Official Spanish Version of Post-harvest Operations Harmonized Standards Now Available

A volunteer team of food safety experts has created an authorized Spanish translation of the Postharvest Operations Harmonized Standards. “A Spanish version of the Harmonized Standards has been needed for some time,” said Dr. David Gombas, Senior Vice President Food Safety and Technology and coordinator for the Produce GAPs Harmonization Initiative. “Several Spanish translations of the postharvest standards had already been drafted with the best of intentions but, as we saw in those translations, words can be translated different ways, and slightly different versions create a risk of differences in audit expectations. The team, coming from diverse backgrounds, worked over each sentence with a consensus approach to select a translation they felt best met the intent of the English version.”

Questions or comments regarding the translation should be sent to Dr. Gombas at dgombas@unitedfresh.org. The comment period will close March 1, 2015. Recommendations for change will be reviewed with the translation team, after which a final version will be posted.
United Fresh applauds the volunteers and thanks them for their efforts:

*Mario Velasco, Quality Certification Services
*Steve Eguino and Carlos Perez, Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services
*Georgina Felix, Fresh Produce Association of the Americas
*Sergio Nieto-Montenegro and Jose Almanza, Food Safety Consulting & Training Solutions, LLC
*Richard Yudin, Fyffes
The team’s next objective will be to translate the Field Operations and Harvesting Harmonized
Standards, expected in Spring 2015.