To Our Valued Customers & Vendors,

Due to recent events in Germany and elsewhere in Europe many buyers have concerns about the safety of bean sprouts. They are right to be concerned. Sprouts have been implicated in food borne illness outbreaks and the recent outbreak in Germany is one of the largest to date. Salad Cosmo is acutely aware of the potential for sprouts, like other fresh vegetables, to carry pathogenic bacteria. This is why Salad Cosmo has embraced a HACCP based food safety program that equals or exceeds sprout safety guidelines issued by the FDA. The FDA has issued a series of food safety actions that, when rigorously followed, assure the safety of sprouts.

Salad Cosmo starts with the highest quality seeds that have been selected and extensively tested by the seed supplier. Nevertheless, we test every arriving bag of seed for E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria and do not use the seed until the test results return. If a single sample from a single bag is found to be positive for any pathogen, then the entire seed lot is rejected and not used for sprouts.

We then treat the seeds with 20,000 ppm chlorine, as recommended by FDA. This treatment substantially reduces the population of microorganisms normally resident on seeds. Only then are the seeds ready for sprouting. After the sprouting process has begun the spent irrigation water from each and every lot of sprouts is sent to Silliker Labs for additional testing. Only after the test results have been received are the sprouts released for shipment from our facility.

Of course we also maintain a comprehensive program of Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) and environmental testing to support our seed handling and testing programs. We believe, as does FDA, that by following these multiple interlocking food safety programs that we can reliably and consistently supply bean sprouts that are not only nutritious and delicious, but safe as well. We do all of this so that you can buy Salad Cosmo sprouts with the confidence that you are buying safety achieved through one of the strongest food safety programs in the industry.

Masa Nakada
President
Salad Cosmo U.S.A. Corp.