9 months ago
Governor Sonny Perdue signed a food safety bill at one of Central Georgia's popular orchard spots.
It's a bill that brings tougher food inspections to companies.
Senate Bill 80 was officially signed into law at Lane Packing in Peach County Friday afternoon.
Under Senate Bill 80, companies who don't report food-borne illness could get a felony charge. The bill will also require full disclosure of food contamination records and mandatory testing for food-borne diseases, such as salmonella.
If a company finds salmonella in a plant, they have 24 hours to notify the state.
"While we are going to trust the honest and integrity of our companies, this bill gives us more tools to verify that honesty and integrity in the food supply chain," said Governor Perdue.
He says that trust was broken a year ago when a South Georgia peanut plant was blamed for hundreds of illnesses and several deaths nationwide.
"We are so offended that one operator in Georgia would have violated that sacred trust," he said. "Virtually everyone here would not dare serve anything to anyone in the public that they wouldn't serve to their family. That's the way we all grew up."
Mark Sanchez, the CEO of Lane Packing, says peaches, strawberries and other foods bring 275,000 visitors a year to their orchards, so he's glad the governor is helping further protect people in his line of work.
"Anything we can do to keep the consumers safe is a must," he said.
Governor Perdue says he chose to sign the bill and a few other pieces of agricultural legislation at Lane Packing because he says they are the leaders of agricultural tourism in our area.
