Produce Safety And Security International Ohio Facilities Will Be Operational To Provide Certifed Food Safe Tomatoes And All Fresh Produce Items

Irving, TX - (WORLD STOCK WIRE) - June 11, 2008 -- Produce Safety & Security International, Inc. (OTC: PRSF) announced today that the company's food safe treatment centers in Ohio will be using a cost-effective ozone process to prevent food-borne pathogens and viruses to provide certified food safe tomatoes and produce to the food industry.

Produce Safety & Security will provide a food safe process on the truck or in the processing room. The process can be performed as the truck is backed up to the dock or unloaded into an ozone air processing room to remove the food-borne illness pathogens and help prevent outbreaks of illness.

Tomato growers in Florida, California and Mexico are having trouble selling their crops as U.S. regulators hunt the source of a salmonella outbreak linked to certain tomato varieties. Growers said on Tuesday. In Florida, the No.1 U.S. tomato producer, $40 million worth of tomatoes will rot unless the U.S. Food and Drug Administration quickly trace’s the source of the outbreak and clears the state's produce. The Industry had to stop packing, stop picking and shipping. The FDA warned U.S. consumers on Saturday that the outbreak was linked to eating certain raw red plum, red Roma, and red round tomatoes, and products containing those tomatoes.

Major restaurant and grocery chains stopped selling those varieties, and some stopped selling all raw tomatoes entirely. US. Growers produced $1.28 billion worth of tomatoes last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Florida produces an annual crop valued at $600 to $700 million and supplies more than 90 percent of the nation's production. Tomatoes sold with the vine still attached but those account for only a tiny portion of the industry.

The FDA has said it does not know where the contaminated tomatoes originated. The infections have struck most often in New Mexico and Texas. The FDA has put California on the list of suppliers not linked to the outbreak. However some supermarkets still rejected tomatoes from California, which is the No. 2 U.S. producer over $400 million in annual sales.

The entire tomato industry is being impacted. The state of Sinaloa Mexico sends nearly 700,000 metric tons of tomatoes a year to the United States in a business worth $900 million, according to a Mexican vegetable exporters association.

Exports of Mexican agricultural products soared after the United States, Canada and Mexico lifted all tariff barriers under the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. But the benefits can easily be wiped out by a sanitary scare like the one in 2000, when the FDA identified a strain of salmonella in Mexican melons and banned their import. That cut the $200 million annual export business down to around $3 million and Mexican growers fear the same could happen to tomatoes.

The food-safe process will extend the shelf life, depending on the commodity. This reduction of spoilage will provide the retailer with a higher return. The sanitization of the trucks will greatly reduce the loss of produce. The company will also provide testing by a third party.

“The issues listed above would not have occurred if the federal legislators, trade organizations, food groups, food service, USDA, DOD and fast food sales would have adopted the Produce Safety & Security International Inc. certified food safe process proactive cost effective program removing the food- borne illness pathogens. We are opening food safety distribution and food service facilities in Ohio with the the ability to remove, eliminate Food–Borne Illness and extend Shelf-life. Our third party audit and traceability provides a proactive protection for fresh produce. If the Industry, government and retail chains would have adopted the food safe process when presented 2 years ago we would not be having the issues of sickness, product loss, issues of loss of revenue and loss of employment. It amazes me the only states with the foresight are Ohio and Virginia. It appears the other 48 have no concern employment and food safety,” states Clarence W. Karney CEO of Produce Safety & Security.


Clarence W. Karney
Produce Safety & Security International, Inc.
4573 N. O'Connor Road
#1331
Irving, TX 75062
USA

Phone: 972-717-7435
Fax: 972-717-7459


Source: Produce Safety & Security International, Inc.
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