USA Hops announces food safety program

Rob Sirrine<sirrine@msu.edu>, Michigan State University Extension -

Voluntary self-certification program recommended for all commercial hop producers.

Hop Growers of America is in the process of rolling out the USA Hops Best Practices Program. The program will provide recommended food safety and sustainability practices for hop growers across the U.S. to ensure production of the highest quality hops. The Best Practices Program will have five modules:

  1. Harvest Food Safety Level 1
  2. Harvest Food Safety Level 2
  3. Food Safety Modernization Act Compliance
  4. Sustainable Production Practices Level 1
  5. Sustainable Production Practices Level 2

The Program will be a “self-certification” program designed to demonstrate adherence to accepted food safety and sustainability standards.

The Harvest Food Safety Level 1 module consists of three documents: Harvest Food Safety, Supporting Documents Group 1 and Supporting Documents 2. As more brewers are interested in purchasing high quality hops, hop producers should have a plan to document how they are complying with accepted food safety standards and documenting compliance. Hop Growers of America will continue to provide up to date information on this and other modules at http://www.usahops.org/.

As a reminder, planning is underway for the Great Lakes Hop and Barley Conference, which will take place March 1-3, 2017 in Detroit, MI. Keep an eye out for registration details. Please continue to visit Michigan State University Extension’s hop webpage or the MSU Hops News Facebook site for up to date information. 

This article was published by Michigan State University Extension. For more information, visit https://extension.msu.edu. To have a digest of information delivered straight to your email inbox, visit https://extension.msu.edu/newsletters. To contact an expert in your area, visit https://extension.msu.edu/experts, or call 888-MSUE4MI (888-678-3464).

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