Benjamin Hottel

Rodent Control Challenges for Organic Facilities

By Benjamin Hottel, PhD, BCE, PCQI
No Comments
Benjamin Hottel

 As a business owner, you have a multitude of challenges to contend with, but one of the most insidious and damaging threats to your facility operations might be lurking in the shadows: rodents. These stealthy intruders not only jeopardize the integrity of your property but can also carry diseases that pose serious risks to your employees and public health. In organic facilities, rodent control can be a balancing act between implementing control measures to help remedy the problem of rodents and maintaining your “organic” status.

While post-pandemic activities have helped reduce the amount of public rodent sightings, their threat to public health hasn’t decreased. Rodents can spread dozens of harmful diseases directly and indirectly—including salmonellosis, leptospirosis and hantavirus—in addition to contaminating food products and potentially causing structural damage in buildings. Left untreated, rodent sightings within a commercial facility can lead to ongoing infestations and eventually, failed inspections and stalled operations—a costly blow to your bottom line.

Knowing how to spot rodent activity is essential to helping stop it early and prevent a larger issue for your business. If you notice the following signs around your facility, you might have a rodent problem:

  • Capsule-like droppings
  • Rub marks along walls and other hard surfaces
  • Shredded packaging, insulation or fiber like materials
  • Damaged food products and gnawed hard surfaces

There are some factors that can make rodent infestations more likely in a facility. For example, poorly maintained walls, foundations and roofs can create entrances for these pests along with improperly sealed openings such as doors and windows. In addition, standing water, left out food, cluttered spaces and overgrown landscaping can also attract rodents.

Common Types of Rodents

If you suspect you may have a rodent problem in your facility, it is important to correctly identify the species you are dealing with and report any sightings to your pest control provider. Here are some of the most common rodent species you may encounter in a commercial facility:

  • House Mouse: The house mouse is a small mammal named for its propensity to live within human habitats, including food plants. Next to humans, the common house mouse is one of the most prevalent mammal species in the world. Between five to eight inches long, these rodents can produce 50-60 offspring per year.
  • Norway Rat: Norway rats are easily identifiable by their coarse brown fur and large size, measuring up to 19 inches long including their tails. These rodents may be difficult to spot during the day, as they are nocturnal. However, droppings and gnaw marks are telltale signs that these pests may be present.
  • Roof Rat: More slender and agile with even longer tails than the common Norway rat, roof rats present a unique set of challenges for food processors. These pests are known to build nests at higher elevations, making them more difficult to catch in warehouse and processing facilities with large roof spaces.

Protecting Your Organic-Certified Facility

To learn more about specific requirements and rodent management strategies for organic-certified facilities, view our on demand webinar “Rodent Control and Organic Certified Facilities.” 

Organic-certified facilities maintain a variety of measures to ensure they meet all USDA standards. Contamination of non-organic products and substances is a real concern for these highly regulated facilities. As mentioned, rodent control is crucial to maintaining a safe environment in commercial facilities but can threaten to spread diseases and contaminate organic products. Fortunately, there are many organic-certified rodent control methods that these facilities can use to maintain their certification while helping to lower the risk of pests:

  • Preventative Measures: Sanitation and exclusion efforts should be some of the first actions taken before moving on to other control measures. Sanitation will help eliminate food sources for rodents while exclusion work will help prevent rodents from getting into the facility in the first place. Exclusion work should be focused around doors, loading docks, utility penetrations and holes in walls.
  • Mechanical Measures: Rodents can be controlled through a variety of devices including glue boards, snap traps and multi-catch traps.

If either of these two methods are not successful in controlling a rodent problem, work with your pest management provider to determine which approved products (e.g. baits and conventional treatments) can be applied. You can reference the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA)’s National List of Allowed and Prohibited Substances for a full list of substances that may not be used in organic facilities.

Integrated Pest Management (IPM) and Rodent Control

By implementing an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program, you can help keep pests at bay and work together with your provider to come to the best solution. IPM programs focus on preventive techniques like exclusion, sanitation and maintenance to keep pests where they belong: outside your business.

Most organic food processing facilities have customized IPM programs in place, especially if they undergo regularly third-party food safety audits. These programs are implemented by qualified pest control technicians in collaboration with a facility’s food safety and quality assurance team to help deter pest activity and prevent infestations without losing organic certifications.

Now that you know how to spot signs of rodent activity around your facility and tips you can implement to reduce their impact on your business, don’t forget to review your IPM plan with your pest control provider. Rodent activity fluctuates with the seasons and a reliable pest control provider will regularly evaluate the effectiveness of your IPM plan to make sure food safety remains a top priority. If you don’t have an IPM program in place or a reliable pest control provider, now’s the time to implement one before you have a costly rodent issue that impacts your business reputation or the health of your employees and customers.

Prasant Prusty and Arundhathy Shabu

Food Safety Culture Is the Key Ingredient To Prevent Foodborne Diseases

By Arundhathy Shabu, Prasant Prusty
No Comments
Prasant Prusty and Arundhathy Shabu

Culture is not an initiative but rather the enabler of all initiatives, as observed rightly by Larry Senn, who is considered the Father of Corporate Culture.  Similarly, food safety culture (FSC) is the solid foundation that enables organizations to ultimately minimize food safety risks. This is why the simple idea of food safety culture emerges to be a powerful concept in reducing the global burden of foodborne diseases.

Let us consider some facts:

  • Employees working in food enterprises worldwide are required to be well-trained in food safety practices
  • A vast amount of food safety research is conducted around the world to improve and enhance food safety management
  • Companies are required to follow elaborate food safety regulations that include mandatory testing and inspections

It is quite contradictory that food safety remains a major public health threat. One way to understand why this happens is that just because something has been done in a specified manner for a long duration does not necessarily mean it is being done the right way. Hence, there must be a missing ingredient fundamental to preventing food safety incidents, which many have concluded relates to lack of a strong food safety culture.

The Importance of Food Safety Culture in Simple Terms

The behavior of your staff and leadership demonstrates whether each employee understands and is committed to ensuring your products are safe to consume and of good quality. In short, food safety equals behavior. This is the core notion Frank Yiannas talks about in his book, Food Safety Culture: Creating a Behavior-Based Food Safety Management System.

One of the most well-known outcomes associated with lack of a strong food safety culture was the PCA (Peanut Corporation of America) outbreak in 2009 when peanuts contaminated with Salmonella caused nine deaths, 11,000 to 20,000 illnesses, and a recall of 4,000 products. A proactive food safety culture that is centered on rigorous testing, quality control protocols, sanitation and traceability measures could have detected and prevented the spread outbreak, saving lives and money.

Companies are investigating and/or implementing food safety culture training and practices because no matter what we say or document regarding food safety, we cannot make progress unless we actually put these words into practice.

A systematic review of the scientific literature on food safety culture (FSC), published by the FDA in 2022 views food safety culture as a scientific concept. In conducting the study, FDA aspired to present food safety culture as a valid subset of science, rather than just a slogan, and use the knowledge obtained to provide tools that stakeholders can use to develop and assess their own food safety culture. This review is considered the primary groundwork for FDA’s efforts to uplift food safety culture in the industry, among consumers, and in regard to the present regulatory oversight.

Challenges and Barriers to Accomplishing a Strong and Effective Food Safety Culture 

The predominant challenges and barriers to creating, promoting and evaluating a strong and effective Food Safety Culture, as presented in the review, include:

Over-reliance on food safety management systems (FSMS)

FSMS plays a non-negotiable role in every food enterprise. Nevertheless, FSMS tend to be process focused and thus do not affect how human attitudes influence food safety. This is where a behavior-based FSMS is beneficial to forge a well-built FSC, as it offers a total system approach based on scientific knowledge of human behavior, organizational culture, and food safety.

Prioritization of cost-saving and money-earning

A profit-focused mentality is often the main barrier to implementing a positive FSC. Compromising food safety principles to save costs is never a good strategy. It can even be counter-productive as a negative FSC can eventually lead to a food safety incident, generating tremendous economic losses for the organization. An ideal FSC ensures that an obligation to food safety exists throughout the firm that outweighs all other company goals and practices.

Frequent staff turnover

Continuous staff turnover is a common phenomenon in the food sector. High staff turnover requires constant training and supervision to ensure employees’ understand the risks and other essential criteria needed for an adequate food safety climate. It also is challenging to ascertain the commitment and accountability of employees with temporary contracts.

Optimistic bias

Though it is said ‘experience is the best teacher, and the worst experiences teach the best lessons,’ it is always better for employees to realize that they are not immune to food contamination before experiencing a vulnerability to food safety. Every member of a food enterprise should know that they cannot afford optimism bias in terms of food safety, and that it is imperative to be prepared—and on the look out for—worst case scenarios.

How Digitalization Can Assist in Developing and Sustaining a Solid Food Safety Culture

Ideally, a commitment to food safety begins with management and permeates through the organization at all levels. Digital tools, particularly those used to manage the supply chain, can help. By establishing a network platform that integrates the online and offline worlds, digitalization connects all facets of the food production and processing chain. Let us break down how digital tools can be implemented throughout the food industry to enhance supply chain processes while nurturing a strong food safety culture.

1. Setting Expectations 

Digital tools allow for the efficient creation, distribution and maintenance of food safety policies, procedures and protocols. By utilizing digital systems, organizations can document and disseminate clear expectations regarding food safety practices. This includes defining standard operating procedures (SOPs), hygiene protocols and compliance guidelines. These digital resources can be easily accessed by employees, ensuring that everyone is aware of the established standards and expectations.

2. Communication & Training 

The next step is to properly communicate the established strategies among the employees and enforce them. This is where learning management systems and digital employee training platforms come in handy, as they engage and educate employees by conveying information and instructions related to various aspects of the organization. These tech-enabled solutions can also play a vital role in authorizing employees to collaborate via more efficient communication channels, address food safety compliance concerns and initiate appropriate corrective and preventive actions when necessary.

These tools allow companies to create training programs that utilize interactive modules, visual content, videos and quizzes to enhance employee learning and retention, while accommodating diverse learning styles such as flexible self-paced or group training. The training courses can be scheduled and assigned to individuals or groups according to the configured training types. Alerts and notifications can be promptly delivered to relevant personnel to inform them about critical updates and send reminders regarding their training courses. They also help companies track and manage training assignments, ensuring that employees complete required training within specified timeframes. Overall, they empower organizations to propagate information efficiently, advance knowledge transfer and ensure compliance with training requirements, thereby fostering a well-informed and competent workforce.

3. Monitoring 

Scheduling features of tech-enabled solutions offer a valuable means to successfully plan and monitor regular inspections, maintenance tasks and quality checks. Digital task assignment empowers employees to be accountable, confirm that responsibilities are clearly communicated, eliminate ambiguities in executing food business operations and track the progress and completion of each process, elevating the overall transparency of the supply chain process.

Notifications can be automatically generated to alert employees about upcoming inspections or any deviations from standard procedures. It is also possible to maintain an audit log, capturing and storing a detailed record of all food industry activities, actions and events. Another component that can be advantageous for monitoring efforts is a change log, which becomes useful for tracking modifications made to procedures, allowing for traceability, accountability and assistance with regulatory compliance efforts.

4. Reporting 

Digital tools typically include robust dashboards that can provide real-time insights into the supply chain. These intuitive interfaces can display data such as key metrics, compliance rates, inspection results, incident reports and corrective actions taken. Moreover, advanced filtering and drill-down capabilities enable users to delve deeper into specific data segments, facilitating in-depth analysis and comprehensive reporting.

Trend analysis tools can be employed to identify patterns and highlight areas that require further attention. They often incorporate predictive analytics and forecasting models, aiding businesses in predicting demand, optimizing inventory management and reducing waste. Furthermore, employee key performance indicators (KPIs) can be accessed through reporting mechanisms, and trend analysis features, which allows management to gauge employee contributions in upholding a food safety culture.

Tech-savvy solutions, such as food safety management software, are gaining significant traction in the market as they help food enterprises streamline their operations, optimize efficiency, promote transparency and accountability, and ensure compliance with food safety and quality regulations. All of which ultimately serve to instill a responsibility for food safety throughout your organization.

Hacker

Ransomware: Lessons Learned from One Food Company’s Experience

By Food Safety Tech Staff
No Comments
Hacker

In fall 2021, G&J Pepsi-Cola Bottlers Inc, came face-to-face with a potential ransomware attack and was able to avert it. We spoke with G&J’s enterprise infrastructure director, Eric McKinney, and cybersecurity engineer, Rory Crabbe, to learn more about how they detected and responded to the attack, the steps they have taken to strengthen their cybersecurity, and what advice they have for other food companies in the wake of the near catastrophe.

What happened to G&J back in 2021, and when did you realize something was wrong?

McKinney: Around Labor Day of 2021, we received a really weird call. The callers were acting as if they were friends looking out for our best interest, and they alerted us to the fact that there may be compromises to our system. They showed us a spreadsheet of usernames in our active directory to verify that they were in our systems, and they said we could pay them to prevent an attack. We did not engage with them further—and we think they may have been part of it—but we believed that something was happening.

Eric McKinney
Eric McKinney

We went through all of our servers—we don’t have a large footprint, because we are a cloud first organization—but we did detect some software that should not have been installed on a couple of our servers. We removed that immediately, but we were unable to find the beacons that they leave behind that act as triggers to start encrypting your files.

We made the decisions that if anything happened, we were not going to negotiate, we were not going to try to get our systems back, we were going to shut everything down and roll back. I put myself on call and sure enough I got a call two days later at 3:00 a.m. from one of our people. He was logging in remotely to a server and he said, “Something don’t look right.” I go to his screen and I immediately see the locked files and realize this is really happening.

The thing that saved us ultimately is we use native platform backups. We use Microsoft Azure. So we immediately shut everything down and started rolling back our systems as far back as we could go. Those backup files were not compromised because we don’t leverage backups that tie to a file system within a server. The only way you can touch them is if you have our Cloud credentials, which are all multi-factored.

How did this affect operations?

McKinney: The net impact was our critical systems were down for about seven to eight hours, and we were recovering PCs for almost a week—there were 100 to 150 PCs that were impacted as it continued to move laterally through our organization, and we had to get them all flushed out. We had to roll the system back two weeks, so we lost two weeks of data. That impacted the accounting team the most.

We did experience an event—it was not an almost event. But we never lost a single case of sales and we never paid a single dollar. We took everyone’s computers and blew them away, handed them right back to them and said you’re starting fresh. Fortunately, this only affected employees’ files. They could still get their emails and the things that were in OneDrive.

The things that really worked in our favor were our Cloud-first strategy and getting away from a legacy client architecture. We were still able to communicate. We could send emails, we could set up Teams and we had all the tools to coordinate and get out of this and recover as quickly as we did. The second thing was having those native platform-based backups.

How did this change your digital and cybersecurity strategies?

McKinney: We were doing weekly backups, now we back up every day. And these are full system backups, which means that if you hit restore, the whole system lights back up not just the data but also your operating system that it runs on.

Crabbe: We also reached out to a lot of companies, including Arctic Wolf, who we ultimately began working with to help us figure out what we didn’t know. We worked with them to go through our environment and come up with ideas on how to improve. We are a big Microsoft shop, and we started utilizing a lot of the native tools that we already had such as Defender for Endpoint and the security portal. This addressed a lot of the low hanging fruit, such as automatic updates and not allowing outside vendors to contact us without going through a vetting process.

Rory Crabbe
Rory Crabbe

Arctic Wolf went through our system and sent us a list of recommendations, and a lot of what we did involved utilizing the native tools that we already had, shoring up our defenses, making sure the backups work and creating a disaster recovery plan.

McKinney:  We quickly went from being a business of convenience, where we said, “let’s allow USB drives,” to changing all of our technical policies by turning on all of our attack surface reduction rules. We blocked all logins from outside the U.S. and brought in new team members dedicated to cybersecurity.

I have some self-confidence issues due to this attack because your failures are put on display, and there is a feeling that if you were doing a better job this would have been prevented. But we were a very small team and we were responsible for cybersecurity, ERP (enterprise resource planning) initiatives, development initiatives, support and infrastructure initiatives and data initiatives. When you’re wearing all of these hats things do get missed, and in the end it ended up being one application update. One application patch was exposed, which set all of this off. in terms of where we’ve gotten better, we signed up with an MSP (managed service provider) to monitor our environment 24 hours a day seven days a week. In addition, these companies assist your team by keeping them up to date with the latest techniques and providing proactive communication on things that we should be doing to secure and protect our environment.

We’ve taken a lot of steps over the past two years and we still have a long way to go. We will never stop or become complacent.

There is a concern among some people that the Cloud is less secure, and it’s better to control your own servers. Is that a misconception?

Crabbe: When it’s on premise it is your responsibility. If something happens to your infrastructure, you’ve got to be on call and wake up to deal with that. So not only is the Cloud a reduction in personnel work; it’s also peace of mind. Microsoft has its own team of engineers, and they have physical security in place as well. The Azure building is protected by armed guards to protect the data from physical hackers. It’s a lot easier to apply security policies to something that’s in the Cloud because Microsoft can give you options for all kinds of things that you didn’t even know you needed. This makes it easier to visualize where you are and where you need to go.

McKinney: These are also publicly traded companies that have to follow all of the controls that come with being publicly traded. They’re going to do a better job than the one or two individuals that you have at your company who cannot work 24/7 365 days a year.

I appreciate you guys talking openly about this, because one of the issues that comes up in food defense and cybersecurity is people aren’t necessarily sharing information that could help others recognize vulnerabilities. Is it difficult to share this information?

McKinney: We didn’t want to talk about it for a long time. It’s hard to put your failures—or at least what is perceived as a failure—out there. But when you look around, you realize this can happen to anyone. It happened to MGM with all their resources. And one issue that isn’t discussed very often is, behind the business implications is an incredibly stressed out IT team that really is traumatized by an event like this.

In talking with others who have been through this, it’s often the most stressful thing that’s ever happened in their lives. It certainly is the most stressed out I’ve ever been. You’re thinking, I just cost my company millions of dollars. I shut down my business. We may not be able to get product to our people. So many things flash through your mind, and you really don’t want to talk about it or advertise it. Luckily for us, we had the right systems but most importantly we had really great executive support and great team members to help us recover.

When it comes to access management, companies have to balance convenience for their employees with the need for stringent security. Were employees understanding of the changes you had to make, and how did you communicate these changes in processes?

Crabbe: There was a lot of frustration with people saying this worked before, why can’t we do it now? One of the benefits of being a family-owned company is that we are a fairly small group, so we were able to deal with it on almost a case-by-case basis. We have an internal system that people can submit their issues or requests through, and we review them. For example, if somebody needs to move a device to a USB stick to take to an external vendor, we can look at that and say what alternatives do we have? Can we use OneDrive or another native tool to share that information? Does it have to be a USB stick? Or, if someone is going on vacation in Mexico, they can submit a ticket and we can allow them remote access from a specific country for a specific amount of time so they can log-in. We can tell them yes or no on a case-by-case basis and explain why we made the decision.

McKinney: This event also made us ask questions like, do we even need USB sticks? There are so many other tools we can use. A lot of the changes involved looking at more modern ways to collaborate. And a lot of that revolves around retraining and catching your workforce up with the new tools that we have available.

Based on your experience, what advice would you offer other companies?

McKinney: The IT spend in the food and beverage industry is typically small compared to industries like insurance or banking or health care. You need to capture all the signals from all your systems—emails being sent, open, received, etc.—and you must monitor those. Then you need the right algorithms and the right people to make sense of that data. If you are not able to maintain a large enough in-house team, investigate an MSP. They can ingest all the signals, funnel them and turn all that data into actionable items. Also, store your backups off site and limit access. Don’t store them with your production data.

Crabbe: Shore up your defenses using your native tools and create a disaster recovery plan. Those would be my two biggest recommendations for any company going forward. Dig deep and utilize what you’ve got. There’s probably a lot more available to you than you realize you have, and don’t be afraid to reach out to third-party vendors for help.

 

Frank Meek, Orkin

Common Pest Control Misconceptions and Myths for Food Processing Facilities

By Frank Meek
No Comments
Frank Meek, Orkin

Guarding the integrity of food processing facilities against pests is a mission-critical endeavor, and misinformation surrounding pest control can lead to costly mistakes, regulatory troubles and even potential health risks.

To ensure a safe and pest-free environment for food production, it’s essential to debunk these common misconceptions:

Pest control for my facility is just spraying pesticides, fogging and placing traps. Pest control plans are unique and specifically created to best fit the needs of the individual facility. Years of scientific research on pests’ behavior and trends by Pest Management Professionals (PMPs), university and industry entomologists, as well as product manufacturers go into the curation of such customized plans. Strategies for pest management are wide-ranging, highly individualized and constantly evolving through ongoing monitoring and maintenance.

Pest infestations do not affect other industries. Without sufficient pest control, many industries would be threatened. The pest control industry plays a vital role in the success of public health, structures and property, animal health and supporting the economy.

Pest control in my facility is the responsibility of my pest control provider. Pest control is an all-hands-on-deck responsibility that requires active participation from facility managers, employees, vendors and customers. To assist in helping keep pests out of your facility, be sure to:

  • Inspect all deliveries to your facility to make sure there are no signs of pest activity including droppings, holes in packaging or bugs stuck in packaging tape. If evidence of pest activity is found in a delivery truck or shipment, isolate the truck and refuse delivery of the contaminated shipment.
  • Avoid creating openings in your facility’s structure that may allow for easy access from pests. Seal cracks in walls and windows, add door sweeps and replace broken ventilation covers and installation weatherstripping that is no longer effective.
  • When it comes to pests, early detection—which often comes from your staff—is the best way to avoid a larger, time-consuming and costly infestation problem. Many pest control providers provide complimentary staff training to explain the signs of pest trouble and where one might look to find them.
  • Create and follow vacuuming schedules, sanitation plans and exclusion methods. Make sure to connect with your provider regarding best practices.

Common Pest Control Myths

Aside from pest control misconceptions in food manufacturing specifically, there are several myths to keep in mind when evaluating your pest control options. They include:

For more information, view our on demand webinar, “Top Misconceptions About Pest Control”

Electronic Fly Killer (EEK) devices are illegal. These devices are legal, but restrictions exist around where they can be used within the facility.

An Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach is the same as “green” pest control. An IPM approach allows pest control providers to look at facilities holistically to determine the most beneficial plan possible. IPM can be more ecofriendly but can also use more specialized treatments depending on the provider and recommendation.

Fogging must be done routinely to control pests. Fogging is not a technique that needs to be completed many times. If pest issues persist, there are several other strategies a pest control provider could recommend within an IPM program that may not be as invasive.

Total release foggers are the same as fumigating. Fogging and fumigation are distinct forms of pest control using different chemicals and processes. Fumigation is much more invasive but may be recommended depending on the circumstance.

A paper logbook is better than a digital one. While both forms of logging can capture accurate information for your pest control provider, digital logs are much less likely to be damaged. Depending on the facility and provider’s preferences, both forms of logging are effective.

It’s the weapon and not the warrior that fixes pest issues. Without sufficient training of pest control professionals, no tool will be as effective as it could be. Using IPM, providers can better diagnose situations and act accordingly.

There is no innovation in the pest control industry. Pest control is always growing and evolving to create the best and least invasive options for your facility. Innovation is a key pillar of the pest control industry, backed by leading entomologists who study pest behavior and best practices.

What Pest Control Is

Now that you understand some of the common misconceptions and myths of pest control, it is important to establish the fundamental details of pest control and its possibilities for your facility.

IPM is an all-inclusive, ongoing and proactive cycle focused on prevention for your facility. After a thorough inspection, providers will implement the most effective customized pest control measures to benefit the needs of the facility. Providers then continue to monitor the program’s effectiveness and perform check-ins as needed to ensure the facility is cared for.

A successful IPM program:

  • Is environmentally conscious and intentional in its measures.
  • Involves the entire staff in the operation.
  • Keeps detailed records of all pest activity and pest control operations.
  • Educates and partners with facility managers to understand the business operations comprehensively.
  • Addresses pest hot spots inside and outside the facility.
  • Inspects the property and focuses on exclusion techniques that help keep pests out of the building.

For the optimal partnership with your pest control provider, always provide documentation of pest sightings and spotting trends in your facility. Implementing a process for staff to report any signs of pest activity can help keep employees aware. Always maintain open lines of communication with your pest control provider and communicate the importance of preventative measures internally.

Navigating pest control in your food processing facility requires dispelling of common misconceptions and myths to help develop the best possible treatment plan for your facility. By fostering an environment of open communication and trust, you can help safeguard your facility, protect your customers and employees, and preserve your business’s reputation and success.

 

 

Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine

6 Ways IoT Asset Tracking Ensures Safe Distribution and Better Traceability

By Emily Newton
No Comments
Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine

Internet of Things (IoT) sensors are being used in industries across the spectrum, and their potential is far from being realized. The data provided via IoT asset tracking technologies, in particular, can enhance traceability and product integrity, leading to safer food and reducing costly losses. Following are six ways IoT tracking sensors support food safety, traceability and accountability.

Vendor Compliance

Adulteration occurs more often in the supply chain than any professional cares to admit. Some experts estimate it has a $50 billion annual impact on the food industry. Whether motivated by financial gain or product shortages, opportunistic intermediaries will take advantage of poor food traceability and make substitutions, dilutions or falsifications.

To prevent bringing adulterated products to market and keep consumers safe, manufacturers must hold their third-party vendors accountable at every stage of the distribution process, and IoT asset tracking sensors can help. They have the ability to record shipment movements in real time, so companies can ensure that their products and raw materials arrive and remain in the right places at each step in the chain.

Further, manufacturers can reduce the chances of product tampering by using IoT sensors that alert you when someone damages packaging. Bad actors are much less likely to commit food fraud when they know highly sophisticated technology is monitoring their actions and movements.

Damage Detection

Food products, especially those in the cold chain, can bruise, break and flatten relatively quickly, causing financial losses. For instance, grain loses significant value when damaged due to improper handling. Through a combination of IoT sensors and sensing nodes that can track the condition of products and provide relevant, real-time updates, companies can ensure their shipments stay intact throughout distribution and transportation.

Theft Reduction

Cargo theft is a significant problem that’s relatively new to the food industry. According to the FBI, it costs supply chain vendors and retailers up to $30 billion annually. While thieves have historically targeted electronics or high-cost imports, food inflation is making food products a top target as of 2023.

Industrial IoT sensors improve food traceability by tracking a shipment’s movement through the supply chain. They can provide real-time location data or update food-manufacturing professionals when the product reaches a particular destination. Companies can use this data to pinpoint sources of cargo theft, delays or mishandling, increasing product safety and reducing loss.

Spoilage Detection

Spoilage claims 33% of food products manufacturers produce, resulting in over $1 trillion in losses annually. This figure probably isn’t surprising for professionals working in the cold chain, as transportation condition management is incredibly complex and expensive.

Even if food appears fine for human consumption, undetected issues can be catastrophic down the line. A single recall costs a food company over $10 million on average, not accounting for lost sales or reputational damage.

With IoT asset tracking, industry professionals can monitor temperature, humidity and chemical compounds to improve the integrity of their products and ensure safe distribution. They can place sensors inside their vehicles or in packaging to monitor all changes.

Since these sensors provide a complete temperature and humidity account, professionals can even collect data for future use to forecast potential losses when conditions become abnormal. This allows companies to take action quickly to prevent spoilage, dramatically reducing the chances of a recall.

Enhanced Data Collection

An IoT sensor utilizing radio frequency identification (RFID) can collect a massive amount of data on distribution and transportation conditions that industry professionals can gather and store for future use. This information provides insights into route optimization and/or sources of contamination. With the addition of artificial intelligence, these sensors can maximize food traceability by validating everything passing through a gate.

If retailers wish to make some of this information available to end users, they can publish it or use specialized barcodes. Customers will get to review the origin of the raw materials and products, providing increased awareness of where their food comes from and the path it took to get to their store.

Faster Traceability

One in six people every year become sick due to a foodborne illness. It is up to manufacturers, distributors and retailers to ensure product quality and prevent these illnesses. When outbreaks do occur, it is up to manufacturers—both morally and legally—to trace that product and remove it before others are affected.

Luckily, IoT devices meet all the necessary regulatory criteria. RFID and other technologies can trace products in real time and alert the relevant parties of any significant changes. For example, they could track a perishable produce shipment and notify retailers and manufacturers of an extreme temperature spike.

Since these sensors can send out instantaneous alerts, nearby professionals can immediately respond before product becomes contaminated or spoils. Whether they are alerted to temperature fluctuations, suspected tampering or imminent spoilage, they can move quickly to address the concern.

IoT asset tracking is an innovative approach to common industry pain points. It addresses the food sector’s unique needs, taking perishables, food compliance and adulteration into account. With such significant food traceability improvements, manufacturers, distributors and retailers will have a much easier time coordinating their operations to increase safety, speed to market and the quality of their products.

Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine

How Collaborative Robots Can Increase Food Production Capacity

By Emily Newton
No Comments
Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine

As the population grows, food production capacity must likewise increase. While that’s generally good news for food manufacturers, scaling can be complex, especially amid widespread inefficiencies and labor challenges. Implementing collaborative robots in manufacturing can help overcome those obstacles.

Collaborative robots—also called cobots—work alongside human workers instead of in fully automated workflows or behind machine guarding. If food manufacturers can implement them effectively, this robot-human collaboration can make it easier to increase production capacity in the following ways.

1. Speeding Warehouse Operations

Warehouse operations are common bottlenecks, and as online food and direct-to-consumer services grow, they’ll become increasingly crucial. One of the most impactful ways cobots increase capacity in manufacturing is by making warehouses more efficient.

Cobots are especially helpful in picking. Walking accounts for most of the picking time, and it’s easy for humans to make errors in these workflows. Consequently, using cobots to manage picking while humans handle other tasks increases warehouse productivity two times over on average.

When cobots handle the most time-consuming tasks, warehouses can move more product in less time. As a result, these facilities manage rising throughput without significant delays, enabling faster growth without sacrificing shipping times or costs.

2. Mitigating Labor Shortages

Similarly, cobots can address labor shortages that currently stop food manufacturers from reaching peak capacity. Many professionals worry about the impact of robotics on jobs, but cobots augment human labor, not replace it. In addition, employees today are leaving the workforce faster than employers can replace them, so businesses need solutions apart from human workers.

Collaborative robots help by automating the facility’s most mundane or time-consuming tasks, which leaves human employees with more time to spend on other work. The factory as a whole can accomplish more as a result.

3. Minimizing Errors

In addition to excelling at repetitive tasks, collaborative robots can also handle the most error-prone tasks. Monotonous workflows—such as packaging, labeling and picking—are common in food production and not ideal for humans, who get tired and distracted easily. Using cobots in these roles instead can minimize mistakes. Fewer mistakes translate into less disruption to the workflow and fewer wasted materials. This, in turn, increases throughput, making upscaling more cost effective.

4. Improving Safety

Like conventional industrial robots, cobots can automate the most hazardous tasks in a facility to minimize injuries. Unlike traditional robots, cobots can work safely alongside humans without additional safety stops. Consequently, they minimize machine-related accidents, offering more safety than other automation systems. Food manufacturing plants will have less unplanned downtime due to workplace accidents. With more uptime, they can increase production capacity.

Automating parts of the workflow also creates more production data to analyze. Increased connectivity and data have helped manufacturers respond to foodborne illness outbreaks faster, improving the safety of consumers, as well.

5. Enabling Flexibility

Conventional robots can produce similar benefits in many of these areas but they come at the cost of flexibility. Using collaborative robots in manufacturing lets food producers enjoy the advantages of automation without sacrificing adaptability.

Fully automated workflows can take days or even weeks to adjust to new processes. Collaborative workflows can adapt much more quickly because human workers are more flexible than machines. Cobots let food manufacturers capitalize on automation’s efficiency and human adaptability, providing the best of both worlds.

That flexibility is essential when upscaling because increasing capacity will disrupt some workflows. Facilities will have to adapt as demands rise and shift, and conventional automation is too rigid to make that transition smoothly and quickly. Collaborative robots are a more reliable way forward in a disruption-prone market.

Historically, food production has not been able to automate to the same extent as other manufacturing sectors. Workflows involve too much variability to meet the sudden shifts in consumer demands. Cobots offer the flexibility and speed companies need to embrace automation.

As more food manufacturers implement cobots, it is likely that the nation’s food production capacity will grow. That growth is an essential step forward as the population rises and direct-to-consumer food shipping becomes more popular.

Store meat

Consumer Perception of Smart Sensors in Meat Packaging

By Food Safety Tech Staff
No Comments
Store meat

A majority of consumers are interested in purchasing meat products that include biosensors that monitor pathogens, but their willingness to pay more for the intelligent packaging is dependent upon the perceived risk of foodborne illness, according to a recent study published in the International Journal of Consumer Studies.

For “The use of smart biosensors during a food safety incident: Consumers’ cognitive-behavioural responses and willingness to pay,” authors Giuseppe Nocella, et al, surveyed consumers using the protection motivation theory (PMT) to explore responses to risk communication in the absence and presence of a food safety incident. The surveys also gauged respondents’ willingness to purchase hypothetical meat products marketed with the biosensors.

The researchers surveyed consumers in the UK, with respondents assigned to one of three groups. Each group received a different risk message: In the No Risk Information (NRI) group, respondents did not receive any news on the food-safety incident; in the Low Risk Information (LRI) group, respondents were informed that there was a moderate health risk due to a food-safety incident; and in the High Risk Information (HRI) group, respondents were informed that there was a severe health risk due to a food-safety incident.

They found that respondents in the LRI and HRI groups (with no statistically significant difference between the two groups) were willing to pay more (£0.91; s = £0.72) for meat products with smart biosensors than those in the NRI group (£0.82; s = £0.68). The majority of respondents in both groups were willing to buy meat marketed with biosensors.

 

“Respondents who heard about biosensors developed using nano-technology were not willing to pay a premium for biosensors when risk information was not provided because they did not perceive the benefits of biosensors,” the authors concluded, noting that “Few consumers are aware of smart biosensors. There is a need of more cooperation on behalf of retailers and food manufacturers to increase consumers’ awareness about the benefits of smart biosensors.”

 

 

Laura Dunn Nelson, Intertek Alchemy

Navigating Food Industry Challenges Requires a Comprehensive Crisis Management Plan

By Laura Dunn Nelson
No Comments
Laura Dunn Nelson, Intertek Alchemy

The food industry has faced numerous challenges in recent years that have disrupted its stability and normal operations. While it might feel like the industry is finally starting to stabilize, there is still a long way to go to achieve a steady new normal. The industry remains extremely vulnerable to inflation pressures, product shortages, cyberattacks and food fraud. Any one of these risks can send a manufacturer or restaurant scrambling to replace missing ingredients or supplies and resume operations.

In today’s unpredictable landscape, crisis management plans are essential for reducing downtime, safeguarding food quality and maintaining customer trust. These plans help establish backup suppliers in times of supply chain disruptions and bolster defenses against cyberattacks and food fraud. While there is no one-size-fits-all approach, developing a customized crisis management plan tailored to your specific production risks is crucial. Below are some insights into using a crisis management plan to tackle common threats faced by food manufacturers and restaurants.

Vendor Management: Ensuring Continuity

Vendors play a key role in the food industry, and their vulnerabilities can directly impact your food safety and quality. Ingredient shortages and price fluctuations create supply chain disruptions that must be managed through proactive measures.

Including a vendor replacement strategy in the crisis management plan enables quick adaptation to unforeseen circumstances. This strategy should encompass multiple sourcing options, rigorous vendor audits, effective communication channels, comprehensive product specifications and efficient change management processes.

Detecting and Preventing Food Fraud

When supply chains are disrupted, food fraud becomes a serious concern. Counterfeiting, dilution, substitution and mislabeling pose risks to both food quality and safety. To combat food fraud effectively, it’s important to vet suppliers to ensure they provide the correct ingredients and adhere to quality standards.

Integrating your supplier selection processes into the crisis management plan will help ensure consistency as you vet new suppliers. Additionally, frontline employees should receive training to detect food fraud. This includes training that enables them to identify abnormalities in raw materials, manufacturing processes and finished goods.

Risk management is not solely the responsibility of leadership. To effectively combat food fraud, it needs to be part of your frontline worker food safety training program.

Safeguarding Against Cyber Threats

With increasing reliance on technology, the food industry has become more vulnerable than ever to cyber threats. Last year, the U.S. cybersecurity company Dragos identified the food and beverage sector as the second largest victim of cyberattacks, making it imperative to prioritize cybersecurity measures.

While robust security platforms and backup systems are important, the most effective defense lies in having an informed workforce trained to identify and prevent potential attacks. It’s critical to ensure your crisis management plan includes preventative measures such as educating employees on recognizing suspicious emails, updating passwords regularly and avoiding risky online behavior.

Transparent Communication Builds Trust

When changes occur in suppliers, products or ingredients, transparent communication with your customers is vital. The crisis management plan should lay out clear guidelines for informing customers on important updates, including formulation and label changes when different ingredients or formulas are used. These guidelines should have the agreement and support of multiple internal departments, including management, marketing, production, safety and quality. Implementing thorough communication strategies can be time-consuming, but surprising customers with unexpected product changes can cause lasting damage to their trust and loyalty.

In today’s challenging food industry environment, proactive planning and risk mitigation are crucial for preserving business continuity, brand reputation and customer relationships. A comprehensive crisis management plan tailored to address specific threats is essential. By prioritizing cybersecurity, vendor management, fraud prevention and transparent communication, food businesses can navigate the challenges effectively and ensure their long-term success in this rapidly evolving landscape.

Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine

Advances in pH-Reliant Intelligent Food Packaging

By Emily Newton
No Comments
Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine

Food industry professionals are increasingly searching for intelligent food packaging that can signal when consumables are unsafe to use. Solutions encompass time-temperature indicators that give real-time shelf-life indicators and labels that change color to show potential contamination. Recent work in this area focuses on pH-reliant options.

Foods have various pH levels, and lower pH products typically have longer shelf lives, as they are less hospitable to the growth of microorganisms. Following are some of the latest efforts to harness the power of pH to enhance food safety.

Films Made from Bio-Based Ingredients

Researchers are looking at plant-based pigments to create pH-responsive packaging and reduce the use of chemical-based triggers. Efforts in this area include pH-responsive films made from hydrogels, including films made of anthocyanins (water-soluble pigments) from red cabbage, which contains 24 types of anthocyanins. The films, which are biodegradable, change color as the pH of the food changes. In another case, scientists wanted to see how pH-sensitive packaging would perform in high-ammonia environments. They put film on a package of fish for 72 hours and noticed a resultant color change that indicated spoilage.

Work elsewhere has involved making color-changing films from chitosan, a sugar derived from external shellfish skeletons. The main benefit of these films is that they provide visible and easy-to-understand indicators of possible spoilage. A secondary perk is that chitosan has antimicrobial properties, which could extend shelf life and help manufacturers maintain quality.

One low-tech option involves packaging a consumable with a sachet filled with a substance that can alter the food’s pH level.

Moving pH Sensors from Processing Plants to Packaging

Food processors have long used pH sensors to provide valuable data during specific food development and manufacturing processes, ranging from fermentation to pasteurization. The main goal is to verify that the pH level is within the desired range after a process’s completion. In a 2022 study, researchers tested a salicylic acid-based carbon electrode paired with a pH sensing element based on electropolymerized flavanone and found that the sensor had a 0.03-pH-unit maximum error rate.

A 2020 study, which involved treating lychee fruit with a specially engineered chitosan-based coating, showed the coating reduced pH levels during an 18-day storage period, making the fruit stay fresher for longer.

Elsewhere, researchers used 3D printing to make fruit labels that preserve freshness. Each label contained cellulose nanofibers that held growth regulators and chitosan. The team pre-programmed the nanofibers to inject the contents into the fruits at desired intervals. Tests showed this innovation caused a six-day extension of fruit shelf life. The labels included a color-changing component to monitor freshness.

In addition to a developing biodegradable options, researchers are also finding ways to make pH sensors smaller. A graduate student at Southern Methodist University recently developed a disposable pH sensor that’s only 10 millimeters wide and 2 millimeters long. That small size makes it suitable for virtually all food packages. Additionally, this device is inexpensive to develop with minimal labor, making it an economical option.

It has become increasingly clear that use and sell-by dates are not the most accurate means to inform consumers if food is still safe. However, intelligent food packaging developments that track pH levels can facilitate improvements that reduce food waste and the risk of illness due to foodborne pathogens.

Some of these technologies are still under development, and it will take time to determine if they’re sufficiently scalable for industrial use. But, as intelligent food packaging becomes more commonplace, decision-makers will have new tools to gain a competitive edge, and protect both their bottom lines and consumers’ health.

 

 

 

Justin Dranschak

Cell Cultured Meat: Where Are We Now?

By Food Safety Tech Staff
No Comments
Justin Dranschak

In June, the USDA FSIS granted label approval and grant of inspection to two companies manufacturing cell-cultured meat: Upside Foods and Good Meat. This was the final step in the U.S. regulatory process, opening the door for commercialization. We spoke with Justin Dranschak, Director of BioPharma at Molecular Devices, about a potential timeline to sales, what this means for other manufacturers of lab-grown meat products and what impact these products may have on the U.S. and international food supply. A former employee with the Ohio Department of Agriculture and Siliker Labs, Dranschak has been working on cell line development for the past 10 years.

The FDA recently announced that it had no further questions about the safety of two cell-cultured meat products, which then went on to gain USDA grant of inspection and label approval. Can Upside Foods and Good Meat now sell their products commercially, and are these products ready for commercialization?

Dranschak: These approvals mean they can come to market, so the companies can now move forward with full-scale biofabrication. In terms of commercialization, there are still some challenges in terms of achieving price parity with meats now sold at the store level. The next step is optimizing production and scaling up the capacity of these systems. Everything up to now has been done on a small to medium scale, with a focus on thorough, rigorous testing. Scaling up from small to medium to large is a big challenge, and we’ve seen that in a lot of biological workflows as you’re dealing with different types of cells. They will need to optimize production and consistency of quality to ensure what they’re putting out in stores really matches what customers are looking for.

I recently saw a speaker who noted that the amount of meat or cells you need to create a final product is really not efficient or optimized? Has that been remedied or does that continue to be a challenge?

Dranschak: That is probably the No. 1 issue that is being looked at from a development perspective. But there are a lot of novel breakthroughs that are just on the periphery in terms of different styles of growth media that we can use, and different styles of vats and containers that we can use to ensure that the cells are getting correct feeding at the correct time and that you are then moving those onto the next step of the process at the right time. There are new technologies for monitoring and visualizing those cells. But those scaling efforts are the obstacle right now.

When developing lab grown meat, what is the manufacturing process?

Dranschak: The process starts with instrumentation called single cell printers. The company starts with a single cell taken from an animal, whichever animal they are using, and then they identify the cells of interest and put those in a machine that is then going to dispense a single cell into a 96-well plate. From there, they track that cell as it grows and multiplies. As you grow and multiply those cells, you also need to monitor them over time and prove that they did start from a single cell—that’s proof of monoclonality and that is what the FDA requires. The FDA wants to know where that cell came from and also the stability—ensuring that cell is not going to change or modify over time.

Once you’ve identified that you have these cells that match all the desired characteristics, that’s when you move into quality and production scale. At this point, you’re interested in things such as nutritional content and also biological content. Are the proteins in these cells the same as what we would see in regular chicken or fish? Are we seeing the same levels as we increase the number cells that we are producing in these vats? So, it comes down to a number of different groups working together in tandem to produce cell lines that are going to taste how consumer expect them to taste, and to ensure consistency over time.

If you start with a chicken, for example, and you extract some cells, do you then need to do that extraction for each future piece of chicken or can you build your own cell bank that becomes your product base?

Dranschak: You create a cell bank. These companies are developing thousands of cells and cell banks, and as they go through their processes they’re learning from each cell bank—identifying cells or methods that might over-produce or under-produce something. These cells are held for future learning so they can call on them at any time for development purposes or for future production runs.

What is the timeline in terms of producing a final product from a single cell?

Dranschak: It can take anywhere from 12 to 18 months up to 3 years. When looking at food versus a biological therapeutic, it’s a much more defined process, so I do see significant opportunities for shortening that cycle using automation—moving from more manual processes and synergizing those with robotics to move things in a higher capacity through the system. With advancements in AI and software, we’re also going to see a lot of process optimization in terms of the actual building design of these systems and incorporating the safety and sterilization processes that we have in pharmaceuticals and biotech back into the food industry for development.

Are there differences in terms of progress in the areas of development of cell-cultured poultry products vs. beef or seafood?

Dranschak: In terms of the path forward, this [FDA and USDA approvals] represents a major step because it provides a regulatory roadmap for the food industry and other industries using cell-cultured products. That being said, each process is different. Each cell line and each cell type has its own unique challenges in terms of how they grow, taste, function, etc. But the overall framework from a regulatory perspective has been set.

There is some wariness about cell-cultured meat, even within the food industry, are there unique safety concerns for lab grown meat?

Dranschak: They are largely the same. I previously worked in a food analytical lab doing microbiological testing with Siliker Laboratories. You’re going to be performing the exact same tests from the pathogen level as well as from a food characterization level. The main difference is the manufacturing process, and all of that has been extensively documented. It is extremely safe. Lab-grown meat does come with challenges from a public health perspective because it is something new. Overcoming that challenge requires education.

To me, this is an amazing and positive step forward. It offers us an opportunity to meet food challenges in parts of the world where, for example, they are unable to have access to meat on a regular basis. Lab grown meat allows us to address global food crises and support global health through science and the development of new products.