Pilgrim’s Pride Recalls More than 101,000 Pounds of RTE Breaded Chicken Patties

By Food Safety Tech Staff

Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. has recalled about 101,310 pounds of its ready-to-eat breaded chicken patties as a result of potential contamination with rubber. The Class I recall involves patties that were produced and packed on September 6, 2017. The issue was discovered following a customer complaint on February 13.

Specifically, the products are 30-lb boxes with five-pound clear bags that contain Gold Kist Farms, Fully Cooked Whole Grain Home-Style Breaded Chicken Patties. Distribution of the product included schools.

An alert issued by the USDA points to equipment failure at a Pilgrim’s Pride facility as the culprit in introducing the foreign material.

February 16, 2018

FDA Food Recalls Up Nearly 93% Since 2012

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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Over the past five years, the food and beverage industry has seen a big increase in the units recalled—a 92.7% spike in FDA recalls and an 83.4% increase in recalled pounds by USDA since 2012, according to Stericycle’s quarterly recall index. The firm cites technological advances in food testing, factory farming and more automation in food production as the main contributors to the high numbers.

During Q4 2017, bacterial contamination and undeclared allergens led the pack in food recall causes. According to Stericycle, back in 2012, about 28% of FDA food recalls were a result of bacterial contamination, while undeclared allergens accounted for 35% of pounds of food recalled by USDA. During Q4 2017, 44% of food recalls (based on units) were from bacterial contamination, followed by undeclared allergens (31%), mislabeling (13%), and quality (10%). Among the top categories for recalls were prepared foods (20%, nuts and seeds (16%), produce (15%) and baked goods (12%). In addition, nearly 50% of the USDA recalled pounds were a result of lack of inspection.

February 15, 2018

FDA Releases 2017 Food Code

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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This week FDA released the 2017 Food Code with updates that aim to provide government and industry with guidance and provisions for reducing the risk of foodborne illness.

The most notable changes to the 2017 Food Code include a revised requirement that the person in charge (PIC) must be a certified food protection manager; a new section that speaks to using bandages, finger cots or finger stalls; harmonized cooking time and temperature parameters for intact and non-intact meat and poultry; and updated procedures for retail food establishments operations during an extended water or electrical outage.

“The 2017 Food Code provides uniform standards for retail food safety, eliminates redundant processes for establishing food safety criteria, and establishes a more standardized approach in controlling food safety hazards within a retail environment.” – FDA

FDA has a special National Retail Food Team that can help regulatory officials, educators and industry in understanding, adopting and implementing the provisions of the Food Code. Those who have questions can send them to retailfoodpolicyteam@fda.hhs.gov.

February 14, 2018

Registration Open for 4th Food Safety Supply Chain Conference

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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Do you trust your suppliers? What about your supplier’s suppliers? Strengthening the links within your supply chain can be a challenging task, but it is necessary with FDA, and FSMA, recognizing the risk that exists.

Key topics, including vulnerabilities, inspections & audits, traceability, supplier verification, transportation, and recalls will be addressed at the 4th Food Safety Supply Chain conference from June 12–13 in Rockville, MD. The event will be held at the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention.

This year’s agenda will be posted by March 1. In the meantime, the following are some topics covered at last year’s event:

Industry Experts Weigh in on Supply Chain Issues

Import Safe Food, Stay Out of Trouble with FDA

February 13, 2018

Biosensor Detects Norovirus on the Spot, in One Hour

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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Norovirus has returned to the headlines following the latest outbreak at the PyeongChang Olympics in South Korea. Researchers at Bionano Laboratory in Guelph, Canada are trying to prevent such outbreaks with the development of a nanotechnology-based biosensor that can identify foodborne viruses at the point of care.

“Our nanotech biosensor boasts of a microfluidic platform duly integrated with graphene-gold nano-composite aptasensor that has shown to help with one-step norovirus detection. We have been able to detection the norovirus with in an hour with superior sensitivity with our state-of-the art device.” – Suresh Neethirajan, Bionano Lab

Designed for use in the field, the paper-based microfluidic device has a screen-printed carbon electrode that enables electrochemical virus detection within an hour. Its chip is packed with silica microbeads zones to filter and enrich a Norovirus-infected sample. The researchers also state that the biosensor is designed to be simple and cost effective. They have published two papers demonstrating the effectiveness of the device, one in Microchimica Acta (Apramer-based fluorometric determination of norovirus using paper-based microfluidic device) and the other in Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

February 12, 2018

USDA PDP Report: Farmers Doing a Good Job Complying with Regulations

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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Fruit and vegetable farmers are doing an “impressive” job of complying with the laws and regulations related to pesticide use in production, according to the USDA’s annual Pesticide Data Program (PDP) report. Based on data from 2016, the report found that more than 99% of samples had pesticide residues that were “well below” the EPA’s established tolerances, and more than 23% had no detectable residues. Less than half-a-percent of samples (0.46%) had residues that exceeded the EPA established tolerance.

To compile the PDP report, surveys were conducted in 2016 on several foods, including eggs, milk, and fresh and processed fruit and vegetables. The report contains data from more than 10,000 samples collected throughout the United States.

A release from the Alliance for Food and Farming states that the U.S. food supply is one of the safest in the world, yet: “Activists groups often manipulate the findings from the USDA PDP report taking the very positive results and somehow turning them into something negative. This tactic has been used routinely for 20-plus years to create a so-called ‘dirty dozen’ list, which has been repeatedly discredited by scientists.”

February 8, 2018

Pathogenic Contamination Among Top Food Safety Hazards for Cannabis

By Steven Burton

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“As more people gain access to and ingest cannabis products, it’s only a matter of time before food safety becomes a primary concern for producers and regulators,” says Steven Burton, CEO and founder of Icicle Technologies, Inc. Without federal regulation, there are so many questions about the food safety hazards associated with the use of cannabis in food products. In an article published in Food Safety Tech’s sister publication, Cannabis Industry Journal, Burton discusses the Top Four Safety Hazards for the Cannabis Industry, which includes pathogenic contamination from pests and improper handling.

February 7, 2018

RJ Palermo Joins Innovative Publishing Company Team

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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RJ Palermo has joined Innovative Publishing Co. (IPC) as Director of Sales – Events. In this newly created position at IPC, RJ will be managing the business development activities of the company’s food safety medical device and cannabis industries, working on both conference sponsorships and booth sales.

RJ will work side by side with Marc Spector, Director of Sales – Publishing. Marc had been responsible for all events and publishing sales, as well as for the year-after-year growth in these areas. The addition of RJ to the IPC team will support the company’s growth in sponsorship and exhibit sales, and allows Marc to continue supporting growth in digital advertising sales across all three of IPC’s digital publications, Food Safety Tech, MedTech Intelligence and Cannabis Industry Journal.

For many of IPC’s customers who leverage IPC’s unique position of conference sponsorships and digital advertising, they will be serviced in tandem by Marc and RJ.

“We saw a 25% growth in total revenue in 2017 and see tremendous growth potential in the three industries that we serve. Bringing RJ onto the team provides us the bandwidth to capitalize on the opportunities facing us,” said Rick Biros, president and co-founder of IPC. “Plus, RJ’s years of B2B conference and trade show management experience complements the IPC team’s current skill sets.”

RJ has more than 20 years of media, conference and agency experience. He was most recently a biopharmaceutical equipment contributor for the Pharma’s Almanac publication, and delivered several branding and research projects for pharmaceutical and medical device contract manufacturers. For 17 years RJ served as vice president of Interphex, the largest pharmaceutical manufacturing event in North America and was a key contributor of a successful launch of Medical Device Puerto Rico, which created the largest life sciences event in the Caribbean. RJ is an avid NY sports fan, and enjoys working out and spending time with his family and friends. RJ is married to his wife Beth, has a daughter Nora and dog Beau, and resides in Norwalk, CT.

February 6, 2018

CFSAN Announces New Senior Science Advisor for Produce Safety

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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FDA has created a new position for former FDA member Jim Gorny to serve as the senior science advisor for produce safety at CFSAN. Gorny worked at FDA from 2009 to 2013 as the senior advisor in the agency’s Office of Food Safety at which time he was involved in the development of FSMA. He was previously the vice president of food safety and technology at the Produce Marketing Association.

In his position at CFSAN Gorny will work with a team of produce safety professionals on implementing new science and risk-based requirements that aim to prevent illnesses from contaminated produce. He will serve as the chief advisor to CFSAN Director Susan Mayne on policies and programs associated with produce safety. His responsibilities include stakeholder outreach and engagement, investigations and recalls, research and training.

“I will be working with state regulatory partners and other government agencies at home and abroad to build support for implementation of the produce rule, as well as with industry to help further compliance… I’ll be working to make sure that the people in senior-level management and the field staff, including those conducting foreign inspections, are speaking the same language. – Jim Gorny, FDA

In an interview published on FDA’s website, Gorny discusses his role at FDA, the produce safety rule and how he will be working with industry and key stakeholders, including the farming community.

February 6, 2018

Facial Recognition for Cows? The Future Is Here

By Food Safety Tech Staff

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Facial recognition technology could be the next step in improving efficiency on dairy farms. Cargill is investing in Dublin-based Cainthus, a company that uses machine vision technology and predictive imaging to monitor livestock. In just seconds, Cainthus’ proprietary software’s imaging technology identifies cows by their features and captures their identity by recording specific patterns and movements. In addition to monitoring behavior patterns, the software can track data such as food and water intake, and heat detection.

“Our shared vision is to disrupt and transform how we bring insights and analytics to dairy producers worldwide. Our customers’ ability to make proactive and predictive decisions to improve their farm’s efficiency, enhance animal health and wellbeing, reduce animal loss, and ultimately increase farm profitability are significantly enhanced with this technology.” – SriRaj Kantamneni, managing director for Cargill’s digital insights business

An artificial intelligence driven mathematical algorithm generates analytics that can send farmers an alert to help them make on-site decisions that impact milk production, reproduction management and overall animal health, according to a Cargill press release.

The companies are concentrating on the dairy industry first and plan to expand to swine, poultry and aqua over the coming months.

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