U.S. Food & Drug Administration Center for Food Safety & Applied Nutrition APPLE CIDER FOOD SAFETY CONTROL WORKSHOP July 15-16, 1999

Large quantities of fresh unfermented apple juice have been consumed in the United States since the colonial days. Consumers brought their own jugs or bottles to the cider mill to draw fresh juice from the bulk dispenser fully aware of the fresh quality and its short shelf-life. Within the past 50 years, the juice industry has made great strides with notable advances in the technology of juice processing, extraction and preservation methods. Consumer's continual quest for fresh foods has recently created a flourishing market niche for fresh unpasteurized juice products. However, the transmission of emerging pathogens (i.e., E. coli O157:H7) associated with unpasteurized apple cider/juice has been recognized as a public health hazard. We are now at the turn of the century and there is a need for extensive research to identify the problem, whether it is from agricultural practices, harvesting and storage, production methods, or processing methods. Therefore, new preventive and control measures must be quickly identified and scientifically defined to protect against new dangerous situations where emerging pathogens could contaminate raw fruits and survive in an acidic environment. The juice industry and regulatory agencies must cooperate to establish standardized performance criteria to ensure the safe production of all minimally processed fresh apple cider/juice products with extended shelf-life.

The West Coast states are major producers of apples and apple cider/juice products and there is a vested interest in all food safety issues to promote local economy and to protect public health. What is unique in California in addressing the fresh apple cider/juice problem is the proactive food safety approach through effective communication. First of all, the regulatory agencies (state Health Department and Department of Agriculture, the county Ag Commissioner Office, the local health department and the U.S. FDA representatives) sat down with the industry and listened to their concerns and shared food safety information. All parties involved were committed to jointly develop some reasonable solutions; and the result was an establishment and implementation of a voluntary Apple Hill (Placerville, CA) Quality Assurance Program (AHQAP). The key factor is the pride of ownership in producing a quality juice product with minimal risk for the consumers. In addition, the "bloom to bottle" concept included participating apple growers convinced to meet the juicers specifications for tree-picked quality apples. AHQAP contains a comprehensive HACCP-based training program, step-by-step method to comply with the good manufacturing practices (GMP) requirements, apple grower's certification of only tree-picked quality apples, environmental monitoring of cleaning and sanitation procedures, and a third party verification of the records.

The cooperative team effort between the industry and regulatory agencies continued to expand to include academic researchers to find science-based solutions for a 5-log pathogen reduction in apple juice production. After the promulgation of the regulation for labeling of fresh juice warning statement in 1998, a multi-partnership for research was formed under the President's Food Safety Initiative and cutting-edge research projects were conducted in a small commercial facility in Apple Hill. The federally funded research projects are to find effective pre- and post-processing treatments to provide a scientific baseline information for determining the reduction of pathogens on apples before they are used to make fresh juice. Meanwhile, with all the ongoing concurrent events, the AHQAP apparently has made an impact on many fresh juice processors statewide, and many have adopted comparable QAP on a voluntary basis to reduce the risk of contamination in fresh apple juice. Before substantive scientific data are available, the "bloom to bottle" food safety QAP model can easily be extended to other parts of the country. Other regional apple growers and juice processors should implement an similar HACCP-based QAP when marketing a quality fresh juice with reduced risk direct to consumers.