Fellow technologists, scientists and food law regulators. Can you share views on what your take is regarding the rising consumer behaviour of consuming raw Swisschard spinach and whether or not producers are doing enough to ensure “adequate” microbial safety for this product to be consumed in this format?
Developed nations and states have rules such as this
But developing nations like your locality ,you had to check it if they had rules implemented for marketing and distribution of such greens…
Thank you very much Roy, this has definitely come in handy.
Agencies from individual countries ensure the safety by doing such checks:;
In Turkiye most of green leafy products arrive to market without any process, mostly open weekday pazars . Do they market as washed and packed in controlled atmosphere in developed countries? How many days do they stay fresh in this packages?
Yes, MAP is adopted in many developed countries. The modified packaging is definitely helping to extent the shelf life of most of the green leafy veggies sold here. It comes in different forms also.
On another note, for some of us looking at sustainability and environmental issues, we may find it hard to accept ‘individually’ packed egg plants etc. However, it is definitely helping to extent the shelf life of some of these hard veggies too, especially since these fruits and vegetables come from as far as Chile, Brazil etc. Hence some balance may be required between eco friendliness and food sustainability.
In fact there are big market chains and I see the lettuces openly sold there. One of them sells it washed and packed as uncut and unmixed . The price of lettuce sold without any processing is around 0,3 Euros and the washed one is 1 euro. The people here buy it from street pazars wich is usually set up one of the week days at every district .Government still encourage this pazars by building closed ones as promoting modern pazar buildings. For this reason market chains can’t reach enough economic amount to buy this kind of packaging machines I think . Not any institutions ask about their manufacturer, labels etc. Sometimes I hear on TV about nauseating effects from restaurants on the Highway. Then this restaurant got inspected and gets penalty.
There are always commissions to be parallel with Europe laws and regulations .
Any local produce if available in plenty then one would be happy to buy from the street pazars. And they are so fresh! However for countries where agriculture is not carried out, there is no other option but to buy such packed greens with expensive tags.
Active packaging and intelligent packaging sector are all growing, where food safety is the ultimate goal.