Tag Archives: risk mitigation

Food Safety Consortium 2023
From the Editor’s Desk

Tackling Today’s Greatest Food Safety Challenges:  The 2023 Food Safety Consortium

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Food Safety Consortium 2023

Food safety and quality professionals can take advantage of three days of education, networking and panel discussions at the 11th Annual Food Safety Consortium, October 16-18 in Parsippany, New Jersey. This year’s event is co-located with the Cannabis Quality Conference and Food Defense Consortium.

In-person and virtual registration options available

Erik Mettler and Sandra Eskin

Keynote Speakers: Erik P. Mettler, MPA, MPH, Assistant Commissioner for Partnerships and Policy, Office of Partnerships and Operational Policy, Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) at FDA, and Sandra Eskin, Deputy Undersecretary Food Safety, USDA, Food Safety & Inspection Service.

Following the keynote presentations, attendees can take part in a Town Hall Q&A with Mettler and Eskin, followed by a panel discussion on Modernizing the U.S. Food Safety System, featuring Stephen Ostroff. Former FDA Commissioner, Barbara Kowalcyk, Executive Director of the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention, and Bill Marler, Attorney with Food Safety Law Firm Marler Clark.

This year’s program includes four pre-conference workshops, taking place on Monday, October 16:

  • Food Safety Culture Design Workshop
  • CP-FS Credential Review Course
  • Food Safety Auditor Training
  • The Seed to Sale Safety Workshop

Days two and three feature panel discussions covering food safety culture, supply chain, recall patterns and succession planning, as well as breakout sessions on prevention, mitigation, control and regulation of key food safety hazards. Session highlights include:

Re-Imagining Food Protection as a National Security Issue – DHS Perspective, Presented by Mark Wittrock, Assistant Director – Health, Food, and Agriculture Resilience Office of Health Security, U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

The Rise of Previously Unforeseen Hazards, Presented by Tim Lombardo, EAS Consulting

Food Safety Supply Chain Management, Presented by Celso Pagutalan, ASR Group

Succession Planning for Food Safety Inspectors, Panelists: Gina Nicholson Kramer, April Bishop of TreeHouse Foods, Barbara Kowalcyk, Executive Director of the Center for Foodborne Illness Research and Prevention, Erik P. Mettler, MPA, MPH, Assistant Commissioner for Partnerships and Policy, Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) at FDA, Rance Baker of NEHA, and Jorge Hernandez of Wendy’s

Food Safety Culture: Creating a “Speak Up Culture,” Presented by Austin Welch, Sage Media

Risk Mitigation through Assessment, Testing, Monitoring and Compliance, Presented by Dr. Sandra Johnson, SGS North America

Recalls Trends, Regulation and Lessons Learned, Panelists: Erik P. Mettler, MPA, MPH, Assistant Commissioner for Partnerships and Policy, Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) at FDA, Shawn Stevens, attorney with the Food Industry Counsel, and Stephen Ostroff, M.D. former Acting FDA Commissioner.

Food Allergen Advisory Labeling, Presented by Dr. Steven Gendel

View the full agenda.

Don’t miss out on opportunities to network with other food safety and quality professionals during the opening night reception, networking lunches and coffee breaks.

Registration options are available for in-person and hybrid team attendance.

Event Hours

  • Monday, October 16: 8:30 am – 5:00 pm (ET)
  • Tuesday, October 17: 9:00 am – 6:30 pm (ET)
  • Wednesday, October 18: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm (ET)

 

Different types of food

FDA, USDA and DHS Release Review on Emergent Risks Facing U.S. Food and Agriculture

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Different types of food

The U.S. Food and Agriculture (FA) sector is facing significant risks that require improved communication and collaboration between industry and government agencies. On July 13, the FDA, USDA and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the 120 Day Food and Agriculture Interim Risk Review, which provides a review of critical and emergent risks to the FA sector, as well initial mitigation strategies, factors contributing to risk and proposed actions to address risks.

Risks identified in the review include:

Chemical, Biological, Radiological, & Nuclear (CBRN) Threats. CBRN threats are defined as “hazardous contaminants such as poisonous agents including toxic industrial compounds and materials, toxins, and chemical agents and precursors; natural or genetically engineered pests and pathogens of livestock, poultry, fish, shellfish, wildlife, plants, and insects; and physical effects of nuclear detonations or dispersion of radioactive materials.”

Initial Mitigation Strategies: Prevention of CBRN incidents may be achieved through expanding and enhancing existing physical security and administrative controls, including many food defense mitigation strategies, such as control of entry systems at critical points in production, processing, storage, and transportation, surveillance of critical points, pre-employment screening, and clear marking of employees who are authorized to be at critical points.

Cyber Threats. While these are not new risks, the review notes that as the food industry increases its dependence upon technology, including the move toward automation, precision farming and digital agriculture, the likelihood and severity of a crippling cyberattack increases.

Initial Mitigation Strategies: Some FA sector entities have assessed and mitigated cybersecurity vulnerabilities through entity-specific action, using and applying the National Institute of Standards and Technology Cybersecurity Framework or other actions. Future activities should include the reviewing and securing of interconnectivities between systems. To do this, all FA sector entities, both public and private, must improve their understanding of cyber threats and vulnerabilities and reduce their gaps in protection. Future efforts in cybersecurity in the FA sector should prioritize the sharing of information about cyberattacks, research into cybertheft of food and agriculture intellectual property, FA sector dependency on the energy sector and interdependencies within the FA supply chain. The review also highlights the need for funding for a program to assist small and medium size facilities to increase implementation of effective cyber security mitigations.

Climate Change: Natural disasters and extreme weather events, limited water resources, loss of pollinators and pollinator services, and increased exposure potential to pests and pathogens are among the threats to future agricultural productivity which may be exacerbated by climate change.

Initial Mitigation Strategies: Research on environmental hazards and degradation within the FA sector should include water use, irrigation system improvements, dryland management practices, and crop system utilization. Similarly, research targeting pollinator habitat, how climate change affects pollinators, pollinator forage, and pollination rates as it pertains to crop yield, and current and emerging pests and pathogens that negatively impact the optimal health outcomes of people, animals, plants, and their shared environments to include the health of pollinators is vital to long-term crop sustainability and food security. The use of improved monitoring systems, predictive modeling to inform surveillance, early warning systems, and better control options can help reduce the risk of pest and disease agricultural damage due to climate change.

Potential Factors Contributing to Risk

A “potential factor contributing to risk” is defined in the review “as features or operational attributes that render an entity open to exploitation or susceptible to a given hazard.” These include:

  • Food and Agriculture Industry Consolidation
  • Input Shortages, including labor, energy, IT/data, and consumables.
  • Aging and Insufficient Transportation Infrastructure
  • Trade Disruptions
  • Foreign Acquisition
  • Gaps in Preparedness

Proposed Actions

The FDA, USDA and DHS developed a timeline of proposed actions, which includes short-, mid- and long-terms strategies to enhance strategic planning, understanding of FA sector risks, and information sharing and engagement. Next steps include:

Threat Assessment: Identify potential actors and threats, delivery systems, and methods that could be directed against or affect the FA sector. (60 days and annually thereafter)

120-Day FA Risk Review: Identify risks to the FA sector from all hazards, identify activities to mitigate risks categorized as high-consequence and catastrophic, identify steps to improve coordination and integration across the FA sector, inform ongoing development of the Federal Risk Mitigation Strategy. (120 days)

Vulnerability Assessments: Identify vulnerabilities within the FA sector in consultation with state, local, tribal, and territorial (FSLTT) agencies and private sector partners. (180 days)

Risk Assessment: Prioritize by the highest risks for the FA sector, implement benchmarking off of results generated from the CBRN Strategic Risk Assessment Summary. The first draft would focus on CBRN and cyber threats with later iterations to include other threats (e.g., energy disruption, pandemics, catastrophic weather events, consequences of climate change). (365 days)

Risk Mitigation Analysis: This will include high-level actions for mitigating threats, a proposed timeline for their completion and a plan for sharing information. The analysis will identify strategies, capabilities, and areas of research and development that prioritize mitigation of the greatest risks as described in the risk assessment, and include approaches to determine the effectiveness of national risk reduction measures. (545 days)

A Unifying Food and Agriculture Community Architecture

Recognizing the need for improved coordination and communication, and an over-arching framework to direct and maintain a consistent

approach to preparedness and response to high-consequence and catastrophic incidents within the FA sector, the review also includes a proposed “Food and Agriculture Resilience Architecture.”

The proposed Architecture represents an “integrated, whole-of-community and whole-of-government system of stakeholders and capabilities” approach to strengthening the readiness and resilience of FA sector.

 

 

Food Safety Consortium 2023
From the Editor’s Desk

Registration Open for the 2023 Food Safety Consortium

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Food Safety Consortium 2023

Registration for the 11th Annual Food Safety Consortium, which will take place October 16-18 at the Hilton Parsippany in New Jersey, is now open.

Presented by Food Safety Tech, the Food Safety Consortium is a business-to-business conference that brings together food safety and quality assurance professionals for education, networking and discussion geared toward solving the key challenges facing the food safety industry today.

In addition to two full days of high-level panel discussions, this year’s program will include a second Food Safety Hazards track. These “Boots on the Ground” sessions provide education on the detection, mitigation, control and regulation of key food hazards.

New this year is a strategic co-location with the Cannabis Quality Conference (CQC), a business-to-business conference and expo where cannabis industry leaders and stakeholders meet to build the future of the cannabis marketplace. Registered attendees get full access to both conferences.

Registration options are available for in-person and virtual attendance.

The Consortium will kick off with presentations from Erik Mettler, Assistant Commissioner for Partnerships and Policy in the FDA’s Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA), and Sandra Eskin, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety at the USDA FSIS, followed by a Town Hall with the regulators.

Other agenda highlights include:

  • The Future of Food Safety Culture
  • The Rise of Previously Unforeseen Hazards,
  • FSMA 204: The Final Rule – Looking Ahead,
  • Anti-Food Fraud Tactics for the Entire Supply Chain
  • Bridging the gap between food safety and cybersecurity
    Protecting Allergic Consumers through Audited and Validated Allergen Control Plans
  • Succession Planning for Food Safety Inspectors
    Utilizing Food Quality Plans to Ignite Positive Food Safety Culture
  • Recalls Trends and Predictions

View the full agenda and register here.

Attendees will also have the opportunity to take part in pre-conference workshops on Monday, October 16, including:

  • Food Safety Auditor Training
  • CP-FS Credential Review Course
  • The Food Safety Culture Design Workshop
  • The Seed to Sale Safety Workshop

Event Hours

Monday, October 16: 8:30 am – 5:00 pm (Pre-conference Workshops)

Tuesday, October 17: 8 am – 6:30 pm

Wednesday, October 18: 8:30 am – 3:45 pm

Register now

Tabletop exhibits and custom sponsorship packages are available. Contact Sales Director RJ Palermo.

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.

About the Food Safety Consortium

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 its educational content. With a unique focus on science, technology and compliance, the “Consortium” enables attendees to engage in conversations that are critical for advancing careers and organizations alike. Delegates visit with exhibitors to learn about cutting-edge solutions, explore high-level educational tracks, and network with industry executives to find solutions to improve quality, efficiency and cost effectiveness in the evolving food industry.

 

George Gansner

Now is the Time to Reassess the Food Industry’s Approach to Managing Risk

By George Gansner
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George Gansner

The food industry is under intense scrutiny, with concerns about food safety and quality making headlines around the world. Today, the industry faces unprecedented challenges when it comes to ensuring the safety and security of the global food supply chain. Leaders need to manage known concerns such as foodborne pathogens, food fraud and contamination, as well as emerging challenges, including ingredient scarcity and changes in consumer preferences that have created the need to reformulate recipes quickly, source from new suppliers, and increase imports—all of which contribute to increased risks.

Due to climate change and shifting environmental factors we are seeing crop failures, and new bacteria and antimicrobial resistance to foodborne pathogens, which increase the cost of managing food safety. As consumers demand greater transparency and look to place more trust in the food chain, changing buyer habits further compound these challenges by putting a greater onus on food handling, production, manufacturing, and supply companies to provide more education to consumers about foodborne illnesses.

Recalls are the biggest threat to a brand’s profitability and reputation, and this threat is growing. According to FDA reports, recalls increased by 700% in 2022, with undeclared allergens being the leading cause for the last five years. The Food Safety Authority in the UK tells a similar story with undeclared allergens accounting for 84 of the 150 recalls last year, followed by salmonella, listeria, and foreign body contamination.

As food regulations become more complex to navigate, it is now essential to reassess the industry’s approach to managing risk. Protocols such as VACCP and TACCP are regularly used as part of a solid food defense program to identify risks. But the traditional approach of relying solely on regulations and compliance-based systems is no longer sufficient to ensure food safety in today’s complex, volatile and globalized food supply chains. Now is the time to implement a more holistic and dynamic risk-based approach to managing food safety more effectively.

What Is a Risk-Based Approach to Food Safety?

A risk-based approach allows the industry to proactively identify potential food safety risks and take appropriate measures to mitigate them, rather than simply responding to problems as they arise. For example, mature food businesses are building on food safety management systems with food safety audits to identify and manage risk to stay ahead of the curve. A risk-based approach helps underpin the continuous improvement process and, by doing so, demonstrates the ability of a company to be a trusted partner in the global food supply chain.

One of the key aspects of a risk-based approach to managing food safety is proactive intervention and control, using relevant data analysis stored in a cloud-based platform. All stakeholders need access to accurate and actionable data during risk assessment and management to make informed decisions. However, there are many barriers to accessing risk-related data for smaller operators, many of which are still working in a largely manual way.

Data must be collated from across the business, and multiple data sources need to be collected and appropriately analyzed to protect both the brand and public health. It is estimated that we are at least 10 years away from any type of interoperability of industry data, which will allow better transparency and visibility of risk across the supply chain.

Stay Ahead of Emerging Legislation

Visibility of the emerging legislation in source countries of ingredients and raw materials is critical, as are contingency sourcing plans and good risk analysis protocols. Food integrity needs to be a standing agenda point as part of internal meetings, and ESG policies need to be visibly delivered. The industry needs to ensure that it is aware of changes in regulations that could impact the safety and quality of its products through horizon scanning tools. There is also an onus on the industry to make its risk assessments more dynamic to incorporate change at a frequency that is appropriate for risk evaluation with effective crisis management plans in place.

Supply Chain Management Is Critical

Sourcing raw materials and ingredients across supply chains requires best practices. You must ensure that your supply chain partners and suppliers know how to manage a crisis and that emerging risks are shared across the supply chain. Quality, food safety, and regulatory divisions must actively participate in risk assessments and receive relevant data and communication. ESG policies also need to include the supply chain; leaders in this space need to be able to verify that these policies are delivering.

Marketing claims must be vetted and aligned with regulations and markets where products are sold. Procurement, supply chain and communication, and external partners such as NGOs and consumer associations are important groups to involve in risk profiling and ongoing management. While managing emerging issues and horizon scanning is critical, it is also important to remain vigilant on the basics, as most food safety and allergen incidents are known risks.

Detecting Food Fraud

Opportunistic food fraud cases are rising in the high food inflation market, with recent examples including everything from adulterated honey to the mislabeling of beef. To deter food fraud, businesses need to focus on risk-based auditing and testing through sampling programs. Knowing your supply chain, shopping around safely, being vigilant about ingredients and specifications, utilizing training, and building awareness and readiness are imperative to deter food fraud and create a culture of confidence and greater food safety.

Think Differently About Managing Risk

Now is the time for the food industry to reassess its approach to managing risk. A risk-based approach focusing on prevention, continuous improvement, and stakeholder collaboration is necessary to ensure a safe and secure food supply chain in an increasingly complex and challenging environment. The industry must prioritize data accessibility and accuracy, have a crisis management plan, be aware of emerging legislation, and include ESG policies in its risk management strategies. By focusing on risk-based auditing and testing, the industry can deter food fraud and create a culture of confidence.

The probability of eliminating all risks is very low, so the food industry must pivot and be agile to challenge the traditional approaches to managing food safety. It is time to think differently about managing risk and adopt new practices that promote prevention and collaboration.

Alert

New Physical Security Guidance Seeks to Provide Risk-Based Food Defense Insights to the Food and Beverage Industry

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Alert

The ASIS Food Defense and Agriculture Community (FDASC) released a recently developed resource and is currently seeking contributions and feedback to ensure that all perspectives are considered and represented. The document, “Physical Security Guidance for the Food and Beverage Industry to Improve Food Defense Outcomes” was developed through a partnership of food defense professionals, intending to provide a “security lens” to help the food and beverage industry consider these risk-based mitigation strategies.

Comments and feedback on the document are welcome by February 15, 2022. Please return comments to Frank Pisciotta (Business Protection Specialists) and/or Rich Widup (Reckitt).

When providing comments on the guidance document draft, please specify the following:

  • Page number
  • Line # start and line # end
  • Observation on current content
  • Proposed resolution
  • Reference (if applicable)

In addition, FDASC will be hosting an upcoming session to discuss comments received prior to January 28, 2022. If you are interested in providing comments or joining the working session on February 1, 2022, please contact ASIS FDASC Chairman Frank Pisciotta or vice-chair Jason Bashura.

The ASIS FDASC plans to talk through the Physical Security guidance during a future Food Defense Consortium meeting that will be convened during the next Food Safety Consortium. More information on these events is forthcoming. More information about the Food Defense Consortium can be found in Food Safety Tech’s Food Defense Resource Center.

 

About ASIS International

Founded in 1955, ASIS International is a global community of security professionals, educators, and 11 practitioners, all of whom has a role in the protection of assets – people, property, and/or information. Our members represent virtually every industry in the public and private sectors, and organizations of all 14 sizes. From entry-level managers to Chief Security Officers (CSOs) to CEOs, from security veterans to 15 consultants and those transitioning from law enforcement or the military, the ASIS community is global and 16 diverse.

About the Food Defense Consortium

The Food Defense Consortium is a voluntary, collaborative opportunity for Food and Beverage (F&B) Industry & non-government organizations (NGOs) to communicate in an Anti-trust environment to advocate for F&B industry perspectives pertaining to developing and sharing Food Defense best practices and helping firms to gain insights to aid in compliance with the FSMA Intentional Adulteration (IA) Rule.

Alert

National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) and DoD’s Center for Development of Security Excellence Publish Risk Mitigation Guide for Food and Agriculture Sector

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Alert

Today the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) and the Department of Defense’s Center for Development of Security Excellence (CDSE) published a risk mitigation guide to help organizations in the food industry understand insider risks, establish insider risk programs, and develop mitigation strategies. The “Insider Risk Mitigation Programs: Food and Agriculture Sector Implementation Guide” was developed in collaboration with federal partners and stakeholders, including the FDA.

The Fall edition of the 2021 Food Safety Consortium Virtual Conference Series will feature an episode on Food Defense Strategies | Register Now“Organizations in the food and agriculture sector play a critical role in protecting public health and safety, as well as U.S. economic and national security,” said NCSC Acting Director Michael Orlando in an NCSC press release. “This guidance is designed to help these entities create effective programs to deter, detect, and mitigate potential insider threats before they can cause harm.”

The guide includes links to federal resources in food and agriculture, and case studies concerning food adulteration, IP theft and active shooter incidents that were carried about by insiders. Any organization can be exposed by an insider threat, which is a person who has authorized access and uses it to commit harm to the organization. “Those with authorized access to facilities, personnel, or information can include employees, vendors, partners, suppliers, or others,” according to NCSC. “Most insider threats exhibit risky behavior prior to committing negative workplace events. If identified early, many insider threats can be mitigated before harm to the organization occurs.”

Insider threats can target food organizations through food adulteration, food fraud, theft and workplace violence.

Food Safety Consortium

2020 FSC Episode 10 Preview: Food Defense and the Insider Threat

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Food Safety Consortium

This week’s episode of the 2020 Food Safety Consortium Virtual Conference Series focuses on food defense and the insider threat. The following topics will be discussed during Thursday’s session:

  • Current events and external threats to food and agriculture
  • Case studies and lessons learned in food defense
  • Insider threat mitigation
  • Resources for food and beverage manufacturers
  • Featured speakers include Jason Bashura, PepsiCo (session moderator); April Bishop, Treehouse Foods; Ben Miller, The Acheson Group; Frank Pisciotta, BPS, Inc.; Joel Martin, Cargill; James Nasella, Tate & Lyle; Scott Mahloch, Cassandra Carter, and Kevin Spradlin, FBI; Rob Odell – National Insider Threat Task Force; Sarah Miller – Carnegie Mellon/CERT; Rebecca Morgan, Center for the Development of Security Excellence

The event begins at 12 pm ET on Thursday, November 12. Haven’t registered? Follow this link to the 2020 Food Safety Consortium Virtual Conference Series, which provides access to 14 episodes of critical industry insights from leading subject matter experts! We look forward to your joining us virtually.

Alex Kinne, Thermo Fisher Scientific
In the Food Lab

Ensuring Food Safety in Meat Processing Through Foreign Object Detection

By Alex Kinne
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Alex Kinne, Thermo Fisher Scientific

The USDA estimates that foodborne illnesses cost more than $15.6 billion each year. However, biological contamination isn’t the only risk to the safety and quality of food. Food safety can also be compromised by foreign objects at virtually any stage in the production process, from contaminants in raw materials to metal shavings from the wear of equipment on the line, and even from human error. While the risk of foreign object contamination may seem easy to avoid, in 2019 alone the USDA reported 34 food recalls, impacting 17 million pounds of food due to ‘extraneous material’ which can include metal, plastic and even glass.

When FSMA went into effect, the focus shifted to preventing food safety problems, necessitating that food processors implement preventive controls to shift the focus from recovery and quarantine to proactive risk mitigation. Food producers developed Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) plans focused on identifying potential areas of risk and placement of appropriate inspection equipment at these key locations within the processing line.

Metal detection is the most common detection technology used to find ferrous, non-ferrous, and stainless steel foreign objects in food. In order to increase levels of food safety and better protect brand reputation, food processors need detection technologies that can find increasingly smaller metal foreign objects. Leading retailers are echoing that need and more often stipulate specific detection performance in their codes of practice, which processors must meet in order to sell them product.

As food processors face increased consumer demand and continued price-per-unit pressures, they must meet the challenges of greater throughput demands while concurrently driving out waste to ensure maximum operational efficiencies.

Challenges Inherent in Meat Metal Detection

While some food products are easier to inspect, such as dry, inert products like pasta or grains, metal foreign object detection in meat is particularly challenging. This is due to the high moisture and salt content common in ready-to-eat, frozen and processed, often spicy, meat products that have high “product effect.” Bloody whole muscle cuts can also create high product effect.

The conductive properties of meat can mimic a foreign object and cause metal detectors to incorrectly signal the presence of a physical contaminant even when it is nonexistent. Food metal detectors must be intelligent enough to ignore these signals and recognize them as product effect to avoid false rejection. Otherwise, they can signal metal when it is not present, thus rejecting good product and thereby increasing costs through scrap or re-work.

Equipping for Success

When evaluating metal detection technologies, food processors should request a product test, which allows the processor to see how various options perform for their application. The gold standard is for the food processor to send in samples of their product and provide information about the processing environment so that the companies under consideration can as closely as possible simulate the manufacturing environment. These tests are typically provided at no charge, but care should be taken upfront to fully understand the comprehensiveness of the testing methodologies and reporting.

Among the options to explore are new technologies such as multiscan metal detection, which enables meat processors to achieve a new level of food safety and quality. This technology utilizes five user-adjustable frequencies at once, essentially doing the work of five metal detectors back-to-back in the production line and yielding the highest probability of detecting metal foreign objects in food. When running, multiscan technology allows inspectors to view all the selected frequencies in real time and pull up a report of the last 20 rejects to see what caused them, allowing them to quickly make appropriate adjustments to the production line.

Such innovations are designed for ease of use and to meet even the most rigorous retailer codes of practice. Brands, their retail and wholesale customers, and consumers all benefit from carefully considered, application-specific, food safety inspection.

Ensuring Safety

The food processing industry is necessarily highly regulated. Implementing the right food safety program needs to be a top priority to ensure consumer safety and brand protection. Innovative new approaches address these safety concerns for regulatory requirements and at the same time are designed to support increased productivity and operational efficiency.

Food Safety Tech

Upcoming Webinar: Is Your Plant COVID-19 Safe?

Food Safety Tech

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant disruption to the food industry, especially in meat and poultry processing facilities. On Wednesday, May 27, Food Safety Tech is hosting a complimentary webinar, “Is Your Plant COVID-19 Safe?”, to provide realistic advice and tips on how to mitigate workplace exposure risks related to COVID-19. Our subject matter expert speaker, Trish Wester, founder of The Association for Food Safety Auditing Professionals, will also insights into updated cleaning and sanitation practices, and how companies can make sure that their facilities are more prepared for the entire period of the pandemic. The event is sponsored by Sterilex.

Register now!

Dean Wiltse, FoodLogiq

Will 2017 Be the Year of Transparency?

By Maria Fontanazza
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Dean Wiltse, FoodLogiq

The increasing complexity of the global food chain has also increased the complexity of traceability of ingredients. However, FSMA has made this task a critical part of the seed to fork process. More vigilance and awareness of the supply chain is an essential part of protecting consumers and the company brand, and plays in an important role in the event of a recall. In a Q&A with Food Safety Tech Dean Wiltse, CEO of FoodLogiQ, explains the issues the food industry is experience in this area and why transparency in the supply chain will become the new normal.

Food Safety Tech: What are the biggest supply chain challenges you see industry facing today?

Dean Wiltse: The biggest challenge we see in the food supply chain is getting beyond the “one-up and one-back” approach to supply chain management to achieve real transparency in the supply chain. Now I think more than ever consumers want to know more information about their food and 2017 is going to be the year of transparency. A year of getting beyond one-up and one-back, and beyond the four walls of the food manufacturing facility to really dig down and understand what is going on two, three, four, or five levels down the supply chain, from a safety and risk mitigation standpoint.

I also think food companies will continue to be challenged by the ripple effect of increased recalls: Sunflower seeds, flour, powdered milk. Many food companies were rocked with these recalls in 2016. We expect these recalls to continue in scale and frequency going into 2017.

Another challenge is in the area of quality incidents—and the monitoring of those quality incidents. Oftentimes these quality issues go unchecked and it’s damaging to the quality of your food—and of course your brand—as well as damaging to the bottom line.

FST: How should companies monitor and ensure that they are getting high quality product from suppliers?

Wiltse: It sounds simple, but it all starts with being aware of exactly where you are experiencing quality issues across your supply chain. At FoodLogiQ, we pull all of the quality and incident data together in our dashboard to enable food companies to know exactly which suppliers you are having quality issues with and which ones you aren’t.

FoodLogiQ incident dashboard FoodLogiQ Dashboard
FoodLogiQ dashboards enable users to monitor quality issues in the supply chain and document incidents.  (Click above images to enlarge the dashboards)

Tracking and documenting these incidents—followed by the corrective actions—is critical. It is also important that all of the requirements and expectations are communicated openly; it makes the food supply chain safer by opening up transparency.

Customers can also use our technology to aggregate the quality and safety data into a star rating for their suppliers. Defining what is important to you from a quality and safety standpoint and aggregate that data in the software, and then assign a star rating for your suppliers. You can then use this star rating to formulate your preferred and approved supplier list.

FST: Where are the biggest disconnects in the supply chain? And how can companies rectify this?

Wiltse: Back to what the consumer is demanding: More information about their food, where it came from and what exactly is in it. Leading food brands want to provide this level of transparency to their consumers, but many are struggling with delivering this information in an authentic, real-time fashion.

Today there’s technology that can deliver it to them. In order to get more granular and provide more detailed information through the supply chain, there’s a cost associated with that, even down to the labeling at the grower for traceability. Many in the industry view this as an additional cost, but the leaders see this as a strategic investment and realize there is significant ROI in supply chain transparency.

FST: What are the most serious concerns surrounding FSMA and the supply chain?

Wiltse: Clearly the majority of the industry has been preparing for FSMA for several years now, getting their processes in place, if they weren’t already. Where we see a significant opportunity for companies to be proactive is in centralizing their required records, safety plans, and other essential processes into one platform for their entire supply chain.

We see many food companies who may have the required documentation and corrective actions in place, but they are scattered or siloed throughout the organization, and not centralized and easily accessible when the FDA calls on you to provide that information.

Another challenge is certainly top of mind is foreign supplier verification. The wave of required verification for foreign suppliers will be significant for many companies so they must be vigilant and start that process now or risk a significant disruption to their business.