An agreement between the U.S. government and the produce industry that will label romaine lettuce with information about its origin is likely to ease short-term worries about U.S. sources of the leafy green.

But some experts believe there are more options for preventing the next outbreak of contaminated produce that the industry should explore.

Trade groups representing growers, processors and retailers that sell romaine lettuce told the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, Nov. 26 that they would label romaine lettuce with the location and date of its harvesting. Major romaine lettuce producers, including California-based Dole Holding Co. LLC and Taylor Fresh Food Inc., are among the companies that will provide the additional labeling.

The groups will also form a task force to consider future safety measures, which could be applied to other leafy greens, FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. The FDA will be involved in the task force's work, an FDA spokesperson told S&P Global Market Intelligence.

Both moves are voluntary for companies, according to Gottlieb's statement, though industry groups, such as the Produce Marketing Association, or PMA, and the United Fresh Produce Association, or UFPA, have advised members that the labeling likely constitutes the "new normal," according to a Nov. 27 fact sheet compiled by PMA and UFPA for those in the produce industry.

'The willingness to find a solution is greater'

The labeling measure is likely to help the leafy greens industry stabilize supply chains after the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC, advised against the consumption of any romaine lettuce on Nov. 20, warning that it could be contaminated by a strain of the E. coli bacteria that can cause kidney failure. At least 43 people in the U.S. have fallen ill with the same strain of E. coli found in the affected lettuce, with another 22 cases reported in Canada, according to the most recent figures from U.S. and Canadian officials.

The CDC's statement led supermarkets, restaurants and other businesses to pull romaine from their operations regardless of its origin.

Avoiding similarly sweeping directives in the future is part of the reason producers and processors likely reached an agreement with the FDA, said Creighton Magid, a Washington, D.C.-based partner at law firm Dorsey & Whitney LLP who co-chairs the firm's product liability practice.

Pulling all romaine lettuce from shelves and tables results in lost sales, wasted product and supply-chain disruptions, Magid said. Those losses were especially problematic for lettuce producers in states outside of California as well as companies that use a hydroponic method to grow their romaine.

"I think when the industry looks at that potential, the willingness to find a solution is greater," Magid told S&P Global Market Intelligence in an interview.

Only after the CDC's initial advisory against eating romaine lettuce did an FDA investigation narrow the likely origin of the contaminated lettuce to farms in Central and Northern California.

So many transactions, so little time

Labeling lettuce with basic information about when and where it was harvested could allow officials to determine the source of contaminated lettuce sooner in the future, food industry experts said. Still, they argued, authorities and the industry need to take action on other fronts, such as tracing produce to specific facilities and avoiding contamination in the first place.

Tracking how produce moves between farms, processing plants and retailers poses several challenges, said Benjamin Chapman, a professor of agricultural and human sciences and an extension specialist at North Carolina State University.

Processors often combine lettuce from multiple sources as they clean or cut it into consumer-ready forms, Chapman said. Even after the finished product is loaded on a truck and leaves the processor, that shipment can change hands multiple times, often winding up with a customer different from the one it was destined for originally.

"There's a lot of transactions that happen with these commodities in a short amount of time," Chapman said in an interview. Records of those myriad transactions tend to be limited, he added.

Addressing the causes of produce contamination also presents challenges, Michigan State University professor Elliot Ryser said in an interview. Even a small amount of contaminated lettuce can cause an outbreak of disease, he said.

Minimizing the risk of contamination from E. coli only through processing facilities is "potentially insufficient," he said, adding that minimizing animal intrusions onto farm fields, shielding crops from runoff that might include animal waste as well as testing irrigation water should all be part of the produce industry's efforts.

"The first line of defense is in the field," Ryser said.

But paying for better tracking technology or more regular water treatments increases the cost of doing business for growers and processors, Dorsey & Whitney's Magid said. Producers of lettuce and other produce already operate on thin profit margins, he added.

"That's a level of cost that might be high for that industry," he said. "The trick is to make it a workable program for the industry."

Industry groups, including those that agreed to add origin information to their labeling, also acknowledge that tracking where lettuce comes from is tough. Giving consumers information to identify potentially contaminated products is "the greatest challenge we face in true product traceability," the PMA said in a statement.

Information on where a shipment of lettuce came from is often included on packing crates, for instance, "but too often that information is not captured and retained at the point of sale," such as on individual packages, the PMA said.