Oh, really? Stores & distribution centers/warehouses save no documentation? We are required by law to keep ALL shipping docs for a certain number of years, as well as every warehouse/distribution center in the USA. You also obviously have never been to a produce farm. You obviously have never seen how the some of the worst sheds handle the produce during packaging. And, you obviously have never heard of “don't drink the water in Mexico.
I have personally seen or been involved in every aspect of produce from picking, to packaging to shipping for over 30 years. Mostly dealing with produce coming from Mexico or South America, Arizona & California. We currently deliver to warehouses as well as stores directly and every i has to be dotted & every t crossed and the origin of the product is on every shipping bill of lading in which they keep a copy of.
I have seen all the horrors from illegal immigrants defecating in the produce fields to the disgusting regurgitated water they supposedly use so they can call the product pre-washed.
Pre-washed my a$$, pre-washed in waste, and that is in California. and if employees are getting sick from merely handling the produce, then there is an in-house problem with handwashing before those hands come in contact with the face/mouth. Most quality sheds in Cali make their employees wear rubber gloves when working with the produce.
It is common sense to wash all food when you do not know personally the farm in which it came from. Even then, you should still wash it.
So, I say ‘Horse Hockey’, we have eaten produce straight off the truck, but never before carefully & properly washing it first and we have never gotten sick from it. Even the product from Mexico.
More government bureaucracy is not the answer. That will only lead to skyrocketing food costs because of all bureaucratic red crap!