When all else fails, resort to posture: the rock-star pose with Townsend-inspired exaggerated guitar, sexual imagery in TV sitcoms, public relations rather than public information.
I can’t wait to be plied by the PR types at Argyle Communications about the safety of California leafy greens.
Data, transparency and creativity are what count. Mad Men is an entertaining television show set in the 1960s and they figured out these basics. So did Aristotle about 2,350 years ago, when he wrote any successful rhetoric includes an appeal to logic, an appeal to authority and an appeal to emotion.
“With funding from a California Specialty Crop Block Grant, the LGMA is launching a comprehensive public relations program designed to directly reach Canadian consumers through magazines, newspapers, television and the Internet to make sure they know all California leafy greens sold in Canadian must be certified by the LGMA.
"Consumer media outlets are the primary target of the campaign which seeks to raise awareness among Canadian consumers about the safety of leafy greens from California. Shortly after the LGMA was established, the Canadian government issued a mandate that all California leafy greens imported into the country must be certified by the LGMA.
"To make Canadian consumers aware of the measures being taken to ensure the safety of California leafy greens, Argyle Communications, a Canadian-based public relations firm has been retained to conduct a year-long communications campaign. The planned program includes two separate outreach efforts targeted at food and health reporters from Canadian media outlets and blog sites. The first of these will be mailed in the next few weeks and includes a presentation packet with basic facts and information about the LGMA along with featured recipes developed specifically for this effort. For a select target list, the packets will be hand delivered and will include product in the form of one of the featured recipes. For the first delivery, the featured recipe is Kale Chips. Later in the summer this same type of activity will be repeated with a different theme. A food safety spokesperson will also be pitched to Canadian television and radio outlets in an additional effort to communicate with consumers about the safety of California leafy greens.
"In early June, a tour of California leafy greens operations is scheduled to give Canadian media representatives a first-hand look at the comprehensive food safety program for leafy greens from California. In addition, the LGMA micro-site at www.safeleafygreens.com is being revised to serve a consumer audience with recipes and important handling information being added."
The folks that produce fresh spinach and lettuce are channeling their inner Milkshake, dialing back to late 2003 when weblogs or blogs began to emerge in force, and launched their own blog – last week.
The awkwardly named Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement – LGMA for funksters – is starting a “new dialogue on leafy greens food safety” with at least two blog posts a month.
Lowered expectations is good, especially when LGMA is eight years late to the blogshpere and about 10 years late to the food-safety-in-produce thing. The worst is to start a web page or a blog and then not follow through. Listeria-stricken Maple Leaf Foods hasn’t posted anything new on its Journey-inspired Our Journey to Food Safety Leadership, since Nov. 2010. Maybe they are on other journeys, looking for that small town girl.
LGMA chairman Jamie Strachan wrote in the inaugural blog on April 14, 2011, that it’s been four years since this “first-of-its-kind program began. It hasn't been easy, but the very fact that the LGMA exists today is proof that the challenges of implementing a comprehensive food safety system for an entire commodity can be overcome.”
LGMA didn’t invent it. Lots of groups have marketing orders. We did the whole food safety thing with the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Marketing Board – as it was called back then – in 2000.
Chairman Strachan also writes, “I'm often asked, ‘How do you know the LGMA is working?’
“The answer to that question is simple — the LGMA is working to establish a culture of food safety on leafy greens farms. Most farmers will tell you that leafy greens were safe before the LGMA came along, but what is changed today is the high level of attention food safety on the farm now receives. Everyone involved in operations, from the farmer to the harvesters, know and understand that food safety considerations are ALWAYS top of mind.”
That’s not verification. And people who write in all caps are YELLING to get attention, maybe because their writing sucks.
They’ve got the rhetoric; where’s the reality?
There have been many reinterpretations of history regarding fresh produce and microbial food safety. We have argued the tipping point was 1996, involving both the Odwalla E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in unpasteurized juice, coupled with the cyclospora outbreak which was initially and erroneously linked to California strawberries (it was Guatemalan raspberries). This led to the first attempts at comprehensive on-farm food safety programs for fresh produce because, these bugs ain’t going to be washed off; they have to be prevented, as much as possible, from getting on or in fresh produce on the farm.
For the growers of leafy greens, things apparently didn’t tip until the 2006 E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in bagged spinach from California that sickened 200 and killed four, despite 29 previous outbreaks and years of warning from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
“The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) is requesting comment on the creation of a voluntary National Leafy Green Marketing Agreement (NLGMA) that would assist all segments of the leafy green industry in meeting commercial food quality and safety requirements.”
Stop waiting for government. And stop channeling Kelis. Make test results public, market food safety at retail so consumers can choose, and if people get sick from your product, be the first to tell the public.
been made public
same type of activity will be repeated with a different theme. A food safety spokesperson will also be pitched to Canadian television and radio outlets in an additional effort to communicate with consumers about the safety of California leafy greens. 
Listeria-stricken Maple Leaf Foods hasn’t posted anything new on its Journey-inspired .jpg)
leafy green industry in meeting commercial food quality and safety requirements.”
