We’re a large-scale operation and an industry leader, but we understand our brand and reputation are on the line with each product we ship. A great deal goes into ensuring food safety, but our efforts can be summed up in six words: Just do it right. Every time.
Keeping Food Safe
AgriNorthwest has established a food safety program that conforms with the internationally recognized GLOBALG.A.P. standard, certified by SCS Global Services. GLOBALG.A.P. is a Global Food Safety Initiative-benchmarked farm assurance program for good agricultural practices that helps satisfy advanced food safety and sustainability specifications of retailers and major buyers worldwide.
This complex certification program requires annual third-party audits that keep us responsible for our efforts. Over multiple days, certified auditors tour our farms and facilities, interview employees, and search through our records to verify compliance.
Some of the ways we provide customers with confidence in the quality of our food:
- We conduct internal audits to ensure all our people are trained to GLOBALG.A.P. specifications and that requirements for personal hygiene, worker safety, and pest control are being met
- All our food comes from our own farms, and the fields are inspected before planting, during the growing season, and at harvest
- We have our own lab and can quickly learn what inputs each plant needs and supply them in the correct amounts
- Petiole and soil sampling is done weekly on our crops as we grow them
- We apply only the fertilizer that is needed by each plant at that stage of growth
Traceability
Our traceability program starts with all our food being grown in our own fields. Our potatoes, onions, carrots, sweet corn, and peas are all traceable from seed to sale. Applications of fertilizer and pesticides are done per label, with records of every application turned over to processors before a crop is harvested and also kept for inspectors.