Phase one of the pilot looked at using machine learning to find violative seafood shipments. “The pilot program will help the agency not only gain valuable experience with new powerful AI-enabled technology but also add to the tools used to determine compliance with regulatory requirements and speed up detection of public health threats,” FDA stated in a news release. “Following completion of the pilot, FDA will communicate on our findings to promote transparency and facilitate dialogue on how new and emerging technologies can be harnessed to solve complex public health challenges.”
Last week U.S. Congressman and chairman of the Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis James E. Clyburn (D-SC) launched an investigation into OSHA, Tyson Foods, Smithfield Foods and JBS USA over the nationwide coronavirus outbreaks at meatpacking plants that have led to the deaths of at least 270 employees. Nearly 54,000 workers at 569 U.S. meatpacking plants have tested positive for COVID-19, according to the Subcommittee and media reports.
“Public reports indicate that under the Trump Administration, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) failed to adequately carry out its responsibility for enforcing worker safety laws at meatpacking plants across the country, resulting in preventable infections and deaths. It is imperative that the previous Administration’s shortcomings are swiftly identified and rectified to save lives in the months before coronavirus vaccinations are available for all Americans,” the letter to James Frederick, deputy assistant secretary of labor for OSHA stated. “The Select Subcommittee strongly encourages you to take all necessary steps, including under President Biden’s Executive Order on Protecting Worker Health and Safety1and your other existing statutory authorities, to protect workers from the risks of the coronavirus by issuing clear guidance to employers, enacting an emergency temporary standard, and enhancing enforcement efforts.”
“Public reports indicate that meatpacking companies … have refused to take basic precautions to protect their workers, many of whom earn extremely low wages and lack adequate paid leave, and have shown a callous disregard for workers’ health,” Clyburn stated in the letter. “These actions appear to have resulted in thousands of meatpacking workers getting infected with the virus and hundreds dying. Outbreaks at meatpacking plants have also spread to surrounding communities, killing many more Americans.”
The Subcommittee has asked OSHA and each company for documentation related to the COVID infections and deaths, as well as their enforcement of worker protections under the Trump administration.
Last week a report released by Congress cited dangerous levels of toxic heavy metals in several brands of baby food. Back in November 2019, the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy asked for internal documents and test results from baby food manufacturers Nurture, Inc. (Happy Family Organics), Beech-Nut Nutrition Company, Hain Celestial Group, Inc., Gerber, Campbell Soup Company, Walmart, Inc., and Sprout Foods. According to the staff report, Nurture, Beech-Nut, Hain and Gerber responded to the requests, while Walmart, Campbell and Sprout Organic Foods did not.
The findings indicate that significant levels of arsenic, lead, cadmium and mercury were found in the baby foods of the four manufacturers who responded to the Subcommittee’s requests (Nurture, Beech-Nut, Hain and Gerber). It also stated the alarming point that, “Internal company standards permit dangerously high levels of toxic heavy metals, and documents revealed that the manufacturers have often sold foods that exceeded those levels.”
The Subcommittee voiced “grave concerns” that the baby food made by Walmart, Sprout Organic Foods and Campbell was “obscuring the presence of even higher levels of toxic heavy metals in their baby food products than their competitors’ products” due to their lack of cooperation.
In addition, the report states that the Trump administration “ignored a secret industry presentation to federal regulators revealing increased risks of toxic heavy metals in baby foods” in August 2019.
“To this day, baby foods containing toxic heavy metals bear no label or warning to parents. Manufacturers are free to test only ingredients, or, for the vast majority of baby foods, to conduct no testing at all,” the report stated (infant rice cereal is the only baby food held to a stringent standard regarding the presence of inorganic arsenic).
As a result of the findings, the Subcommittee has made several recommendations:
FDA should require baby food manufacturers to test their finished products for toxic heavy metals.
FDA should require manufacturers to report toxic heavy metals on food labels.
Manufacturers should find substitutes for ingredients that are high in toxic heavy metals or phase out the ingredients that are high in toxic heavy metals.
FDA should set maximum levels of toxic heavy metals allowed in baby foods.
Parents should avoid baby foods that contain ingredients that test high in toxic heavy metals.
Today the FDA announced a new plan to collect samples of romaine lettuce as part of its ongoing surveillance after the spring 2018 multistate outbreak of E. coli O157:H7. The samples, which will be tested for Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) and Salmonella, will be collected from commercial coolers in Yuma County, Arizona during the current harvest season.
FDA plans to collect and test about 500 samples (each of which will consist of 10 subsamples), beginning in February and continuing through the end of the harvest season. In order to reduce the time between sample collection and reporting results, an independent lab close to the collection sites in Arizona will be testing the samples. FDA expects to receive test results within 24 hours.
“Helping to ensure the safety of leafy greens continues to be a priority of the FDA. This assignment adds to other work underway in collaboration with stakeholders in the Yuma agricultural region to implement actions identified in the Leafy Greens Action Plan, including a multi-year study to assess the environmental factors that impact the presence of foodborne pathogens in this region. Consistent with the action plan, the agency will engage with industry on conducting root cause analyses for any positive samples found during this assignment. Root cause analyses are important in that they seek to identify potential sources and routes of contamination, inform what preventive measures are needed, and help prevent outbreaks of foodborne illness,” FDA stated in a release.
COVID-19 precautions will be taken during the sampling plan. Agency investigators will preannounce visits and wear PPE while conducting the work.
Over the past 9 years, the Food Safety Consortium Conference & Expo has built a reputation for delivering perspectives and insights from the most knowledgeable and influential experts in food safety. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, last year’s event was converted from an in-person event into a 14-week series of virtual themed-episodes during the fall. Continuing the momentum from 2020, the 2021 Food Safety Consortium Virtual Conference Series will take place as a four-week Spring and five-week Fall program. Both the Spring and Fall programs will feature critical thinking topics that are for industry veterans and knowledgeable newcomers.
“As you know, the online experience is very different than in-person, so last year we deconstructed our in-person program and re-engineered it for virtual. Instead of having a virtual conference for three straight days, we set up our program in short 2.5-hour themed episodes that ran every Thursday in the fall. We received great feedback from attendees, speakers and sponsors. I think we were one of the few conferences that successfully pulled off the pivot to virtual,” says Rick Biros, president of Innovative Publishing and director of the Food Safety Consortium.
Building on the strong success of the 2020 Food Safety Virtual Conference Series, the 2021 Consortium will be presented into two seasonal programs. “This will allow us to continue the conversation throughout the year, while also taking into consideration the busy lives of food safety professionals,” Biros adds.
Food Safety Tech is the media sponsor and will feature exclusive content from the event.
The Spring Program will run every Thursday in May, with each episode starting at 12 pm ET. The weekly episodes will tackle a range of critical topics in foods safety, including FSMA and traceability, food protection strategies, COVID-19’s lasting impact on the food industry by segment, audits and supply chain management. Frank Yiannas, FDA deputy commissioner for food policy and response, is the confirmed keynote speaker for Thursday, May 6.
The Fall Program will run every Thursday beginning on October 7 at 12 pm ET through November 4. Episode topics include food safety hazards (emerging threats and new technologies), food defense strategies, an FDA update, and personal development, training and mentorship.
Companies that are interested in sponsoring a 10-minute technical presentation during the series can contact Sales Director RJ Palermo for more details.
About Food Safety Tech
Food Safety Tech is a digital media community for food industry professionals interested in food safety and quality. We inform, educate and connect food manufacturers and processors, retail & food service, food laboratories, growers, suppliers and vendors, and regulatory agencies with original, in-depth features and reports, curated industry news and user-contributed content, and live and virtual events that offer knowledge, perspectives, strategies and resources to facilitate an environment that fosters safer food for consumers.
Since 2012, Food Safety Tech audiences have learned to respect and expect our high-quality content—via FoodSafetyTech.com, our weekly newsletter and by attending our educational programs. Food Safety Tech keeps professionals current with the latest information about technology, best practices and regulations, and how innovative solutions and approaches can be leveraged to further advance food safety across the globe.
About the Food Safety Consortium Conference
The Food Safety Consortium is an educational and networking event for Food Protection that has food safety, food integrity and food defense as the foundation of the educational content of the program. With a unique focus on science, technology and compliance, the “Consortium” enables attendees to engage in sessions that are critical for advancing careers and organizations alike. Over the past 9 years the Food Safety Consortium has built a reputation for delivering the most knowledgeable and influential perspectives in food safety. The speaker line-up has driven key food safety decision-makers to the event (both in-person and virtually)—facilitating an environment for vendors, suppliers, food industry professionals, and consultants to network and build long-lasting business relationships.
Due to COVID-19, the 2020 Food Safety Consortium was converted to a virtual conference series that featured specific topics in a weekly episode series. The 2021 Food Safety Consortium Virtual Conference Series will feature a Spring and Fall program, running in May and October, respectively.
FDA has completed its investigation of the multistate outbreak of E. coli 0151:H7 that occurred last fall and was linked to leafy greens. The FDA and CDC found the outbreak was caused by an E. coli strain that was genetically related to the strain found in the fall 2019 outbreak involving romaine lettuce (Salinas, California). Despite conducting environmental sampling at dozens of ranches in the area, the FDA was unable to identify a single site as the source of the outbreak. However, the analysis did confirm “a positive match to the outbreak strain in a sample of cattle feces,” which was located uphill from where the leafy greens identified in the agency’s traceback investigation were grown, according to an FDA release.
Although the FDA’s investigation has ended, the agency will be reviewing the findings and release a report in the “near future” with recommendations. “In the meantime, as recommended in our Leafy Greens Action Plan, the FDA continues to recommend growers assess and mitigate risk associated with adjacent and nearby land use practices, particularly as it relates to the presence of livestock, which are a persistent reservoir of E. coli O157:H7 and other STEC,” FDA stated in the update.
Food fraud has been estimated to cost our industry over $50 billion per year. Performing a comprehensive fraud vulnerability assessment is now a key requirement of all GFSI standards. Do you know which of your ingredients are the most susceptible to intentional adulteration?
Hazard Question #3 – Which food commodity category has had the most fraud incident reports over the past 20 years?
Hint: If you have access to HorizonScan it takes less than 10 seconds to select a commodity, click the fraud filter and be viewing up to 20 years of food fraud reports. HorizonScan is widely recognized by GFSI auditors as an excellent foundation for performing thorough and compliant vulnerability assessments.
With COVID 19 causing global disruptions to supply chains our key food ingredients are more vulnerable than ever to unscrupulous adulteration and substitution. HorizonScan can help you stay on top of the latest issues and enable you to anticipate them before it’s too late. To request updated pricing information or a free demo, just reply now to this email and we’ll get back to you shortly with answers to all your questions.
Kind regards,
The HorizonScan Team at FoodChain ID
Answer to last week’s Quiz – Which country of origin has been cited by global inspection agencies the most times in the past year for adulteration/contamination issues in pepper?
Historically, India has been cited the most times for issues in pepper but in the past year it has been surpassed by Brazil, with 56 new incident reports being added to HorizonScan. The bar chart below shows the top five offenders over the past 12 months.
Figure 2. Hazards in Pepper over the past 12 Months.
Food fraud is a global problem, the size of which cannot be fully quantified. A new book edited and authored by experts on the topic seeks to comprehensively address food fraud, covering everything from its history and mitigation strategies, to tools and analytical detection methods, to diving into fraud in specific products such as ingredients, meat, poultry and seafood.
“As we point out in the first sentence of the introduction to Food Fraud: A Global Threat with Public Health and Economic Consequences, food fraud prevention and risk mitigation has become a fast-evolving area. So fast, in fact, that some people may question the value of publishing a comprehensive resource focused on these issues for fear that it will be outdated before the ink is dry. The co-editors of the book disagree,” says Steve Sklare, president of The Food Safety Academy, chair of the Food Safety Tech Advisory Board and co-editor of the book. “This book was written with the goal of providing a solid resource that is more than an academic exercise or reference. The discussion of the fundamental principles of food fraud mitigation and real-world application of this knowledge will provide a useful base of knowledge from which new information and new technology can be integrated.”
Sklare co-edited the book with Rosalee Hellberg, Ph.D., associate director of the food science program at Chapman University and Karen Everstine, Ph.D., senior manager of scientific affairs at Decernis and member of the Food Safety Tech Advisory Board. He hopes that offering access to the book’s first chapter will help communicate their message to the folks responsible for addressing food fraud, whether they are members of the food industry, regulators or academics, or professionals at small, medium or large food organizations.
Complimentary access to Chapter 1 of Food Fraud: A Global Threat with Public Health and Economic Consequences is available in the Food Safety Tech Resource Library. The preview also includes the book’s Table of Contents.
This week’s question deals with pepper. Did you know that for centuries pepper has been considered the “King of Spices?” It was one of the very first items of commerce between India and Europe. It was so valuable that entire expeditions were made in hopes of transporting more back to Europe as quickly as possible.
Hazard Question #2 – Which country of origin has been cited by global inspection agencies the most times in the past year for adulteration issues in pepper?
Hint: With HorizonScan you could find the answer to today’s quiz in less than ten seconds by doing a search on “pepper – black, pink or white” and then selecting the one-year country of origin bar chart on the results page.
Food risks for a particular ingredient can vary greatly from country to country. HorizonScan can show you the most likely risks to your products based on where each of its ingredients are sourced. To request updated pricing information or a free demo fill out this contact form.
Kind regards,
The HorizonScan Team at FoodChain ID
An image of the recalled Pepperoni Hot Pockets, as provided on the USDA website.
Nestlé Prepared Foods has recalled about 762,615 pounds of not-ready-to-eat pepperoni hot pockets over concerns of foreign matter contamination. The products, which were produced between November 13 and November 16, 2020 and have a shelf life of 14 months, could be contaminated with glass and hard plastic. Thus far the company has received four consumer complaints of extraneous material in the pepperoni hot pockets, one of which has been associated with a minor oral injury.
The recall involves the following product: 54-oz carton packages containing 12 “Nestlé Hot Pockets Brand Sandwiches: Premium Pepperoni Made with Pork, Chicken & Beef Pizza Garlic Buttery Crust. According to a USDA announcement, the recalled product has a best before February 2022 date with lot codes 0318544624, 0319544614, 0320544614, and 0321544614. It was shipped nationwide and bears the establishment number “EST. 7721A” inside the USDA mark of inspection.
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