Major floods have occurred over the past weeks along the east coast of Australia.

The Fresh Produce Safety Centre (FPSC) has compiled a list of resources for managing fresh produce food safety during and after floods and major rains.

FPSC Chair Andreas Klieber said it is important to keep a focus on managing food safety after floods.

“We have compiled a list of resources for industry on this issue. It’s important that those along the supply chain including growers, packers and processors, understand the risks associated with potential contamination with floodwater and what to do about it,” Dr Klieber said.

Key principles for produce safety after floods are:

• It is highly likely that flooded growing sites will have been contaminated by floodwaters that may contain sewerage, animal waste, dead animals and decaying vegetative waste.
• Testing usually focuses on coli as a general indicator of faecal contamination. Presence of more than 10 colony forming units (cfu) E. coli in 1g of the produce indicate there may be an issue and further investigation is necessary.
• If recent storms have caused damage and floodwater contacted the edible part of the product, then testing before harvest may indicate whether gross contamination has occurred.
• Produce that has come into contact with floodwater should not be harvested unless it meets limits of coli <10cfu/g and Salmonella Not Detected/25 g, or meets customer specifications.
• If it meets these limits, then a pathogen reduction treatment (e.g. wash with sanitiser) should be applied postharvest.
• Check all water sources regularly and strictly follow microbial limits for the use of water:
• coli <1 cfu/100 ml – Potable water limit for final wash or single-step wash and other applications (e.g. cooling, waxing and icing) if food will (or may) be eaten uncooked. Limit for hand washing water and cleaning of tools and equipment.
• coli <100 cfu/100ml – Limit for final wash or single step wash and other post-harvest applications if produce is always eaten cooked.

Resources on managing food safety during and after floods:

• Freshcare – Incident Management Insert: Flood Event
• FPSC – Guidelines for Fresh Produce Food Safety (chapter 7 Managing Water)
• FPSC – Fact sheet on Reducing Food Safety Risks from Preharvest Water
• NSW DPI – Floods and Storms (including information on how to prepare, what to do during and activities after)
• NSW DPI – Impacts and management of flooding and waterlogging in citrus orchards
• QLD DAF – Managing horticulture crop recovery after floods and waterlogged soil
• CSIRO – Floods – bushland and agriculture
• Business Queensland – Fruit and vegetable crop recovery after wet weather and floods (crop specific advice)
• Hort Innovation – Information for those affected by flooding
• Rural Support Trust – Flooding
• Food Safety Information Council – Don’t take a risk with food safety during and after floods