This week, Columbia Valley Fruit food safety manager, Ines Vazquez, shares with us some of the journey that got her where she is today. As Ines said, food safety is a BIG deal in everything we do from the orchards to the packing lines.
Shoutout to Ines and all the women out there making a difference in the agriculture industry! ✨🍎⚡️
Video Transcript:
“My focus here in the food safety is that I want to make sure the consumer has a safe apple to eat. That is my priority, that whatever apple you grab or you give it to your children that it’s safe. Hi, my name is Ines Vazquez. I am a Food Safety Manager for Columbia Valley Fruit. I’ve been doing this about 16 no 15 years. I grew up in an orchard. My family used to pick. I started picking at a very young age. My mom used to work at a warehouse, I started working at the warehouse. I started sorting, pre-sorting and sorting, factor, then factor by piece, and then from there I turned into a QC. From there, Receiving QC and all sudden I just got hired to learn more about food safety. I thought it was just gonna be for temporary but no, I ended up learning everything and I got involved in this and now 15 years later I’m still here. I run the whole food safety program. I have to make sure that we do internal audits so that our food can be sold all around the world. I help the growers also with their food safety program. Food Safety’s a big deal and I have to take care of it every single day, make sure I follow up with everybody, you know. I focus more on the sanitation. I make sure that there’s a clean break and the line is clean prior to start packing the next day we do a lot of testing. That’s my focus, just make sure that we have validation so when you when you grab an apple that is coming from Columbia Valley Fruit it’s a safe opportunity.”
