Tag Archives: food & beverage

Jill Ellsworth, Willow Industries
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Modeling Cannabis Safety from Food and Beverage Quality Regulations

By Jill Ellsworth
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Jill Ellsworth, Willow Industries

There’s a reason you can eat or drink pretty much anything you want from American grocery stores and not get sick. Food manufacturing is highly regulated and subject to rigorous quality control.

Before food and beverages hit store shelves, the manufacturer must have a Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point (HACCP) system in place. The HACCP system requires that potential hazards—biological, chemical and physical— be identified and controlled at specific points in the manufacturing process. In addition, fresh foods undergo a kill-step. This is the point in the manufacturing or packaging process where food is treated to minimize and remove deadly pathogens like bacteria, mold, fungus and E. coli.

Generally speaking, when cannabis hits dispensary shelves, a less stringent set of rules apply, despite the fact that cannabis is ingested, inhaled and used as medicine. Cultivators are required to test every batch, but each state differs in what is required for mandated testing. Compared to the way food is regulated, the cannabis industry still has a long way to go when it comes to consumer safety—and that poses a considerable public health risk. In the early stages of legalization, the handful of legal states did not have rigid cannabis testing measures in place, which led to inconsistent safety standards across the country. State governments have had a reactionary approach to updating testing guidelines, by and large implementing stricter standards in response to product recalls and customer safety complaints. While local regulators have had the best intentions in prioritizing consumer safety, it is still difficult to align uniform cannabis testing standards with existing food safety standards while cannabis is a Schedule I substance.

The stark differences in safety measures and quality controls were first obvious to me when I moved from the food and beverage industry into the cannabis industry. For five years, I operated an organic, cold-pressed juice company and a natural beverage distribution company and had to adhere to very strict HACCP guidelines. When a friend asked me for advice on how to get rid of mold on cannabis flower, a light bulb went off: Why was there no kill step in cannabis? And what other food safety procedures were not being followed?

What to know more about all things quality, regulatory and compliance in the cannabis industry? Check out Cannabis Industry Journal and sign up for the weekly newsletterThe current patchwork of regulations and lack of food safety standards could have dire effects. It not only puts consumer health in jeopardy, but without healthy crops, growers, dispensaries and the entire cannabis supply chain can suffer. When a batch of cannabis fails microbial testing, it cannot be sold as raw flower unless it goes through an approved process to eliminate the contamination. This has severe impacts on everyone, starting with the cultivator. There are delays in harvesting and delivery, and sometimes producers are forced to extract their flower into concentrates, which really cuts into profits. And in the worst cases, entire crop harvests may have to be destroyed.

So, what do cannabis cultivators and manufacturers have to fear the most? Mold. Out of all the pathogens, mold is the most problematic for cannabis crops, perhaps because it is so resilient. Mold can withstand extreme heat, leaving many decontamination treatments ineffective. And most importantly, mold can proliferate and continue to grow. This is commonplace when the cannabis is stored for any length of time. Inhaling mold spores can have serious adverse health effects, including respiratory illness, and can even be deadly for immunocompromised consumers using it for medical reasons.

What the industry needs is a true kill step. It’s the only way to kill mold spores and other pathogens to ensure that they will not continue to grow while being stored. States that mandate microbial testing will benefit from the kill step because more cultivators will be in compliance earlier in the process. In states that don’t require comprehensive microbial testing, like Washington and Oregon, the kill step is a critical way to provide consumers with a preemptive layer of protection. Microbial testing and preventative decontamination measures encourage customer brand loyalty and prevents negative press coverage.

Adopting a HACCP system would also build additional safeguards into the system. These procedures provide businesses with a step-by-step system that controls food safety, from ingredients right through to production, storage and distribution, to sale of the product and service for the final consumer. The process of creating HACCP-based procedures provides a roadmap for food safety management that ultimately aligns your staff around the goal of keeping consumers safe.

It’s high time for the cannabis industry to adopt FDA-like standards and proactively promote safety measures. Cannabis growers must implement these quality controls to ensure that their products are as safe to consume as any other food or drink on the market. Let’s be proactive and show our consumers that we are serious about their safety.

Katie Moore, Intelligent Platforms’ Global Industry Manager for Food & Beverage, GE

Big Picture Understanding for Better Food Safety

By Sangita Viswanathan
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Katie Moore, Intelligent Platforms’ Global Industry Manager for Food & Beverage, GE

Having worked in the food & beverage industry as a plant manager, Katie Moore knows just how important food safety is to a company’s brand and profits. As GE Intelligent Platforms’ Global Industry Manager for Food & Beverage, she uses today’s connected technology to help prevent food safety issues and expensive recalls.

Companies want to do the right thing and try to control what is known. They want to mitigate risks when possible. But without a clear and complete line of sight to real-time process data and information, like whether or not your HACCP processes have been followed, correctly, each and every time as stated in your HACCP Plan, how can you truly have peace of mind going to sleep every night? That’s the gap that’s plaguing food companies and managers, says Moore.

Against the backdrop of evolving food safety rules under the Food Safety Modernization Act, Moore sees manufacturers in the food and beverage industry in a wait-and-watch mode.

“Since these rules are still in the process of being finalized, everyone’s waiting to see what the final regulations will look like. This is the right time for manufacturers to educate themselves, and implement new steps and programs to assess and mitigate risk,” she explains. Moore feels larger companies are much better at addressing these changes, because of having greater resources or collaborations with industry associations, while small and medium sized companies are continuing to implement HACCP and GFSI standards, but are a step or two behind their larger counterparts.

There is a lot of risk management going on, and it all begins with HACCP, says Moore. But a gap she’s noticing is a lot of records still being paper-based.

“There is still a lot of work being done on paper. And data is not being transferred automatically. Because of this, there is no way to go back and learn from what’s going on and identify trends and issues. There is truly no electronic capture of data. This lack of learning and understanding of trends and changes is a big gap,” Moore adds.

A lot of recent recalls are due to supplier problems, so everyone focuses on that. Companies are managing the biggest risk, which is their suppliers, and there are a lot of solutions available to manage supplier compliance. “But true value can be realized when this is tied in with your manufacturing processes and specifications. How is the food handled in my line, my tanks and my processing facility…. If companies have this continuous visibility it will contribute to food safety and quality improvements growing by leaps and bounds. And also companies will be able to track and trace throughout the process, and react a lot quicker,” she describes.

Mergers and acquisitions in the F&B space

These days, there is a lot of consolidation happening in the F&B space. Historically, whenever there is a merger of two food companies, there is a challenge to have in place a sound business continuity plan. For instance, Moore asks, if there’s a recall, then how do we react? If there is an issue isolated to one facility, how can we cover our bases and mitigate risks? How can we make sure our customers get our products? From an IT perspective also, there are some challenges that need to be addressed. For instance, what GFSI scheme are we using? Do we merge these two standards and our supporting IT infrastructure, or continue to work with two separate standards? The key in making this decision is to utilize big data analytics to determine which process has been working most efficiently and to factor in the cost of replacing or retrofitting the extremely expensive manufacturing equipment.

According to Moore, F&B managers need tools that can help them improve compliance to food safety, have better visualization and hence greater visibility either on the plant floor or via mobile platforms, have the ability to pull up a wide range of information and share it with people. F&B companies usually handle a wide range of project management systems, typically working on different software from different vendors.

At GE Intelligent Platforms, Moore says, the products ‘talk’ to different systems and data management software to try and address the challenge of collecting, managing and trending large amounts of data.

So are companies embracing technology solutions to better manage food safety and quality? Moore feels that a driving force is lacking.

“Once something happens and FDA has to react, the chips will start to fall. There will be a lot of recourse to technology that will be required, but right now there’s no driving force. Once FDA puts the hammer down on electronic documentation, F&B companies will start to move faster,” she sums up.