Evergreen Fresh Produce
sprouting back after scare
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August 6, 2011 |
by Mike Weland
newsbf.com
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After having spent 23 years quietly building a
Boundary County agri-business growing sprouts,
Fred and Nadine Scharf, owners of Evergreen
Fresh Produce, Moyie Springs, were afraid it had
all come to an end after the FDA issued what
turned out to be a false salmonella alarm in
late June.
After more than a month of turmoil, however,
Nadine said that business is slowly picking back
up, and two of the four employees who were laid
off as a result of the scare are now back at
work, preparing the first shipment of sprouts to
go out in more than a month to be shipped on
Tuesday.
"I think we're going to pull through," Nadine
said. "I'm hopeful. We're getting some of our
customers back."
The support of the produce companies that market
Evergreen Fresh Produce products, FSA and
Spokane Produce, she said, never waivered in
their support, and that support made a
difference.
"FSA and Spokane Produce stood by us," Nadine
said. "If it wasn't for them, we'd have our
doors closed."
At the height of their business, Evergreen Fresh
Produce had 14 employees. They're now down to
five, but looking to add one more. They'd have
brought back all four of the employees laid off
due to the scare, but one moved to Coeur d'Alene
and the other found another job in Bonners
Ferry.
The salmonella outbreak in June sickened 19
people in North Idaho, eastern Washington and
western Montana, areas where Evergreen Fresh
Produce sprouts are sold, but rigorous testing
since then hasn't turned up a trace of
contamination at the Moyie Springs facilities.
And while the "don't buy" alert was in force,
the FDA didn't recall a single package of
Evergreen Fresh Produce sprouts from store
shelves, which is the usual procedure in such an
outbreak. The product continued to be sold, and
no additional cases of poisoning were reported.
And while the suspicions have been proven false,
the FDA stands by their warning.
"Would you please let the public know the
results of the FDA test that no Salmonella was
detected and that our sprouts are safe for the
public to use?" Nadine wrote the FDA July 26.
"Negative results do not rule out the sprouts as
a cause of the outbreak," replied an FDA public
affairs officer.
Some grocery outlets and restaraunts have placed
new orders for Evergreen Fresh Produce sprouts;
Akins Harvest Foods, Super 1 Foods, Yoke's Pac n
Save, the Breadbasket. Other major customers;
Safeway, Fairchild Air Force Base, haven't.
The media, this one included, were quick to
publish the alert when it came out, and the
result was devastating to that small North Idaho
business. People listened, and stopped buying.
But Nadine said she's been surprised at the
media attention she's recieved since the
negative findings were revealed.
In her attempt to repair her business's falsely
tarnished integrity after finding out the FDA
wouldn't help, she contacted a Spokane
television station and gave them the FDA's "all
clear" report, and that station ran a brief
story that Evergreen Fresh Produce products have
been proven safe to buy. Since then, she's been
contacted by reporters from as far away as
Seattle and Boise.
And buyers are slowly starting again to offer
their customers, who never stopped eating the
product, a fine, tasty and nutritious part of
their diet.
"If everyone will listen, we'll get back up and
running," Nadine said. "It's been difficult, but
I think we'll crawl out of it." |
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