On January 6, 2014, Bidart Bros., an apple packing company in Bakersfield, California, voluntarily recalled Granny Smith and Gala apples due to a listeriosis outbreak linked to prepackaged caramel apples from its facility. Around the same time, the final rules for the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), a U.S food safety that places the focus on prevention rather than reaction to foodborne illness outbreaks, were working towards publication. Such a critical event provides the opportunity to assess the current food safety practices, training needs as well as the attitudes and opinions of apple packers on FSMA. For this study, three surveys were administered and a food safety training workshop was held for apple packers. The surveys revealed that the majority of apple packing facilities had critical food safety practices in place, or were working towards incorporating them into their facility, expressed a need for microbial related trainings and FSMA trainings as these were their highest priority for food safety training topics, and the attitudes and opinions of the apple packers showed that there are gaps that need to be addressed by the FDA in terms of current processor practices affecting foodborne outbreaks and the resources provided to educate about FMSA.
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