COALDALE, Alta. — A North American-wide health alert in late November, connected to romaine lettuce contaminated with E. coli bacteria, led many retail outlets to pull romaine from their produce departments.
Health officials linked the contamination to lettuce from California, but the alert affected all romaine lettuce growers including the Coaldale, Alta., Whole Leaf greenhouse, which is 2,250 kilometres away from California fields.
Rindi Bristol, senior director with Whole Leaf, said the recall, the second one on romaine in the last 12 months, proves the need for safe, clean lettuce grown in controlled conditions.
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Even so, Whole Leaf was affected by the recall when retailers pulled all romaine lettuce, regardless of origin, through an abundance of caution.
“It’s unfortunate that we were included in that, because we are growing in Canada, inside the greenhouse,” said Bristol.
“We tried to get an exemption from the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency)… so the major realtors didn’t have to pull our product but sometimes government agencies can’t work fast enough, or the retailers just had to act. ”
However, Whole Leaf’s production of many different lettuce varieties was a retail advantage.
“What it did do is it allowed the retailers to have a source of greens. People love salad. People love lettuce and people don’t want to stop eating it but they do want to have something that they feel confident that it’s safe.”
The Whole Leaf operation grows lettuce under controlled hydroponic conditions and is Safe Quality Food Level 2-certified, a food safety level granted through the Global Food Safety Initiative.
SQF Level 2 ensures Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points (HAACP) compliance and also includes unannounced inspections to ensure food safety requirements are met.
Bristol said lettuce safety alerts can harm business regardless of origin. For example, sales of romaine at Costco USA still had not fully recovered from a November 2017 lettuce safety alert. This year’s event is thus likely to further damage sales for retailers.
