Every day of every year, the people behind our veggies ask themselves these important questions:

Cleanliness? Check.

Records in order? Check.

Water quality? Check.

Good hygiene? Check.

We think they do a darned good job at answering “yes” to all of them.

But we’re not the only ones who think so. For the past six years, including 2017, The Chef’s Garden has received a 100 percent score on meeting the Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) required by the Ohio Produce Marketing Agreement.

Click here to view the OPMA Certificate

Here’s something you might want to know – the program is voluntary. A lot of commercial growers dread the compulsory, often random, inspections required of them, and scurry to whip things into shape in time, doing the bare minimum in order to just pass.

Not us. We ask for it. We intentionally invite certified inspectors to come to our farm and officially inspect the way we do things.

A 100 percent simply means our greenhouse and field teams go above and beyond standards to always practice strict safety measures in order to prevent the likelihood of microbial contamination in our vegetables.

“We do it to ensure the safety of the customer’s customer,” said Bob Jones Jr., who oversees the farm’s food safety program. “It’s about attention to detail.”

Jones gave a nod to Production Food Service Coordinator Judit Ender for developing the protocol that our teams follow. He said Judit doesn’t just pay attention to details. She pays attention to the details of the details, and adheres to the adage that the best way to get ready is to stay ready.

Even though our teams deserve credit and appreciation for their diligence, if they are truly doing an outstanding job at keeping our vegetables safe, nobody will notice. And that’s exactly the way we want it to be.