The arts have given the world many famous inspectors – Clouseau, Morse and Goole, to name but a few.
But fresh produce has its own set of heroic inspectors, keeping quality as high as can be across England and Wales.
Clad in sensible gloves and armed with portable printers rather than fedoras and destructive secrets, the Horticultural Marketing Inspectorate (HMI) team enforces EU marketing standards for fruit, vegetables and salad crops wherever they are imported, exported, bought, sold or grown.
To get a feel for what HMI does,FPJ Writer Martyn Fisher spent a morning shadowing regional horticultural marketing inspector Simon Cann and colleagues at Birmingham’s wholesale market.
“Watch your back, boys.”
It’s 6am, and no matter where Cann and I stand, somebody operating a forklift truck always needs to get by.
Parking ourselves in the narrowest aisle possible, I ask Cann what his job involves: “We’re here to support markets and their traders,” he says. “We’re not here to wield a stick, although the job isn’t about making friends.”
The fresh produce industry’s quality standards have been developed in co-operation with EU member states, and UK trade bodies.
As the marketing of substandard produce can cause disruption on already volatile markets, with disadvantages for producers in terms of lower returns from the market, and for consumers in terms of value for money and poor quality, the work of HMI inspectors is vital.
HMI – which is under the jurisdiction of the Rural Payments Agency - operates a traffic light-style risk assessment procedure for traders.
If inspections repeatedly unearth serious issues, firms can be placed in the ‘red’ category. They are then given targeted visits to work through the relevant areas of wrongdoing.
Despite being guided by this risk assessment system, inspectors try not to “over-visit” certain firms.
“Although our only real sanction is prosecution,” Cann explains, “it’s a clunky process, and a last resort – there are around 27,000 inspections a year, but only about six prosecutions on average.”
He adds: “It’s important inspectors interact with traders before it reaches that stage, though, and we have a process of warnings, including traders signing a form to say they’re going to work through the problems.”
Is the lack of on-the-spot fines a hindrance? “They would be good, and there is a desire for it,” Cann agrees. “But the government believes it would be a burden for the industry, and has put a cap on it.”
I’m interested to learn how incidents on the continent can shape the inspection agenda. Cann tells me: “The issue of labelling and traceability is now more prevalent than ever. The German salad scare [a deadly outbreak of fresh produce-related illness in 2011] brought it to light. When they couldn’t trace the E. coli to its source, the need to have clear labelling came to the fore.”
Wandering deeper into Birmingham market, we chance upon two more inspectors.
Like Cann, Russell Stanhope has been with HMI – which employs nearly 50 inspectors in all - since 1987.
Ann Blackstock, meanwhile, has only been in the job for about a year, but enthuses: “I love what I do.” Cann concurs: “You’ve got to be hardy, as it gets cold in winter. And people can get belligerent. But, it’s rewarding.”
Blackstock gathers the prices of assorted fruit and vegetables on a weekly basis. They are pooled with prices taken at various other wholesale markets to get a representative price on a range of items.
Armed with myriad utensils, Stanhope has spent the morning talking to traders, and making inspections of his own.
The process begins with checking the labelling on the box, before seeing if the produce inside corresponds with what’s written.
We’ve bumped into Stanhope at the right time, as he’s spotted some peppers that he believes are falsely labelled as Class I.
Stanhope explains that he takes a sample from a batch, rather than inspecting the whole lot: if, for example, there are up to 100 pallets, he tends to examine five. “What’s inside then has to meet the minimum standard acceptable for human consumption,” he says.
Tests mainly relate to the appearance of the produce, although most items are cut open to check for damage inside. Stanhope is also equipped with iodine to test the starch level in apples, and a device to measure the Brix sugar levels of produce such as kiwifruit.
“Some traders used to try and pull the wool over our eyes,” Stanhope says. “But now we’re finding that they want us to inspect their produce, as if it’s an issue, they can send it back to whoever sent it in a poor condition. As soon as they accept responsibility to sell it, they’re legally responsible for the item.”
Cann adds: “It’s all about protecting the market’s integrity – poor quality stuff drags down the quality of the whole market, and the price traders can get for their produce.”
As for the peppers, they fail to meet marketing standards guidelines. ‘Not-for-sale’ HMI tape and labels are wrapped around the boxes.
Because inspections are carried out in ‘real time’, Stanhope logs on to the HMI Intranet to add his findings, printing out documentation for the traders in the process. Updating this system is one way HMI can keep tabs on this batch, ensuring it doesn’t resurface elsewhere.
Stanhope then liaises with the traders in question. They indicate that they’ll be contacting the supplier. Although a ‘stop notice’ can be placed on the produce, Stanhope gives the firm 24 hours to decide what to do with it on this occasion.
It’s not always this easy, however: “I recently placed a firm in ‘amber’, as there’d been a few issues, and I’d arrived to find more deficiencies,” Stanhope says. “When I told them, they weren’t happy. But, in a month or two, they held up their hands and said, ‘you did us a favour’.”
We move on to check another trader’s produce. Grabbing an apple, Stanhope guides me through the process of conducting a starch iodine experiment.
Cutting the fruit in half, a dose of the chemical is applied. If 80 per cent or more of the apple turns black, it’s not a good sign. “But if it’s 100 per cent black and tastes perfectly good, I walk away,” he adds.
Of Cann and his team, Birmingham wholesale market traders chair Mark Tate, says: “The work they do is very important. We want a certain quality of fruit, but the lads also understand that everybody has to earn a living.
“You get a few glitches where you have a disagreement on certain things. But overall, as the years have gone on, we’ve established good relationships, and I think Simon and his team do an excellent job.”
With trade in the market winding down shortly after 10am, the inspectors’ work in Birmingham is done.
Rifling through my bag on the way out, I pick out an apple. Resisting the urge to buy a bottle of iodine and indulge in some DIY science, I bite into it, and savour the delicious taste that HMI does its bit to ensure.
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