Fresh Cut Magazine

Regional distributor expands fresh-cut operation

Baldor Specialty Foods, in the Bronx borough of New York City, started up 16 years ago with only a “handful” of employees, said Michael Muzyk, company president. It has now grown to more than 600 employees and will soon be moving into a new, state- of-the-art distributing and processing plant. Muzyk has been with Baldor for most of that growth period. He started with the company 12 years ago as a produce salesman after moving back to New York to be closer to his family. He was able to use his experience as a chef and training from the Culinary Institute of America to build relationships with other chefs and help them create menu items while selling them fresh produce. He lived that life, he said, as a chef in Europe, South America and in the United States, so he knew what it was like to…  » Read more

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Consumer acceptance of GM crops increasing

The use of genetically modified organisms (GMO) is growing every year, despite vocal opponents of the technology. But GM crops have the potential to be better for the environment and better for end users, said Sharon Bomer, the acting vice president of food and agriculture for the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). The association was formed in 1993 by the biotech industry to represent it at state and national levels. Globally, there were almost 300 million acres of genetically engineered crops grown in 2007, an increase of 12 percent (more than 30 million acres) over the previous year. That’s equal to the total amount of farmed land in the United States. U.S. growers farmed 143 million acres of GMOs that same year, an increase of 6 percent. Most of those GM crops planted throughout the world have been manipulated to make them herbicide tolerant, although crops with…  » Read more

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One Bad Apple

The old saying, “one bad apple spoils the whole bunch,” is particularly apt when looking at the various inputs in today’s packaged consumer products. One food safety slip at one plant can have a devastating impact on seemingly unrelated products. Take, for example, peanut butter. One Georgia plant is believed to be the source of a Salmonella typhimirium outbreak that has sickened nearly 600 and killed eight across the United States and Canada through early February. But those are known illnesses, and those sick but not seeking medical attention, may not have known they consumed contaminated peanut butter from the supplier. A look at FDA’s recall Web site reveals hundreds of recalls from large and small consumer packaged goods companies that received inputs from the peanut butter processor. Some of them are more obvious – Ready Pac recalled its vegetable snack line that is packed with…  » Read more

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