Tag Archives: Focus Article

Maria Fontanazza, Douglas Marshall, Food Safety Consortium, Eurofins

Addition of Cascade Analytical Grows Eurofins’ Services for Produce Industry

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Maria Fontanazza, Douglas Marshall, Food Safety Consortium, Eurofins

During an exclusive interview at the 2018 Food Safety Consortium, Douglas Marshall, Ph.D., chief scientific officer at Eurofins, talks about the company’s acquisition of Cascade Analytical, its impact on the produce industry and the expanded services the deal will bring to customers. The lab has been providing services for growers and processors, mainly in fresh fruit and vegetable industries. It also provides soil and water testing, and food and waste material testing. This interview is the first of a two-part discussion with Marshall.

Gisli Herjolfsson, Controlant
FST Soapbox

How Supply Chain Digitalization and Data Helps Prevent Costly Recalls

By Gisli Herjolfsson
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Gisli Herjolfsson, Controlant

Recalls are something that food brands plan for but hope to never experience. They are an important public safety issue, but they also have a significant economic impact as well. At best, a product recall is a benign mistake that causes little more than aggravation and inconvenience for a few angry customers. At worst, the consequences can be tragic, both in terms of human and financial impact.

Industry research conducted by the Food Marketing Institute and Grocery Manufacturers Association places the average cost of a single recall at $10 million. That calculation includes only the direct costs of a recall. For the full, long-term costs, including direct and indirect liabilities, you’d need to further account for the immediate loss in sales, litigation costs, as well as any long-term damage caused from a loss in consumer confidence in your brand.

Consumers’ relationship with food is ever changing. They demand transparency about its contents, origin and safety, and for good reason. The World Health Organization estimates that nearly 1 in 10 people are sickened yearly from eating contaminated food, leading to 420,000 deaths. Consumers have long memories for businesses that poison them. The larger the size of your company and the more attention it receives, the potentially greater impact on your long-term business prospects. With the recent E. coli outbreaks tied to romaine lettuce, food safety is top of mind for consumers, and it is impacting entire market segments.

One of the easiest ways to prevent recalls associated with perishable foods is to ensure that food and beverage products are safely produced and continually kept at the right temperatures. Sounds easy, right? In reality, it is far from it.
Gaining end-to-end supply chain visibility can help you prevent costly recalls altogether. Data that today’s technology provides will be important for mitigating risk and protecting a brand’s reputation.

Get Proactive

The idea of prevention is paramount to FSMA. It’s clear that the FDA expects that once a producer or supplier discovers that something has gone wrong, they go back and figure out exactly what happened so that they can put measures in place to prevent it from happening again.

While current FDA guidelines and various EU safety regulations generally require that food can be tracked one step up and one step down the supply chain, this remains a very siloed approach to traceability and is open to risks—risks that producers, food retailers and restaurant brands cannot afford to take.

For USDA-regulated products, HACCP employs a similar process. Prevention is key, and if your monitoring measures miss an issue that could compromise food safety, you’ll need to go back and determine the root cause of the problem.
A cold food manufacturer can do a lot to control risks under its own roof, but how do you avoid costly recalls with ingredients or with temperature abuse after a product leaves the facility? Regulations or not, knowing where your ingredients and food products come from and being assured of their safety is critical in protecting your brand and company from the financial and reputational damage caused by a food recall.

Looking forward in the supply chain, maintaining the cold chain is necessary for many products, including fresh produce, frozen and deep frozen foods, and also those that must be kept at room temperature but still require temperature control. Even if you and your suppliers are incredibly careful and practice prudent safety measures, you may not have full visibility over who else is handling your products. If temperature mishandling by someone else necessitates a food recall or results in a food safety incident, it is still associated with your brand, even if you weren’t the direct culprit.

For many food retailer and restaurant chains, it is common practice for them to share their internal food safety guidelines with their suppliers and partners, and require that they prove a product’s source of origin, lifespan, how those products are stored and transported from point A to point B, as well as the environmental conditions in which foods are kept. Allowing suppliers and logistics partners to self-manage their supply chain does nothing to proactively ensure that they and a food brand aren’t in the headlines due to a food safety incident.

Digitally Connect the Supply Chain

This is where technology and data can play a critical role in managing your temperature-controlled food and beverage products. More and more food enterprises are utilizing Internet of Things (IoT) technologies that talk to the internet so they can collect supply chain data into dashboards and access it on demand.

IoT can be considered as a central nervous system for the supply chain. Through IoT, you can track shipments or trace temperature, moisture or other factors that can have an impact on food quality. Not only can you discover problems more rapidly with this technology, you can narrow the scope of recall. For businesses transporting temperature-sensitive products, this means they can manage product movement data in real-time and respond to issues before they lead to a food safety incident or product waste.

From a food production standpoint, IoT solutions can substantially reduce recalls from issues like labeling, processing and contamination. One of the primary causes of a food recall is microbiological in nature, with the majority of cases involving fruits and produce. IoT data can help detect issues further upstream in the supply chain and, since products will change hands several times before they reach a consumer, it can give you a complete picture of the product’s lifecycle—something that cannot be done with clipboards and ad hoc or periodic inspections.

Through cloud technology, food businesses can connect their end-to-end supply chain, analyze data, discover trends, illuminate weak points and directly respond to them to improve their overall processes.

Track and Trace Everything

Continuous and consistent tracking and tracing through technology not only simplifies recalls, it helps prevent them altogether. The only thing worse than being faced with a food recall is not knowing which products are affected or where exactly they are located.

Real-time temperature monitoring and product movement traceability technology can give you the confidence that foods are continuously kept at their required temperatures and remain safe for consumption. When you need to track and trace an ingredient or product, time is often of the essence. Delays may mean more resources and efforts are spent in producing something that may be rejected, or worse, recalled, or that the potentially impacted product isn’t isolated in time.

The digital integration of suppliers and other partners is vital if a food enterprise wants to have more control over its cold chain. Consumer demand for social responsibility and ethical business operations means that businesses need to provide greater visibility and transparency into the origins of their products. With today’s supply chains, having data—essentially, a horizontal IT layer that lets people share and access data—removes the barriers of communication among stakeholders.
IoT serves as a tool to remove the barriers to collaboration between food manufacturers, food logistics businesses, restaurant and food retail chains, regulatory agencies, and the end consumer. It increases the transparency of information and helps to deliver better products throughout the food supply chain.

Get Started

Acknowledging that most food companies have limited resources, food brands can still face their efforts only on the suppliers and customers that are of the greatest concern. Often this means looking at the combination of “high-risk product” with “high-risk supplier/partner” and prioritizing that part of the supply chain. This prioritization will help food brands allocate their resources and focus their time and money on the highest risks to their customers and brand. Once they’re able to reap the benefits of a preventive food safety program, they’re better able to justify allocating additional resources to other parts of the cold chain.

While IoT, cloud monitoring and traceability technology has been around for some time, real-time data is now becoming standard. Traditionally, the cost of IoT technology and data infrastructure could be quite expensive. However, different business models like subscription are on the rise, which lower the cost of entry for new prospects and can connect a broader range of products, not only high-value goods.

Although many food brands already have some proactive food safety programs in place, it only takes one incident to lead to a major food recall—even if it isn’t your company’s product—and it can negatively impact your business.
As an industry, food brands need to continue raising the bar in terms of what is considered standard and “best practice” when building an effective, proactive food safety strategy. Utilizing best-in-class technology can ensure the delivery of safe foods to the market, prevent recalls, protect business interests, and most importantly, protect consumers.

Gabriela Lopez, 3M Food Safety
Allergen Alley

Method Acting: Comparing Different Analytical Methods for Allergen Testing and Verification

By Gabriela Lopez-Velasco, Ph.D.
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Gabriela Lopez, 3M Food Safety

Every day, food industries around the world work to comply with the food labeling directives and regulations in place to inform consumers about specific ingredients added to finished products. Of course, special attention has been placed on ensuring that product packaging clearly declares the presence of food allergens including milk, eggs, fish, crustacean shellfish, tree nuts, peanuts, wheat, soy, sesame and mustard. (Additional food allergens may also be included in other regions.)

But labeling only covers the ingredients deliberately added to foods and beverages. In reality, food manufacturers have two jobs when it comes to serving the needs of their allergic consumers:

  1. Fully understand and clearly declare the intentional presence of allergenic foods
  2. Prevent the unintended presence of allergenic foods into their product

Almost half of food recalls are the result of undeclared allergens, and often these at-fault allergens were not only undeclared but unintended. Given such, the unintended presence of allergenic foods is something that must be carefully considered when establishing an allergen control plan for a food processing facility.

How? It starts with a risk assessment process that evaluates the likelihood of unintentionally present allergens that could originate from raw materials, cross-contact contamination in equipment or tools, transport and more. Once the risks are identified, risk management strategies should then be established to control allergens in the processing plant environment.
It is necessary to validate these risk management strategies or procedures in order to demonstrate their effectiveness. After validation, those strategies or procedures should then be periodically verified to show that the allergen control plan in place is continually effective.

In several of these verification procedures it may be necessary to utilize an analytical test to determine the presence or absence of an allergenic food or to quantify its level, if present. Indeed, selecting an appropriate method to assess the presence or the level of an allergenic food is vitally important, as the information provided by the selected method will inform crucial decisions about the safety of an ingredient, equipment or product that is to be released for commercialization.

A cursory review of available methods can be daunting. There are several emerging methods and technologies for this application, including mass spectroscopy, surface plasmon resonance, biosensors and polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Each of these methods have made advancements, and some of them are already commercialized for food testing applications. However, for practical means, we will discuss those methods that are most commonly used in the food industry.

In general, there are two types of analytical methods used to determine the presence of allergenic foods: Specific and non-specific methods.

Specific tests

Specific methods can detect target proteins in foods that contain the allergenic portion of the food sample. These include immunoassays, in which specific antibodies can recognize and bind to target proteins. The format of these assays can be quantitative, such as an enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) that may help determine the concentration of target proteins in a food sample. Or they can be qualitative, such as a lateral flow device, which within a few minutes and with minimum sample preparation can display whether a target protein is or is not present. (Note: Some commercial formats of ELISA are also designed to obtain a qualitative result.)

To date, ELISA assays have become a method of choice for detection and quantification of proteins from food allergens by regulatory entities and inspection agencies. For the food industry, ELISA can also be used to test raw ingredients and final food products. In addition, ELISA is a valuable analytical tool to determine the concentration of proteins from allergenic foods during a cleaning validation process, as some commercial assay suppliers offer methods to determine the concentration of target proteins from swabs utilized to collect environmental samples, clean-in-place (CIP) final rinse water or purge materials utilized during dry cleaning.

ELISA methods often require the use of laboratory equipment and technical skills to be implemented. Rapid-specific methods such as immunoassays with a lateral flow format also allow detection of target specific proteins. Given their minimal sample preparation and short time-to-result, they are valuable tools for cleaning validation and routine cleaning verification, with the advantage of having a similar sensitivity to the lowest limit of quantification of an ELISA assay.

The use of a specific rapid immunoassay provides a presence/absence result that determines whether equipment, surfaces or utensils have been cleaned to a point where proteins from allergenic foods are indiscernible at a certain limit of detection. Thus, equipment can be used to process a product that should not contain a food allergen. Some commercial rapid immunoassays offer protocols to use this type of test in raw materials and final product. This allows food producers to analyze foods and ingredients for the absence of a food allergen with minimum laboratory infrastructure and enables in-house testing of this type of sample. This feature may be a useful rapid verification tool to analyze final product that has been processed shortly after the first production run following an equipment cleaning.

Non-Specific Tests

While non-specific testing isn’t typically the best option for a cleaning validation study, these tests may be used for routine cleaning verification. Examples of non-specific tests include total protein or ATP tests.

Tests that determine total protein are often based on a colorimetric reaction. For example, commercial products utilize a swab format that, after being used to survey a defined area, is placed in a solution that will result in a color change if protein is detected. The rationale is that if protein is not detected, it may be assumed that proteins from allergenic foods were removed during cleaning. However, when total protein is utilized for routine verification, it is important to consider that the sensitivity of protein swabs may differ from the sensitivity of specific immunoassays. Consequently, highly sensitive protein swabs should be selected when feasible.

ATP swab tests are also commonly utilized by the food industry as a non-specific tool for hygiene monitoring and cleaning verification. However, the correlation between ATP and protein is not always consistent. Because the ATP present in living somatic cells varies with the food type, ATP should not be considered as a direct marker to assess the removal of allergenic food residues after cleaning. Instead, an analytical test designed for the detection of proteins should be used alongside ATP swabs to assess hygiene and to assess removal of allergenic foods.

Factors for Using One Test Versus Another

For routine testing, the choice of using a specific or a non-specific analytical method will depend on various factors including the type of product, the number of allergenic ingredients utilized for one production line, whether a quantitative result is required for a particular sample or final product, and, possibly, the budget that is available for testing. In any case, it is important that when performing a cleaning validation study, the method used for routine testing also be included to demonstrate that it will effectively reflect the presence of an allergenic food residue.

Specific rapid methods for verification are preferable because they enable direct monitoring of the undesirable presence of allergenic foods. For example, they can be utilized in conjunction with a non-specific protein swab and, based on the sampling plan, specific tests can then be used periodically (weekly) for sites identified as high-risk because they may be harder to clean than other surfaces. In addition, non-specific protein swabs can be used after every production changeover for all sites previously defined in a sampling plan. These and any other scenarios should be discussed while developing an allergen control plan, and the advantages and risks of selecting any method(s) should be evaluated.

As with all analytical methods, commercial suppliers will perform validation of the methods they offer to ensure the method is suitable for testing a particular analyte. However, given the great diversity of food products, different sanitizers and chemicals used in the food industry, and the various processes to which a food is subjected during manufacturing, it is unlikely that commercial methods have been exhaustively tested. Thus, it is always important to ensure that the method is fit-for-purpose and to verify that it will recover or detect the allergen residues of interest at a defined level.

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Notable Outbreaks and Recalls of 2018

By Maria Fontanazza
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As stated by CDC’s John Besser, Ph.D. last month at the Food Safety Consortium, “It’s been quite a year for outbreaks.” Here’s a not-so-fond look back at some of the noteworthy outbreaks and recalls of 2018.

Romaine Lettuce –E.coli O157:H7

2018 was not a good year for romaine lettuce. In the spring, a deadly multistate outbreak of E.coli O157:H7 was linked to romaine lettuce that came from the Yuma, Arizona growing region. “We knew right away that this was going to get bad and that it would get bad quickly,” said Matthew Wise, deputy branch chief for outbreak response at the Outbreak Response and Prevention Branch of the CDC at the 2018 Food Safety Consortium. Although the CDC declared the outbreak over at the end of June, the total number of illnesses had reached 210, with five deaths.

Then in November it was revealed that contaminated lettuce was coming from growing regions in northern and central California. According to the latest update from FDA, there have been 59 reported illnesses, with 23 hospitalizations, across 16 states. No deaths have been reported. Earlier this month Adam Bros Farming, Inc. recalled red leaf lettuce, green leaf lettuce and cauliflower, because it may have come into contact with water from the reservoir where the E. coli outbreak strain was found.

Raw Beef Products – Salmonella

At the beginning of the month, JBS Tolleson, Inc. expanded a recall of its non-intact raw beef products due to concerns of contamination with Salmonella Newport. More than 12 million pounds of product have been recalled. The latest CDC update put the reported case count at 333, with 91 hospitalizations across 28 states.

Shell Eggs – Salmonella

In April, Rose Acre Farms recalled more than 206 million eggs after FDA testing determined that eggs produced from the company’s farm were connected to 22 cases of Salmonella Braenderup infections. A total of 45 cases were reported across 10 states, with 11 hospitalizations, according to the CDC.

Pre-cut Melon – Salmonella

In June Caito Foods recalled its pre-cut melon products after a multi-state outbreak of Salmonella Adelaide infections were traced back to the products. A total of 77 cases across nine states, with 36 hospitalizations, were reported.

Vegetable Trays – Cyclospora

In July, Del Monte recalled its vegetable trays that contained broccoli, cauliflower, carrots and dill dip following confirmed cases of cyclosporiasis in people who consumed the products. The CDC declared the outbreak over in September, with a final case count at 250 people across four states.

Salad Mix – Cyclospora

Fresh Express salad mix served at McDonalds was linked to a multistate outbreak of cyclosporiasus. The outbreak was declared over in September, with the final illness count at 511, and 24 hospitalizations.

Raw Turkey – Salmonella

Just before Thanksgiving an outbreak of Salmonella linked to raw turkey products was announced. Jennie-O Turkey Store Sales recalled more than 255,000 pounds of raw ground turkey products, however the CDC has not identified a single, common supplier that can account for this outbreak. As of the agency’s latest update on December 21, 216 cases have been reported across 38 states. The outbreak is responsible for 84 hospitalizations and one death.

Honey Smacks Cereal – Salmonella

The early summer outbreak of Salmonella Mbandaka linked to Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal got a lot of press, and it didn’t help that even though the company recalled the product, many retailers continued to keep the cereal on their shelves. The last illness onset was reported at the end of August. A total of 135 people were reported ill, with 34 hospitalizations.

Duncan Hines Cake Mix – Salmonella

The company recalled four varieties of its cake mixes after a retail sample tested positive for Salmonella Agbeni.

Johnston County Hams – Listeria monocytogenes

The company recalled more than 89,000 pounds of RTE deli loaf ham products over concerns of adulteration with Listeria monocytogenes.

Other outbreaks involving Salmonella this year included dried and frozen coconut, pasta salad, chicken salad and raw sprouts.

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Food Safety Tech’s Best of 2018

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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The end of the year is always a time of reflection. At Food Safety Tech, it is also a time when we like to share with you, our readers, the most popular articles over the last 12 months. Enjoy, and thank you to our loyal and new readers, as well as our contributors!

10. Three Practices for Supply Chain Management in the Food Industry

By Kevin Hill, Quality Scales Unlimited

9. Food Investigations: Microanalytical Methods Find Foreign Matter in Granular Food Products

By Mary Stellmack, McCrone Associates, Inc,

8. Stephen Ostroff to Retire from FDA, Walmart’s Frank Yiannas to Take the Reins

By Food Safety Tech Staff

7. FDA Inspections: Top Five Violations for FY2017

By Food Safety Tech Staff

6. Is There Any End in Sight for the E.Coli Outbreak in Romaine Lettuce?

By Food Safety Tech Staff

5. CDC Alert: Do Not Eat Romaine Lettuce, Throw It Out

By Food Safety Tech Staff

4. Five Tips to Add Food Fraud Prevention To Your Food Defense Program

By Melody Ge, Kestrel Management

3. 5 Problems Facing the Global Supply Chain

By Sean Crossey, arc-net

2. FDA: 172 Ill, 1 Death, Romaine Lettuce E. Coli Outbreak Likely Over

By Food Safety Tech Staff

1. Romaine Lettuce Outbreak: We Knew It Would Get Bad Quickly

By Maria Fontanazza, Food Safety Tech

2018

The Future of Food Safety: A Year in Review

By Mahni Ghorashi
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2018

We started this Q&A series earlier this year with a clear vision—to gather the success stories, best practices, hurdles and achievements from the best in our industry. Our hope is that as the series expands and evolves, food safety professionals everywhere will be informed and inspired by what the future holds.

Over the course of the year, I had the pleasure of interviewing three such experts: Bob Baker, corporate food safety science and capability director at Mars, Inc, Frank Yiannas, vice president of food safety at Walmart, and Mike Robach, vice president, corporate food safety, quality & regulatory for Cargill.

I encourage you to read the interviews for their unique perspectives, but here are a few of the biggest insights that we can all take with us into 2019.

The Continued Rise of New Technologies

Mike Robach: I am very excited about the application of new technology to our food safety programs. In-line, real-time testing gives an opportunity to manage our processes and make immediate adjustments to assure process control. This allows us to prevent product that is out of control from reaching the marketplace.

Frank Yiannas: The emergence of blockchain technology has also enabled food system stakeholders to imagine being able to have full end-to-end traceability at the speed of thought. The ongoing U.S.-wide romaine lettuce E.coli outbreak showed us, once again, that our traditional paper-based food tracking system is no longer adequate for the 21st century. An ability to deliver accurate, real-time information about food, how it’s produced, and how it flows from farm to table is a game-changer for food safety.

Blockchain has the potential to shine a light on all actors in the food system. This enhanced transparency will result in greater accountability, and greater accountability will cause the food system to self-regulate and comply with the safe and sustainable practices that we all desire.

The Most Exciting Shifts

Baker: What’s encouraging is we’re seeing is a willingness to share information. At Mars we often bring together world experts from across the globe to focus on food safety challenges. We continue to see great levels of knowledge sharing and collaboration.

There are also new tools and new technologies being developed and applied. Something we’re excited about is a trial of portable ‘in-field’ DNA sequencing technology on one of our production lines in China. This is an approach that could, with automated sampling, reduce test times.

Yiannas: While there is no doubt that there are numerous new and emerging challenges in food safety, the many advancements being made should give us hope that we can create a safer, more efficient and sustainable food system.

There is progress being made on many fronts: Whole genome sequencing is becoming more accessible; new tools are being developed for fraud detection; and FSMA is introducing stringent public-health surveillance measures that have dramatic implications for U.S. retailers and suppliers and our import partners.

Most importantly, consumers are now overwhelmingly interested in transparency. People today are further removed from how food is grown, produced and transported than at any other time in human history. Plus, they increasingly mistrust food and food companies due to the food outbreaks and scares we have faced in recent years.

Recalls and the Role of Regulation

Robach: I think FSMA implementation is going okay right now. There’s still a long way to go, and I am always concerned about making sure investigators are applying the rules and regulations in a consistent manner. I see the intentional adulteration rule as an upcoming challenge. It is one thing to conduct a vulnerability assessment and adjust your programs based on the results. It’s another to develop and implement a program that will prevent intentional adulteration as you would to reduce or prevent microbiological contamination.

I believe that food safety management programs are constantly improving and that our food is as safe as it has ever been. However, we still have a lot of work to do. At GFSI, we are continually improving our benchmarking requirements and increasing transparency in the process. We have better public health reporting and our ever-improving analytical technology allows us to detect contaminants at lower and lower levels. The industry is working collaboratively to share best practices and promote harmonized food safety management systems throughout the supply chain.

Baker: At Mars, quality is our first principle and we take it seriously—if we believe that a recall needs to be made in order to ensure the safety of our consumers, then we will do it. We also share lessons from recalls across our business to ensure that we learn from every experience.

Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a safe place for businesses to share such insights with each other. So although we are seeing more collaboration in the field of food safety generally, critical knowledge and experience from recalls is not being shared more broadly, which may be having an impact.

Looking Ahead

Baker: The food safety challenges facing us all are complex and evolving. Water and environmental contaminants are areas that industry and regulators are also looking at, but all of these challenges will take time to address. It’s about capturing and ensuring visibility to the right insights and prioritizing key challenges that we can tackle together through collaboration and knowledge sharing.

…

We’re looking forward to continuing our quest in the new year and already have a few exciting experts lined up. Stay tuned!

Chelle Hartzer, Orkin
Bug Bytes

Filthy Flies Can Put Your Operations at Risk

By Chelle Hartzer
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Chelle Hartzer, Orkin

When we think about dirty pests, cockroaches are usually the first to come to mind. But while the conditions they thrive in are disgusting, flies breed and feed in the filthiest areas. Their lifestyle means their bodies can be covered in dangerous, potentially disease-inducing pathogens, which can be spread anytime they land on a surface or their body comes into contact with something.

House flies are born as maggots, emerging into their larval stage from tiny eggs laid anywhere decaying organic matter can be found. After splashing about in the grime and decay and consuming just about anything they can find, the larvae leave their food source and crawl around seeking out cool, dry, protected places. A shell forms around the pupae, where they remain for a brief time before turning into adults. This entire process takes less than two weeks from egg to breeding adult. Once they’re adults, house flies take off in search of more decaying organic matter and moisture to lay their eggs in and continue the processes.

Essentially, a house fly spends its entire life cycle either crawling around in filth or flying around to find new sources of filth. Add in the fact that they reproduce rapidly, and it’s easy to see why they’re a food safety threat. But they’re not the only species of fly that plagues food processing facilities, as fruit flies and moth flies are two other incredibly common fly species that love to make food processing facilities a new home.

To prevent flies, the first step is to take a close look at your current integrated pest management (IPM) program and ensure your program focuses on taking a proactive approach to mitigating pest issues. But before discussing the specifics of how to protect a facility from these fly invaders, it is important to know how and why they get into a facility in the first place. Each species has slightly different locations where they’re likely to be found, which should be monitored closely to ensure they don’t become hot spots.

Let’s look at the three most common fly species most likely to plague a food processing facility:

House Flies

House flies are persistent and active. Each time they pause to rest on floors, walls or ceilings, remember they’re potentially dropping off disease-causing pathogens. House flies are known to transfer more than 100 pathogens resulting in ailments like typhoid, tuberculosis, cholera and dysentery. They’ll feed on any moist human food, animal food, garbage, carcasses and just about any other wet or damp organic material. Flies detect a food source and hone in on it, which is why they’ll be looking for a chance to invade your food processing facility.

Moth Flies

Although moth flies feed on organic matter and sewage, they’re found in moist areas coated with nutrient-laden organic material. They are sometimes called drain flies because (you guessed it) they are often found in drains. They love the buildup that sticks around the pipes, and once they start reproducing, they can be a nuisance to eliminate. Usually, you’ll never see drain fly eggs and larvae because they drop irregular masses of egg sacs that hatch into larvae, which then live in the gelatinous film inside drains. From there, they mature into pupae and then flying adults, which is when you’ll start to notice them. This is why regular drain cleaning, with a foaming cleaner, is important in controlling these fly issues.

Fruit Flies

Like drain flies, fruit flies are named aptly. They’re most attracted to rotting or decaying fruit and vegetables, but they also enjoy fermented items like beer, liquor and wine. Aside from the products themselves, fruit flies may also breed and develop in drains, garbage disposals, trash cans and even mop buckets. Fruit flies are also known for being a major risk to contaminate food with bacteria and other pathogens. If there is food waste present, fruit flies want to be there. Finding their source and eliminating it is especially important for successful control.

Now, the most important strategy for preventing flies—and most pests in general—is to implement a robust sanitation plan. Flies are looking for food and water to survive, so any source of organic matter or moisture is going to be likely to attract them. And once they’re inside, flies are likely to stay there. Most won’t travel more than a few hundred feet from the spot they were born in their entire lifetime. While small flies are more likely to be found breeding inside facilities, large flies are likely to be breeding outside and flying inside structures.

Consider these tips, as they can help you keep flies and other pest threats away:

  • Make sanitation a priority. Sanitation is one of the most important ways to help reduce pests. Flies love any damp organic matter they can find, so clean up messes as soon as they occur. And don’t forget to take out the trash on a regular basis. That means at least daily. Don’t miss cleaning the insides of trash bins, liners often leak and a buildup of material can be present underneath them.
  • Swap outdoor lighting. Use outdoor sodium-vapor lights, especially near entrances/exits to the inside of your facility. Lights can be placed away from the building to draw flies away and reduce populations at the same time. Ensure that inside lights don’t shine out at night and attract night flying insects and flies in.
  • Install automatic doors. Automatic doors give flying pests a smaller window of opportunity to get indoors by reducing the amount of time that doors remain open. For greater effectiveness, install two sets of automatic doors that only open once the other is closed to create a vestibule. Installing air curtains behind these doors can also help block pests from finding a way inside. Air curtains alone aren’t perfect, but they can help some.
  • Inspect loading and unloading areas. Shipment areas are a prime location for flying pests to wander in. Make sure all doors form a tight seal when shut and are not allowed to stay open for extended periods of time.
  • Seal cracks and crevices. Just about any gap, no matter how small, can be big enough for flies to find a way inside. Door sweeps and weather stripping can be installed to minimize these gaps. You can also use weather-resistant caulk to seal gaps on the exterior of your building, although this will likely take some time and a team effort at larger facilities.
  • Clean drains on a regular basis. Even if you don’t have a lot of “wet” processing, all drains, including break room, restroom, and locker room drains need to be cleaned. Small flies can develop in as little as seven days, so weekly cleaning is a must.

Implement these sanitation and exclusion efforts as part of your ongoing IPM program. With flies, sanitation cannot be stressed enough. They are living and breeding in conditions that need to be cleaned up, inside and outside. As with any pest issues, it is important to contact a pest management professional if it seems things are getting out of hand. If you’re seeing flies daily inside the building, that’s probably a good sign that your products may be at risk!

Deirdre Schlunegger, Stop Foodborne Illness
Food Safety Culture Club

With Retirement in 2019, A Farewell from Deirdre Schlunegger

By Deirdre Schlunegger
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Deirdre Schlunegger, Stop Foodborne Illness

It is hard to believe that nearly nine years have passed since I joined Stop Foodborne Illness to lead the organization. I will be retiring at the end of May 2019, and many memories will journey with me for the rest of my days on planet earth. I have learned so much through constituents, colleagues and new-found friends. It is so humbling and such a deep honor to serve our constituents. I hold deep gratitude for the individuals and families who give so much during their time of grief while working to improve food safety; they give so freely of their time to share their stories to make a difference for others. It is only for their stories and their sharing that the organization exists. Engaging with food safety professionals throughout the food industry in an effort to improve food safety has been gratifying, and working alongside food safety advocates and consumer groups has been humbling. The staff members at Stop Foodborne Illness are relentless in their commitment and hard work, and they will be remembered. I hope that we leave a mark, a legacy that moved the needle in some small way towards the improvement of food safety. And I hope that the momentum will continue, that there will be people who will not be sick because of the work that has been done under my leadership alongside others, and that the needle will continue to advance forward so that others don’t have to experience the intense and deep pain that comes from being ill or watching a loved one suffer.

I would like to thank Stop’s Board of Directors, who have spent countless hours devoting their time and efforts in their commitment public awareness.

Thank you to everyone who has served as a guide, mentor and friend over the years. You will be remembered. Thanks for all that you do to advance food safety!

Editor’s Note: We would like to that Deirdre for her contributions to Food Safety Tech over the years in the Food Safety Culture column and for her service to the industry. We wish her the best of luck! Deirdre’s cause will continue, as the publication will continue to welcome contributors to this special column.

Food Safety Tech

Call for Abstracts: Be a Part of the 2019 Food Safety Supply Chain Conference

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Food Safety Tech

The supply chain is a potentially weak and vulnerable part of a company’s food safety plan. The annual Food Safety Supply Chain Conference is months away and we are accepting abstracts for presentations. The conference takes place May 29–30, 2019 in Rockville, MD.

If you have expertise in the following areas, we invite you to submit an abstract to present at the conference:

  • Food Safety Supply Chain Vulnerabilities & Solutions
  • Audits & Inspections
  • How to Write Supplier Specifications
  • Blockchain Technology
  • FSMA’s Sanitary Transportation Compliance Tools & Techniques
  • Supply Chain Traceability
  • FSMA’s FSVP Compliance Tools & Best Practices
  • Data, Predictive Analysis
  • Recalls: barcode labeling, case histories and lessons learned
  • Testing Strategies of the Supply Chain
  • Supplier Verification Best Practices
  • Supply Chain Risk Management
  • Food Safety Transportation, Distribution and Logistics
  • Food Authenticity
  • Food Safety/Quality Culture measurement in supplier management
  • Supplier Management Case Histories

Each abstract will be judged based on educational merit. The submission deadline is February 8, 2019.

Shawna Wagner, DNV GL
FST Soapbox

Did You Write “NONE” for Biological, Chemical and Physical Hazards in Your HACCP Plan?

By Shawna Wagner
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Shawna Wagner, DNV GL

Ok, ok I know what you are thinking, another article about HACCP. You have been HACCP certified since 1999 and doing this for years—why read this article? That golden sticker on your certificate does not last forever. Industry has changed, approaches to food safety have changed, and your HACCP plan should have evolved. Did it?

Biological, chemical, physical, biological, chemical, and physical hazards. If you are any part of the quality assurance or HACCP team, you can recite this in your sleep. Do you recite economical and radiological hazards? These are one of the most commonly missed items in a plant’s HACCP plan that I have witnessed when auditing. This, of course, applies only to plants that must comply with FSMA, but does it truly hurt to think about including it in all plants? I mean, we are all in this for food safety, right?!

In speaking about radiological hazards, most of the time I will have site management tell me that I am not by a power plant so there are not hazards to my operations. If you are a producer of vegetables and fruits, or a plant receiving these kinds of ingredients, water and even soil can be a home to radioactive hazards! Radioactive minerals are naturally occurring and unless you know where to start, items such as Cadmium may sneak up on you in unacceptable levels. Economical hazards are, in my opinion, a bit easier to research. When looking at economical hazards, we are basically trying to prevent intentional contamination to gain or profit. In more common terms, this is often referred to as food fraud. Olive oil, fish, and even spices have been known to be the victims of food fraud. There are plenty of informational sites out there to help get you started on writing your hazard analysis for food fraud, however some I have found you do have to pay for.

Another common non-conformance that I see missing in HACCP audits is what I would call inputs and outputs to the HACCP flow chart. Inputs are: Water, compressed air, ice and even steam. Outputs are: Waste, animal feed or by-products. This is not an all-inclusive list, but certainly these examples could bring a new level of hazards to your facility, especially if you did not include them in your hazard analysis. Even worse, if you did include them but decided to write in your hazard analysis that word…dare I even say it… “NONE”: You wrote “none” for biological, chemical, and physical hazards. More than likely you have a pre-requisite program, letter of guarantee, or something that controls these hazards, and you absolutely want to include these in your HACCP plan. Give yourself credit! Auditors and customers alike truly want to see that you have documented and given thought to each of your processing steps. Make sure you take that HACCP flow chart and walk around your facility to ensure you have captured the needed information that will give you the best chance of catching items that can be missed. The plan is only as strong as the time you put into it, which leads me to my next point: Your HACCP or Food Safety Team.

The notorious HACCP team. You have one, the head of the team is the QA manager, and you have team members to cover the multi-disciplinary basis. So, what’s the problem? Well, maybe none, but remember the comment about the golden sticker on your certificate? It’s the same thought process here. Your team must be continually updated and educated to keep up with the ever-changing world of food. That 1999 HACCP certificate is no longer valid in the eyes of some customers. I have seen many customers requiring that HACCP be retrained every five years. For the sites that must follow FSMA rules and regulations, have you completed your Preventative Controls Qualified Individual training? You should have, and who is their backup? It takes much planning and money to make this happen, but it is all a crucial step in maintaining food safety and your HACCP plan.

We all know that our programs and processes are not good for forever and that change is inevitable. There are always avenues for gathering information and accessing it. You must be willing to go out and get the resources that will place an upgrade on your food safety management system, as waiting for it can sometimes cause gaps and non-conformities. The big question is: Did you put in the hours?