Food Safety
Our Commitment
We care about our customers and community. We are committed to ensuring all our procedures meet and exceed local and national health and safety laws, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Good Handling Practices (GHP).
Our team members, are the most important part of our business. We invest in our people by developing and training them in relevant and up to date food safety practices and quality principles. Our Farm Food Safety Plan is updated annually to ensure all processes are up to date.
Boysen Berry Farm takes food safety very seriously and will continually strive to improve our systems to ensure our boysenberries are consistently of high quality, are safe and healthy and delivered on time to meet customer requirements.
Farm Food Safety Plan
Boysen Berry Farm has developed comprehensive written Policies and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to guide team members in every activity that impacts food quality and safety. This plan is reviewed annually and updated as required. The plan is a working document based on the National GAPs Program at Cornell University, USDA GHP/GAP and Food Safety Modernization Act Produce Safety Rules.
Traceability
All finished products have barcode and trace labels containing information including grower, harvest date, field and team as well as transportation info.
Traceability begins in the field with all rows being clearly identified by row number. All of our products can be traced back to a specific zone, harvest team, harvest date and transporter.
Chemicals
Our goal is to eventually become certified organic. As we work toward that goal, we have chosen to manage pests through mechanical and non-chemical methods. We use no chemical herbicides or pesticides at Boysen Berry Farm.
Boysenberries love fertile soil. We continually build our soil using organic composted manure worked into the soil during our rainy winter months. This reduces the chance of any contaminates reaching our berries in late spring and early summer.
Sustainable Practices
From the first time we muddied our shoes at Boysen Berry Farm we began moving toward organic and sustainable farming practices. It’s really a pretty simple choice when we consider the impact to our children, grandchildren and future great grandchildren. If it’s good for them, it’s good for all of us.
Non-GMO
Our boysenberries are grown from heritage vines kept in the Boysen family for nearly 100 years. Rudy Boysen invented the boysenberry using traditional cross pollination techniques. We can confidently share with you that Rudy’s Original Heritage Boysenberries are Non-GMO and do not come from any varieties that have been genetically modified.