, and we’re here to remind you that eating healthy shouldn’t have to be boring! It’s a beautiful thing when you can get in a serving of veggies while enjoying a savory taco 🌮 Check out our website for the recipe! Taco Tuesday for the win 💃🏼 https://t.co/nzUOzZWGbt

@Nature_Fresh 7 days ago

Three months of growth in our Organic Bell Pepper crop! Pretty soon, this crop will be bursting with beautiful shades of red, orange & yellow ❤️🧡💛 . . . . . #NatureFreshFarms #NFF #BellPeppers #Organic #OrganicPeppers #Greenhouse #GreenhouseGrown #OntarioGrown #GrowToPeople https://t.co/UnMmA0zkz0

@Nature_Fresh 11 days ago
GEC GTL’s in New Jersey!

Green In The City 

GEC GTL’s in New Jersey!

Peter Quiring Receives OPMA’s Cory Clack-Streef Produce Person of the Year Award

Community 

Peter Quiring Receives OPMA’s Cory Clack-Streef Produce Person of the Year Award

Exploring Common Produce Imperfections

How We Grow 

Exploring Common Produce Imperfections

Products

  • Organics
  • Tomatoes
  • Peppers
  • Cucumbers

Learn

  • Learn
  • Educator Resources
  • Greenhouse Education Center
  • Blog
  • Discovery Center

About Us

  • The Grow-To People
  • Our Guest Workers
  • Peter Quiring
  • The Bug Brigade
  • Food Safety
  • Sustainable Growing

Contact

  • Contact Us
  • Careers
  • FAQs

Get In Touch

  • 634 Mersea Road 7, RR5
    Leamington, Ontario
    N8H 3V8
  • info@naturefresh.ca
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube
A Nature Fresh Farms Learning Initiative. © 2023 Nature Fresh Farms. All rights reserved.
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • Pinterest
  • Youtube
Nature Fresh Logo