News and Stories

The River Fire near Salinas, California, has now burned over 33,000 acres (only 7% contained) and continues to threaten residential homes and out structures. It is having an immediate impact throughout the Salinas Valley in the form of poor air quality and ash falling onto row crop vegetables.

• Growers are monitoring air quality, and may curtail production hours to ensure farmworker safety
• Harvesting and processing crews are working to remove as much ash as possible, but will not be able to eliminate it completely
• The simple act of handling product is spreading ash to gloves and packing surfaces
• Field-packed items are the most impacted, but RSS lightly-processed items (whole fillets, washed and trimmed, and Deli Leaf products) may contain a small amount of ash even after the processor’s wash
• To ensure our RSS highly-processed items (shreds, salad, blends, chopped romaine) are virtually free of ash residue, we are implementing the following measures at the processing level
  • Increased frequency of wash-water turbidity checks
  • Draining water from wash-lines more frequently during production shifts
  • Additional visual finished product inspection with particular focus on ash residue

Markon inspectors will continue to monitor the situation closely.

Please contact your Markon customer service representative for more information.

John Galvez
Quality Assurance

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