Wholesalers and Growers now have access to the FreshTest Program established by the Australian Chamber of Fruit and Vegetable Industries.

FreshTest was developed by the wholesaling sector to reduce costs and co-ordinate the thousands of tests being conducted annually by the wholesalers for verification of their own food safety & QA systems. The wholesalers were early adopters of QA in Australia and currently 95% have third party accredited systems in place. Also the uptake of food safety programs by growers over the past few years has seen a steady increase in demand for the program.

FreshTest employs an independent facilitator in each of the six Central Markets to collect produce using the international CODEX Guidelines for sampling. The facilitator selects the produce from a grower's consignment, ensuring that the sample is representative of the grower's produce and independent of any outside influences. Neither the wholesaler nor the grower is permitted to make the sample selection.

The produce is sent to NATA Accredited laboratories for testing and the results sent back to FreshTest for distribution to the wholesalers and onto the growers. There is a system of investigation, corrective action and re-testing if a product returns an adverse detection.

Cost savings of up to 50% have been achieved through the co-ordination and bulk testing of produce and this saving is passed onto the industry participants making it affordable for compliance to any food safety program. Duplication of testing has also been eliminated through the establishment of a database to manage the requests and results. Results are usually available in 14 days.

Since its introduction in 2002, FreshTest has grown to be the largest and most comprehensive horticultural residue testing program ever undertaken in Australia and continues to grow as more and more industry participants make use of the facility.

Currently there are over 30,000 tests recorded in the database showing a compliance rate of 97% against the Maximum Residue Limits (MRL) legislated by Food Standards, Australia New Zealand (FSANZ). In each residue test, the produce is tested for 110 different substances. It is the only program to also include microbial testing of produce.