The most recent addition to the ApRecs staff is Sawyer Werner. Sawyer is a recent Washington State University Graduate where he majored in Agricultural Technology and Production Management. His agricultural background goes far beyond a four-year stint at WSU. Sawyer is a fifth generation grower and as a result has been part of this industry his entire life. Sawyer also spent a summer as an intern working alongside several horticulturist in the Field Service section at Northwest Wholesale Inc.

At ApRecs, Sawyer is busily working on building a world class knowledge center. As a result you will be encountering Sawyer through various support functions and the primary liaison between customers and product development. In the podcast, Sawyer discusses these experience and how they helped prepare him for his work at ApRecs.

About the Wasghington State University Program, Agricultural Technology and Production Management: A science-based overview of agriculture and food systems, with an emphasis on the practical application of technology to agricultural production systems. The program combines students’ inherent creativity and interest in physical and biological sciences, technology, mathematics, business, and related subjects with their desire to develop innovative solutions to a variety of agricultural problems.

About Northwest Wholesale Incorporated: Northwest Wholesale is a farmer cooperative providing supplies needed to grow and pack agricultural products in North Central Washington, has been in operation since 1937. A cooperative returns any profit made on its operation to its members in the form of savings.

Bureaucracy and Food Safety Record Systems demand a hierarchy structure for reporting. But growers receive recommendations from a variety of suppliers and in different formats. Even single growers with multiple locations may do record keeping differently within the same organizations. There is also an array of consultants, academics, auditors and associations, and bureaucrats influencing growers on their applications and as a result their spray records. The problem that exists is that the tree fruit industry is a messy place. We need a step by step process for reporting but reality demands that we cut across boundaries and make things happen.

I had the pleasure of having a discussion with Drew on how the ApRecs Scout Package was being received and how the ApRecs Align Package, being introduced on May 28th in a Packer Cafe Discussion folds into Scout and helps clean up some of this messiness.

Drew Zabrocki is the Managing Director and Product Manager of ApRecs (Food Safety Made Simple). In the interview, Drew discusses ApRecs Scout™ and ApRecs Align™ both key components of the ApRecs PSP Association & Awareness Package.

Join us for the Discussion 

Packer Cafe ~ Intro to Align & A.M. Discussion

Our guest this week on the ApRecs podcast was Jennifer Witherbee, the Executive Director of the Washington Apple Education Foundation (WAEF). WAEF was founded in 1994 by members of Washington’s tree fruit industry with a desire to advance the industry’s charitable work.  Today, WAEF supports college-bound young people, provides scholarship training in regional high schools, funds the work of community and school organizations providing scholastic assistance to farmworker families and connects the values of tree fruit industry members with good works in the community.

Known best for its scholarship program, WAEF donors make educational dreams come true for kids raised in tree fruit industry communities.  Children of growers, farmworkers, warehouse employees and others connected to the state’s apple, cherry and pear crops qualify for these valuable scholarships.

Jennifer explains the scholarship application process with an upcoming deadline of March 1st. To apply for WAEF scholarships, students must visit thewashboard.org.  thewashboard.org serves as a clearinghouse for many Washington scholarship providers.  By utilizing this resource, WAEF is encouraging students to access a greater range of scholarships and narrowing in our scholarship search.

Schedule a Quick Review with a Brief Technical Orientation

Debby Newslow is president of D. L. Newslow & Associates, Inc. located in Orlando, Florida. Debby is the author of The ISO 9000 Quality System: Applications in Food and Technology  and of a HACCP-based chapter included in John Wiley & Sons release of the Food Safety Compendium.  Debby just completed her second book titled, Food Safety Management Programs – Applications, Best Practices and Compliance, published by CRC Press/Taylor and Francis Group.

A Food Science & Technology degree from the University of Florida prepared her to begin a career as a Quality Control Manager with T.G. Lee Foods, a division of Dean Foods.  In 1985, Debby joined The Coca-Cola Company in its Minute Maid Division (CCF) as a Research & Development Food Scientist.  In 1987, Debby transferred to Quality Assurance as a Corporate Auditor and Project Specialist, where she was instrumental in developing a GMP audit program, creation of a company standard Quality Assurance Manual, and assisted with ISO 9002:1994 certifications of three different process operations.

In 1995, Debby joined Lloyd’s Register Quality Assurance (LRQA) as a certified Quality Assurance Lead Auditor. Debby has been involved with ISO certification and consulting activities in a wide range of industries that includes over 400 companies. Debby subcontracts with LRQA as an ISO 9001 lead auditor qualified to perform audits in food (including high risk foods), chemical, and packaging operations for ISO 9001, 22000, and HACCP.  Debby’s main interests are assisting food, chemical, and various other industries with business system development and maintenance activities. This includes ISO compliance (9000, 14000, OHSAS 18001, 22000), HACCP, SQF, BRC, GMP, Food Hygiene, HACCP Prerequisite Programs, Crisis Management, and other related systems/processes.  When not assisting companies with development/maintenance activities, she is teaching workshops based on these topics.

Schedule a Quick Review with a Brief Technical Orientation

Available on iTunes

Ben Marchant is VP of Marketing with NCSI (now BSI) assisting develop and promote 3rd party standards. 4 years ago, Ben moved to Seattle, WA, to help start the satellite business in the US, with a special focus on food safety. In this time, the market had grown strongly, seeing almost exponential growth as organizations seek to comply with standards being pushed down by major retailers and buyers. His degree is a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Newcastle in Australia, and he’s currently studying a MBA.

In the podcast, we cover more than just food safety audits. We dive into what makes a good auditor and what is changing in the auditing field. Ben also provides a few of the lessons learned in the Jensen Farms Cantaloupe Case.

Available on iTunes

Dr. Dirk Kopcke is the leader of the Department of Fruit Quality and Fruit Storage at the Esteburg Research Institute in Jork, Germany. Dirk will be speaking at the Washington State Horticulture Annual Meeting this December on Successful Fruit Storage without DPA and New Developments in CA and DCA Storage Technology.

The combined Washington State Horticultural Association Annual Meeting and Post-Harvest Conference takes place each year in December. The meeting, which alternates between Wenatchee and Yakima, draws in over 1,400 industry members to learn about the latest trends and topics occurring within the fruit industry. 2013 will mark the 109th Annual Meeting of the Washington State Horticultural Association. The annual meeting is the largest gathering of orchardists, shippers, suppliers and vendors in the nation and this year will be held in Wenatchee on December 2nd thru the 4th.

Available on iTunes

Preston W. Blevins career spans over forty-five years with two related careers. The first as a manufacturing operations and supply-chain practitioner, and the second in the ERP/supply-chain software industry. During his second career, he has specialized in helping companies understand, acquire, implement, and maintain world-class business practices and systems using advanced information technology. Responsibilities during this second career have included general management, program/project management, marketing, sales, consulting, and education and training. He has lived and worked offshore on several multi-year assignments focused on business unit start-up or turn-around. He has been involved with the professional association APICS in many key management positions as a volunteer including service as a corporate Board of Director (BOD).

Blevins has authored more than fifty conference white papers and magazine articles. Topics covered in these publications include Advanced Master Scheduling (and S&OP), complex manufacturing (ET0), service centric manufacturing, the food supply-chain, and industrial eco-sustainability. Our podcast discussed Preston's new book Food Safety Regulatory Compliance: Catalyst for a Lean and Sustainable Food Supply Chain (Resource Management).

Available on iTunes

Gwen Hoheisel received her B.S. in Zoology from the University of Maryland and a Master's in Entomology focusing on IPM and Insect Diversity at Pennsylvania State University. Gwen now works for Washington State University extension with a focus on grapes and tree fruit.  Currently she is focusing on sustainable pest management and application technologies.

An excerpt from the podcast:

Joe:  Gwen, you're heading up the application technology session at the annual meeting. Could you tell me about that session?

Gwen:  It’s pretty exciting this year. In that, we have an international researcher from Spain who is developing or has developed a canopy density sensor, and we have some...and the canopy density sensor would automatically connect to an air blast sprayer and that automatically detects the thickness or the presence of canopy so then it would adjusts its spray accordingly. We have that and some new technology coming about.

We're also are going to talk about some new technologies of the solid set canopy delivery system which is a fixed spray system that would run to our trellis lines and completely eliminate the traditional sprayer pulled by a tractor. We're also are going to talk about somehow some new materials that are being developed internationally to improve personal protective equipment. That’s the future look, but we're also going to start and explore what we're doing right now – how we can make changes to what we're doing with technology that already exists.

We’re going to look at what Europe is doing, because we always sometimes think that they are further ahead than us, but in all actuality we're doing pretty well for our application technology. We are going to get a global perspective of what Europe is doing from Dr. Emilio Gil, who is coming, and then we’re going to look at how some nozzle specifications and standards have changed and how that’s going to change labels so that you need to better interpret your labels. Then I’ll give some practical advice for how to improve your results for equipment that we have on the ground right now; how to improve you efficacy from spraying with equipment that we have now. I think it's going to be a great session.

The combined Washington State Horticultural Association Annual Meeting and Post-Harvest Conference takes place each year in December. The meeting, which alternates between Wenatchee and Yakima, draws in over 1,400 industry members to learn about the latest trends and topics occurring within the fruit industry. 2013 will mark the 109th Annual Meeting of the Washington State Horticultural Association. The annual meeting is the largest gathering of orchardists, shippers, suppliers and vendors in the nation and this year will be held in Wenatchee on December 2nd thru the 4th.

Available on iTunes

Tim Smith is currently a Regional Extension Tree Fruit Specialist with Washington State University, stationed in Wenatchee, WA.  He has been with WSU for 41 years, the first 7 in Grant County, the rest in Wenatchee, working mostly in north central Washington.  He has an active educational program with fruit growers, with special efforts on pest management, including orchard weed management, insects and diseases. Tim is active in programs directed at the multiple problems an orchardist faces when replanting a new orchard on an old orchard site.

Tim is recognized world-wide for his work on fire blight, a serious bacterial disease of apple and pear. He has worked with various companies, growers and advisors for the past three decades to improve their orchard weed control, especially in young orchards.  The quality of his efforts has been recognized by the tree fruit industry, who have awarded him the “Silver Pear,” the “Apple Citizen of the Year,” and the “Cherry King” awards. WSU honored him with the seldom-awarded “Sahlin Faculty Excellence Award” in 2010.

The combined Washington State Horticultural Association Annual Meeting and Postharvest Conference takes place each year in December. The meeting, which alternates between Wenatchee and Yakima, draws in over 1,400 industry members to learn about the latest trends and topics occurring within the fruit industry. 2013 will mark the 109th Annual Meeting of the Washington State Horticultural Association. The annual meeting is the largest gathering of orchardists, shippers, suppliers and vendors in the nation and this year will be held in Wenatchee on December 2nd thru the 4th. Tim has 2 presentations at the WSHA Annual Meeting, Fire Blight Management in the Pacific Northwest – Current and Future Control Products and Practices and Modern Materials and Methods for Enhanced Weed Management. 

Available on iTunes