The Wallace Center at Winrock International and FoodLogiQ announced a partnership yesterday to support the USDA’s recently expanded GroupGAP program, which helps small growers become compliant with industry-accepted food safety standards. The federal program was officially announced nationally last month at the Produce Marketing Association’s Fresh Summit.
Under the traditional “Good Agricultural Practices”—GAP—programs, the USDA audits individual farms. However, this process can be time-consuming and costly for small- to medium-sized farms. With the increasing demand for locally sourced food, these growers have a huge opportunity to expand their businesses—assuming they are compliant with industry food safety standards.
Under the GroupGAP approach, groups of farms come together under a central entity and participate collectively to address food safety concerns and achieve third-party food safety certification as a group. Groups pool their resources to establish food safety best practices, lead food safety trainings, develop quality management systems, and pay for certification costs. In addition to regular audits from USDA inspectors, the groups also perform their own internal food safety inspections of their growers.
“Without third-party certification, it’s difficult for small- to mid-size farmers to articulate their on-farm food safety practices to the buying community—even when their methods are already safe,” says Wallace Center director John Fisk. “That difficulty creates a real barrier, keeping farms from accessing larger wholesale markets including schools, hospitals and grocery stores. We believe the GroupGAP program can help remove that barrier.”
Working with the Wallace Center, FoodLogiQ will support the software and technology for the program through its cloud-based platform Connect, an online community for growers, packers, processors, shippers, restaurants, consumer product companies and food retailers to manage their food safety practices. Through the software, participants in the GroupGAP program will manage their communications, safety documentation, internal audits and product traceability.
“We are thrilled to be a part of this program to support local farms,” said FoodLogiQ co-founder Andy Kennedy. “By expanding the number of GAP-certified small farmers, we can build up small business, help retailers ensure their supply chain is safe, and meet the increasing demand for locally sourced food.”
The announcement comes after three years of successful trials for the GroupGAP program. The Wallace Center at Winrock International has been working with the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service for several years on the project.
The USDA GAP program will also be adjusted to support the landmark Food Safety Modernization Act rules announced last month. The program expansion could also increase the total number of growers in the supply chain who are GAP-certified.