Tag Archives: Supply Chain

FSMA, Food Safety Tech, FDA

Certified to FSSC 22000? You’re Ready for FSMA

By Maria Fontanazza
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FSMA, Food Safety Tech, FDA

If my company is GFSI-certified, is it also FSMA compliant? The answer is: With shared goals of producing safe food, coordinating preventive measures and ensuring continuous improvement, if your company is FSSC 22000 certified, you’re well on the road to FSMA compliance, according to Jacqueline Southee, Ph.D., U.S. Liaison, FSSC 22000.  Southee discussed several areas in which FSSC 22000 aligns with FSMA as part of a recent Leadership Series, “GFSI in the Age of FSMA”.

Supply Chain Visibility

FSSC 22000 is applicable to all aspects of the supply chain and requires interactive communication (all of which must be documented), from the downstream level in ensuring raw materials and suppliers meet requirements of ISO 22000 framework to communication with customers and suppliers to verify and control hazards.

FSMA controls the hazard of food within the United States, says Southee, whereas GFSI certification is a global initiative, thereby extending supply chain visibility to foreign suppliers.

The Food Safety Plan

There has been much discussion surrounding building a FSMA-ready food safety plan and the migration from HACCP to HARPC. “HARPC can be referred to as HACCP with preventive controls,” says Southee. FSSC 22000 provides a flexible yet robust approach in a framework that is applicable to all situations (i.e., different manufacturers have different issues, such as producing ice cream versus baked goods). Rather than being prescriptive, the prerequisite program has the flexibility to apply to a particular situation. In addition, validation, verification, monitoring and documentation are an inherent part of the ISO 22000 approach and the FSSC 22000 certification.

FSSC 22000 serves as an effective tool in preparing companies for FSMA compliance. “We’re not a regulatory system; FDA has that domain,” says Southee. “They’re the ones that carry the responsibility of meeting those regulations. We work with everyone…to do the best job we can.”

Audit Readiness

Being audit ready all the time is a key part of preparing for FSMA. FSSC 22000 certifies a food safety management system (a three-year certification cycle) and requires internal audits of company performance, along with helping companies ensure that their records are organized at all times. The goal is to install a management system that enables constant monitoring, reevaluation and assessment as part of an ongoing process of keeping food safe, according to Southee. “If you’re certified and have an effective ongoing management system, unannounced audits won’t be an issue,” she says.

Food Safety Culture

FSSC 22000 and ISO 22000 provide a strong foundation for building food safety culture. ISO 22000 requires proof of management commitment to the food safety process, along with accountability, and for management to make resources available to see the food safety process through. “We agree that culture has to come from the top,” says Southee. “The personnel have to see that management is committed, and the culture will come from that commitment.” It also requires constant communication, up and down the supply chain as well as internally. This includes involving all employees and making sure that they know what they’re doing (i.e., training). “Everyone needs to know they’re valued and important, and how their function contributes to the function of safe food,” says Southee.

FSMA Alignment and Gap Analysis

There are sure to be some gaps when it comes to FSSC 22000 and FSMA. FSSC 22000 has commissioned a gap analysis to compare the preventive controls for human and animal food rules with the GFSI scheme and will add addendums as needed. Areas of review include a requirement to include food fraud into the hazard analysis and a review of unannounced audit protocol.  

Risk, food safety

Seven Threats to the Food Supply Chain

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Risk, food safety

Food businesses face a range of risks, from lack of consumer confidence to supply chain security. As FSMA regulations and issues such as climate change rise to the top of the list of priorities of global governments and regulators, food companies need to secure the reins on their businesses to ensure they can face these seven emerging risks in 2016 and beyond.

SevenEmergingRisks_FoodSupply
Infographic courtesy of EtQ, Inc.

 

Fontanazza and Fields

Food Companies: Know Your Suppliers

By Food Safety Tech Staff
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Fontanazza and Fields

Read the Q&A with Randy Fields, “Senior Execs in for a Rude Awakening Regarding Supply Chain Compliance”Both accountability and liability will play a role in how food companies work with their suppliers moving forward. “The global food supply chain has really been based on trust for the last 70 years,” said Randy Fields, chairman and CEO of Park City Group and Repositrak. In a video interview with Food Safety Tech at the 2015 Food Safety Consortium, Fields explains how companies must go beyond simply “trusting” their suppliers to having a keen awareness of their suppliers’ activities from a compliance perspective.

 

Compliance fail

Senior Execs in for a Rude Awakening Regarding Supply Chain Compliance

By Maria Fontanazza
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Compliance fail

In previous years, supplier compliance was oftentimes built on trust. With FSMA tightening the reigns on compliance via auditing and documentation requirements and unannounced inspections, a higher level of accountability is being placed on companies, from the employees on the manufacturing floor all the way up to the C-suite. However, when senior executives start digging into the level of compliance maintained by their suppliers, they might not like what they find. In fact, they might be downright shocked, according to Randy Fields, chairman and CEO of Park City Group. “Instead of maintaining control over these issues of compliance, by delegating it and not properly supervising it, they’ve [senior management] lost visibility,” Fields says. “They have to be more involved than in the past, because they’re on the hook for it. But, they’re going to discover that their supply chain is nowhere near as compliant as they imagined.” In a Q&A with Food Safety Tech, Fields discusses how FSMA is changing the game for executives in the food business.

Food Safety Tech: In the context of supply chain accountability, increased interaction is now essential between food safety managers and executives. What level of awareness is required in the C-suite?

Randy Fields
Randy Fields, chairman and CEO of Park City Group, says the C-suite is not ready for what it is going to discover in terms of lack of compliance in the supply chain.

Randy Fields: Given the change in the law (FSMA), the regulatory world, and increasingly, the world of tort, the unfortunate reality is that the C-suite in nowhere near as aware of the issues of accountability in the supply chain as they need to be. It breaks down into two pieces: First, they have entrusted supply chain compliance to other people in the business; it’s been dropped down too far within the organization without the proper oversight.

Second, they don’t have a good way of measuring compliance—it’s been based on trust. Compliance has become more complex and as a function of the complexity, [senior management] doesn’t have a good set of tools by which they can stay on top of compliance and measure it.

With the change in the law, accountability has legally moved up to the C-suite, because FSMA, for all intents and purposes, brings Sarbanes–Oxley to the FDA. Between FSMA and tort, the way that it’s been is about to change very dramatically, but the surprises are all downside surprises. The consequence of trust without verification is now likely to lead both to litigation and possible criminal conviction. This is a different world.

The basic level of compliance in the global supply chain is far worse than anyone ever imagined. It will be not unlike turning over stones in your backyard in terms of what’s going to crawl out.

“Personal liability is probably the ultimate determinate of whether or not the C-suite starts to pay attention.” –FieldsFST: Is there a larger responsibility on the part of food safety managers to translate the compliance message to the C-suite?

Fields: I think it’s now both the appropriate responsibility and potentially the legal responsibility of food safety managers to insist that their C-suite become aware and provide them both the oversight and the tools by which compliance can be continually and professionally supervised and managed. I think failure to do that represents negligence.

Tort claims are getting more frequent and larger for foodborne illness problems. And now with both civil and criminal penalties potentially being applied by the FDA, it’s a game changer. It cannot be business as usual. This changes the world for food safety managers, and it changes the world for their bosses. We live in a world now where, whether we like it or not, the concept of accountability is about to be more legally enforceable.

The Peanut Corporation of America sentences are exemplary. But strict liability means that there can be a criminal prosecution without intent or even conceptually gross negligence. It is only a matter of fact that you supervised the function that was involved.

There’s a set of issues here that food safety managers should be bringing to the attention of senior executives. It’s beholden on them to say to these guys, ‘you have to pay more attention to this because you’re legally, civilly and criminally on the hook.’

FST: Do these factors have an impact on the type of professionals that are needed within food businesses?

Fields: Yes. I suspect that what will happen over the long term is that food safety will not be as much [about] science as it is compliance. In many companies, the food safety people tend to be the scientists who may not be as interested in the whole compliance problem. Increasingly, it’s the whole problem of compliance, not just the problem of food science.

We typically see within a company that someone manages the insurance part of the supply chain; someone else manages the food safety part of the supply chain, and someone else manages some other part of it: All of that fits under the rubric of compliance. We’re seeing more and more companies beginning to address this holistically.

Jill Bender, SafetyChain

GFSI in the Age of FSMA Series Helps Companies Prepare for FSMA Compliance

By Jill Bender
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Jill Bender, SafetyChain

The “GFSI in the Age of FSMA” three-part series wrapped up in early December, providing the food safety community insight on how leading GFSI schemes align with, and help prepare for, compliance with FSMA.  The series was presented by SafetyChain with media partner FoodSafetyTech.

Each GFSI scheme leader from SQF, BRC and FSSC 22000 discussed how their schemes align with FSMA in several key areas, including Supply Chain Controls, migrating Food Safety Plans from HACCP to HARPC, and audit readiness. While each scheme leader provided insights and details on how their scheme aligns with FSMA, common key themes across all three sessions included: 

  • FSMA’s focus on prevention vs. reaction is similar and aligns with GFSI’s objectives; Scheme certifications and ongoing compliance is centered around continuously assessing risks and putting preventive measures in place to mitigate those risks
  • GFSI’s global approach surrounding a company’s food safety program—to ensure better supply chain controls internally, upstream and downstream prepares companies to manage FSMA’s increased focus on both domestic and foreign supplier compliance
  • GFSI stringent documentation and recordkeeping requirements—along with unannounced audit protocols—are a strong foundation to help food and beverage companies prepare for FSMA’s “if it isn’t documented you didn’t do it” mantra

The GFSI scheme leaders also spoke about the importance and opportunity companies have to leverage technology tools to help more effectively manage the complexities and requirements of GFSI and FSMA compliance.  Series participants were able to see an example of how these automation tools work and the impact they can have on managing a robust food safety program via a post session demo of SafetyChain Software.

Archived recordings of all three sessions—SQF in the Age of FSMA, featuring Robert Garfield, Senior VP, SQF; BRC in the Age of FSMA, featuring John Kukoly, Director, BRC Americas; and FSSC 22000 in the Age of FSMA, featuring Jacqueline Southee, U.S. Liaison, FSSC 22000—are available and can be accessed here.

Imports

FSMA’s FSVP: Clearing the Confusion of Importing Rules

By Charles Breen
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Imports

On November 27, 2015, the Foreign Supplier Verification Programs for Food Importers (FSVP Rule) published in the Federal Register. The most significant new element is that importers are now responsible for assuring that the food they import complies with FDA requirements. Instead of action against violative food, FDA is now equipped to take regulatory action against importers that fail to provide necessary assurance of food safety.

“Importer” is defined as: “the U.S. owner or consignee of an article of food that is being offered for import into the United States. If there is no U.S. owner or consignee of an article of food at the time of U.S. entry, the importer is the U.S. agent or representative of the foreign owner or consignee at the time of entry, as confirmed in a signed statement of consent to serve as the importer under the FSVP regulations.” This differs from the importer of record as defined by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) as the person primarily responsible for paying any duties or an authorized agent acting on his behalf.

Under FSVP, an importer’s basic responsibilities are to:

  • Determine hazards reasonably likely to cause illness or injury
  • Evaluate the risk, using hazard analysis
  • Evaluate the foreign supplier’s performance
  • Perform supplier verification activities

Determining hazards and evaluating risk parallel the preventive control rules for human food (PCHF) and animal food (PCAF). Evaluation of a foreign supplier’s food safety performance and conducting verification activities are substantially aligned with supply-chain verification in 21 CFR 117 Subpart F (PCHF) and 21 CFR 507 Subpart E (PCAF). The importer is responsible for assuring compliance with FDA standards and requirements.

Deciding what parts of FSVP are applicable to each importer’s operation requires a comparison between what the importer does, and the exemptions, exceptions and modified requirements offered in the rule. These depend on what is imported, the food safety system in country of origin, the size of the importer, and the size of the foreign supplier. FDA delivered on its promise of flexibility, but deciding what applies requires some analysis.

If a food importer meets the definition of importer and does not fall into an exempted category or qualify for exceptions or modifications, then some or all of the FSVP rule applies to them. FDA estimates that about 55,000 importers will be covered by FSVP or some portion of it.

Who Is an Importer?

The U.S. owner or consignee of an article of food that is being offered for import into the United States is the importer. If there is no U.S. owner or consignee of an article of food at the time of U.S. entry, the U.S. agent or representative of the foreign owner or consignee at the time of entry is the importer.

All importers must provide an identification number for each entry line of food that the importer brings into the country. FDA will be issuing more guidance on what it considers “an acceptable identification number.”  The agency is not mandating that each facility use a DUNS number, but is has ruled out other suggestions for the unique identification number that is required.

Exemptions to FSVP

FSVP does not apply to the following foods:

  • Fish and fishery products (in compliance seafood HACCP in 21 CRF 123)
  • Juice (in compliance with juice HACCP in 21 CFR 120)
  • Food for research or evaluation
  • Alcoholic beverages
  • Meat, poultry, and egg products regulated by USDA
  • Food imported for personal consumption,
  • Food that is transshipped through the United States
  • Food that is imported for processing and later export
  • U.S. food that is exported and returned without further manufacturing or processing in a foreign country (U.S. foods returned)

Partial exemption for import of low-acid canned foods (LACF). LACF are exempt from FSVP with respect to microbiological hazards for that food. To be exempt, the importer must verify and document that the food was produced in accordance with LACF requirements (21 CFR part 113). Other hazards not controlled by the LACF rule, if any, must be documented as controlled under FSVP.

Modified Requirements

Modified requirements for a receiving facility in compliance with the PCHF or PCAF rules that imports food:

  • If the process used controls the hazards of the imported food, the facility is considered in compliance with most of the FSVP rule.
  • If the food does not have any identified hazards requiring control, then the facility is considered in compliance with most of the FSVP rule.
  • If the facility has implemented a supply-chain program for the food in compliance with either PCHF or PCAF requirements, the facility is considered to be in compliance with most of the FSVP rule.

Receiving facilities must also accurately identify themselves to FDA for each entry line of food being imported.

Modified requirements for imported dietary supplements manufactured in compliance with CGMP requirements in 21 CFR part 111:

The importer must accurately identify itself to FDA for each entry line of dietary supplement or dietary ingredient being imported.

Modified requirements for very small importers:

Defined as less than $1 million in sales of human food a year, or less than $2.5 million in sales of animal food per year, very small importers would not have to conduct hazard analyses and would be able to verify their foreign suppliers by obtaining written assurances of compliance from those facilities.

Modified requirements for imports from small suppliers (i.e., qualified facilities under PCHF or PCAF, and some small farms not covered farms under the produce safety standards, and some small egg producers):

The importer must obtain written assurance before importing the food, and at least every two years after, that the foreign supplier is producing the food in compliance with applicable FDA food safety regulations or the laws and regulations of a country whose food safety system FDA has officially recognized as comparable or determined to be equivalent to that of the United States.

Modified requirements for food imported from a country with an officially recognized or equivalent food safety system:

Importers must determine that the supplier is in compliance with FDA requirements, or that the supplier is in compliance with food safety regulations or relevant laws in the country that FDA recognizes as equivalent.

At present, only New Zealand is officially recognized as comparable to the United States. FDA is in the process of auditing and evaluating audit results for mutual recognition with additional countries. The next countries to be recognized will most likely be Australia and Canada.

One final note: FSVP requires coverage of food contact surfaces, such as packaging. Manufacturers of food contact surfaces are not required to register with FDA. PCHF and PCAF rules are limited to those facilities required to register. The language requiring FSVP makes no exception for food contact surfaces.

Randy Fields, Repositrak
FST Soapbox

Dealing with FSMA’s Documentation Demands

By Randy Fields
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Randy Fields, Repositrak

With the signing of FSMA in 2011, wholesaler and retailer executives are now legally responsible for the safety of their supply chains. In addition, FSMA’s focus on prevention and its seven new rules requires retailers and wholesalers to collect, manage and store multiple documents from each vendor for compliance. These documents must be accessible upon FDA request within 24 hours and extend two years back. And here’s the kicker: Senior executives are now responsible for the compliance of their supply chain with FSMA.

At the Food Safety Consortium, Affiliated Foods Midwest (AFM) will talk about their preparation for FSMA compliance and decision to move away from their “home-built” and “highly manual” compliance system, which stored both soft and hard copies of vendor documents. With FSMA rules focused heavily on documenting preventive measures, AFM executive leadership assessed the company’s gaps and determined they needed to be more proactive.  John Grimes, director of safety for AFM, estimated that at the start of the company’s journey, about 30% of vendors were non-compliant with the three records they required: Certificates of Liability with specified limits, Hold Harmless forms and W-9s. 

“We knew compliance built on trust was not enough and wanted more business documents and regulatory records collected. We also needed to increase compliance, be more proactive, and so we were looking to automate our systems,” explains Grimes.

AFM decided to adopt the cloud-based Compliance Management System to proactively manage both business-related documents and FSMA-related records. Once implemented, the wholesaler’s non-compliance among vendors was reduced by 60% in the first 90 days through proactive alerts, automated exception reporting and focused, personal follow up. 

On Thursday, November 19, Randy Fields and John Grimes will discuss “FSMA Compliance Really Starts With Knowing Your Supply Chain” at the Food Safety Consortium. LEARN MORE“With our prior system I could find a requested document within 24 hours, but with the cloud-based compliance management system, I can pull it up and instantly share it with an FDA agent even before they have a chance to leave my office,” says Grimes.

Document management at AFM is now much more proactive vs. reactive.  The Compliance Management System automatically sends alerts to Grimes and the vendor when documents are missing, when insurance limits are too low, or when a document is due to expire. The system enables AFM to proactively manage more documents by vendor than ever before.   

The active approach that our staff enables its customers to take in managing compliance is really its differentiator. Each customer is provided with a dedicated team to reach out to their vendors to speed enrollment and quickly address their compliance issues.

According to Grimes, as more retailers and wholesalers adopt this type of system, the vendor community will move more quickly to embrace solutions that will help them comply with FSMA.

Jeff Moore, USP
FST Soapbox

Fighting the Reality of Food Fraud

By Jeff Moore, Ph.D.
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Jeff Moore, USP

Economically motivated adulteration (EMA) of food, or food fraud, has been estimated to cost the food industry $30–40 billion per year. The 2008 incident of melamine adulteration of milk powder has cost billions of dollars to companies and invaluable loss of consumer confidence. Even more significant than the economic cost or loss of confidence, the impact on public health was enormous. An estimated 290,000 consumers were affected with more than 50,000 hospitalizations including at least six deaths. There is also collateral damage caused by incidences of EMA, including the loss of confidence in government regulatory systems around food safety. Although major incidents like the melamine scandal happen infrequently, food fraud commonly occurs under the radar. According to a 2014 report by the Congressional Research Service, it is estimated that up to 10% of the food supply could be affected by food fraud Thus, the costs of fraud food are borne by industry, regulators and, ultimately, consumers.

Attend the Food Safety Supply Chain Conference, June 5–6, 2017 in Rockville, MD | LEARN MOREFood fraud is not a new phenomenon. During the time of the Roman Empire, Pliny the Elder wrote in Natural History about the adulteration of wine, bread and pepper, and tracked the fluctuation of their prices with the appearance of adulteration. In Medieval Germany, the adulteration of saffron was such a problem that the Safranschou Code was enacted, which described standards for saffron and allowed convicted adulterators to be executed.1 When there is an opportunity for economic gain, adulterators tend to come out of the woodwork.

As recently as the 1980s, food fraud was mostly an event confined to local markets. In 1981 the adulteration of olive oil with an industrial lubricant injured thousands and killed hundreds, but because the oil was not widely distributed, the primary effects were limited to Spain. Similarly, when apple juice adulteration occurred in the United States in the 1980s, the consequences were basically confined to the United States.

However, with the increasing globalization of the food supply chain and freer movement of foods and ingredients among countries, the opportunities for food fraud not only increased, but the consequences also now more easily have a global impact. By the late 1990s, the global consequences of food fraud became more evident with the contamination of fats intended for animal feed with industrial oils containing PCBs and dioxins. This scandal, which started with an oil recycler in Belgium, led to massive recalls of products throughout Europe and concerns about contaminated products reaching the United States. The impact of this episode arguably changed the food safety environment in Europe and led to the formation of the European Food Safety Authority. Likewise, the fallout from the adulteration of wheat gluten with melamine in 2008 likely contributed to the passage of new food safety legislation in the United States, including FSMA.

FDA has always acted against food fraud whenever there was an indication of public health hazards. With the passage of FSMA and the Preventive Controls for Human Food rule (published in September 2015), the agency has come full circle to its roots with Harvey W. Wiley, M.D. and his famous Poison Squad. Dr. Wiley formed his famous group to go after adulterators of foods. The Poison Squad was famously known for their willingness to consume suspect foods to test for adulteration. FDA’s history of Dr. Wiley states that “In the 1880s, when Wiley began his 50-year crusade for pure foods, America’s marketplace was flooded with poor, often harmful products. With almost no government controls, unscrupulous manufacturers tampered with products, substituting cheap ingredients for those represented on labels: Honey was diluted with glucose syrup; olive oil was made with cottonseed; and “soothing syrups” given to babies were laced with morphine. The country was ready for reform…” While the opportunities for fraud have not changed, luckily we no longer have to rely on human volunteers to detect adulterated food.

The new Preventive Controls rule published in September addresses EMA when there is a reasonable possibility that adulteration could result in a public health hazard. Companies are required to conduct a written hazard analysis, which should include hazards identification and evaluation. Companies are expected to identify “…known or reasonably foreseeable hazards that may be present in the food…The hazard may be intentionally introduced for the purposes of economic gain.”[i]  While companies were previously expected to be knowledgeable about microbiological hazards in their products, it appears that they now also have the responsibility to be knowledgeable about known or reasonably foreseeable hazards from EMA.

How can organizations identify potential EMA threats as part of hazards analysis? One way is via the Food Fraud Database, which is designed to help answer this question by taking a look into the past. Launched in 2012, the database provides the information necessary to identify ingredients with a past pattern or history of adulteration and the adulterants used—a perfect fit for the EMA requirement in FSMA. The database has more than 140,000 users from 194 countries documented.

After identifying an ingredient with a pattern/history of EMA, companies need to determine whether the ingredient may introduce potential food safety hazards and how to develop a control plan in response. To address those issues, USP undertook a project in 2013 to take a more holistic approach to identifying EMA vulnerable ingredients by looking at factors beyond history. It assembled a group of leading food adulteration experts to develop a first-of-its-kind guidance document that offers a framework for the food industry to help develop and implement preventive management systems to deal specifically with EMA.

The Food Fraud Mitigation Guidance became official in the Food Chemicals Codex (FCC) in September 2015, just as FSMA’s Preventive Rule for Human Food was published. The aim of the guidance is to assist manufacturers and regulators with identifying the ingredients most vulnerable to fraud in their supply chains and how to choose effective mitigation tools to combat EMA. This is a significant leap forward in the battle against food fraud—and a way to get ahead of criminals engaging in EMA. The guidance provides not only a solution to deal with FSMA’s EMA provision, but goes beyond FSMA to help organizations fulfill GFSI requirements to conduct a food fraud vulnerability assessment and control plan.

Thenadier (The innkeeper), in Les Miserables said in the lyrics of Master of the House:

“…

watering the wine and making up the weight

…

Food beyond compare. Food beyond belief

Mix it in a mincer and pretend it’s beef

Kidney of a horse, liver of a cat

Filling up the sausages with this and that”

While deceiving the unwary can seem humorous in fiction, in real-life food fraud can have extremely serious consequences to consumers and everyone involved with the production of safe food. There are multiple large-scale efforts in many regions and countries to address food fraud. The attention that is now focused on food fraud and the development of new tools such as Food Fraud Database cast a bright light that will hopefully make it more difficult for food fraudsters to operate.

Reference

  1. Willard, P. (2002), Secrets of Saffron: The Vagabond Life of the World’s Most Seductive Spice, Beacon Press, ISBN 978-0-8070-5009-5
Barbara Levin, SVP of Marketing & Customer Community, SafetyChain Software

SafetyChain Software Wraps 2015 Food Safety & Quality Enabling Technologies Series with More Than 2,000 Participants

By Barbara Levin
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Barbara Levin, SVP of Marketing & Customer Community, SafetyChain Software

SafetyChain Software recently announced the successful wrap-up of its online series, “FSQA Enabling Technologies – the Food Safety & Quality Assurance Game Changer.” Kicked off in January of 2015 and ending this past October, the series attracted more than 2,000 participants.

Known for offering a wide variety of complimentary online FSQA thought leadership events to the food industry – including its FSMA Fridays and GFSI in the Age of FSMA series – SafetyChain introduced the Enabling Technologies series to begin an important dialogue on the role of emerging technologies in managing key challenges faced by today’s food and beverage companies.

The complimentary series, which featured Leadership Forums, Tech Talks and eBriefs – many featuring recognized industry thought leaders as well as SafetyChain experts – is now available on-demand.

  • Series topics included:
  • Leveraging Technology for Best-in-Class Food Safety & Quality Operations
  • Tackling FSMA Compliance
  • Understanding and Managing Cost of Quality
  • Unleashing the Power of the Cloud on Food Safety & Quality
  • Conquering HACCP, HARPC and Food Safety Program Management
  • Tackling Food Safety Audits
  • The Critical Role of Technology on Today’s Food Safety and Quality Operations
  • FSQA on the Go – the Power of Food Safety & Quality Automation Mobile Applications

Dr. David Acheson, president of The Acheson Group and former Chief Medical Officer for USDA and Associate Commissioner for Foods at FDA – who kicked off the series with a leadership forum on Food Safety Risk Management and Supply Chain Controls, which also featured Nancy Wilson, Director of Quality Assurance, Risk and Safety for Wawa – commented, “With today’s global, complex food supply chain – and increasing regulatory requirements such as FDA’s FSMA – it is becoming increasingly difficult to manage risk while meeting operational KPIs using manual FSQA management systems.” Acheson continued, “There’s an important role for enabling technologies to increase operational efficiencies while sending safer food into commerce, and this was an important series to bring the food safety community into the discussion.”

Added Jill Bender, Vice President of Marketing Communications for SafetyChain, “SafetyChain is a recognized leader in offering online forums that provide insights, and facilitate discussions, on how the industry addresses challenges in sending safe, quality food into commerce – with more than 20,000 registrants for our events.  Deploying enabling automation technologies has become a vital strategy for improving FSQA, creating ROI and protecting brand from risk – and we wanted to promote meaningful dialogue on the impact of technology on key food safety and quality issues. We’re delighted that more than 2,000 safety, quality and operations professionals joined the conversation.”

Series Now Available On-Demand

To access the series’ complimentary Leadership Forums, Tech Talks and eBriefs, visit: www.safetychain.com/2015techseries

How Automated Inventory Tracking Systems Contribute to Food Safety

By Ryan Hardy
No Comments

When a business decides to invest in technology, the primary driver is usually to save money over the long term. As with most automated systems, inventory management tools can reduce costs by saving time and resources used to manage inventory.

But the benefits that automated inventory tracking can provide through traceability (of lots, batches, and even individual items) go beyond the financial. These systems can also be used in every aspect of your food safety program from helping with compliance, to improving your quality controls.

Exchange knowledge about managing your supply chain at the Best Practices in Food Safety Supply Chain conference | June 5–6, 2017 | LEARN MORE

In a nutshell, having an automated system that allows full visibility into the supply chain—that is, one that identifies in real time where items are being used and where they are sent, while retaining a historical record of that flow through the chain—makes it much simpler and faster to implement procedures to ensure the safety of the food you produce.

All about Accuracy and Speed

Speed and accuracy make a huge difference when it comes to dealing with potentially contaminated food. Being faster and more accurate than a manual inventory method is the most immediate benefit that an automated system brings to your food safety program.

The most compelling reason for having accurate and readily accessible track-and-trace data is to handle food recalls and to comply with requests for documentation from government agencies such as the FDA. In cases where consumer health is at risk, that information needs to be delivered quickly to prevent further harm, and it must be accurate to enable investigators to move in the right direction. Responding to requests for detailed documentation within a 24-hour timeframe can be nearly impossible if you are not using an automated system.

Even when the situation doesn’t involve a federal investigation, once a situation in which possible contamination or mislabeling arises, the faster you have accurate and detailed data, the faster your internal processes can move forward.

If the issue is identified through your quality control process, you will be more likely to be able to prevent contaminated product from reaching the retail outlet and thus getting into the hands of the consumer. Having traceability built into your inventory management systems provides immediate knowledge about whether a product using ingredients from the same batch have entered the distribution chain, and if so, where they are going. This greatly improves the likelihood of limiting the cost and scope of a recall.

Depending on the specific technology you employ, an automated system can provide immediate access to the track and trace information for specific ingredients at least one step backward and one step forward, as required by the Bioterrorism Act of 2002. A supply chain that integrates the most sophisticated technology, such as DNA tracking, can trace an item all the way from the farm or border to the individual consumer or restaurant kitchen.

This traceability means that if an ingredient was already contaminated before it entered your production line, the inventory tracking system can identify all products using that ingredient from the contaminated lot and thus will help you define the scope of the problem. This automation can go a step further by identifying where the ingredient lot originated, and thus help trace the ingredient at least one step backward to the vendor. If the vendor (whether a distribution company or a direct supplier) has traceability in an automated system, or if you are using a system hosted by a distribution partner, tracing the source farther back than one step is possible.

Such information can help you respond more quickly to FDA requests for product information and support the agency’s efforts in product traceability.

Protect Your Reputation

Just as using tracing technology can help identify potential contamination sources quickly, it can also be used to eliminate sources more quickly and accurately, thereby speeding up investigations into food contamination incidents. The faster a company can be eliminated from an investigation, the less time is taken away from normal production. In addition, quick exclusion can protect a company’s reputation from harm.

Additional Benefits

Through their ability to store specific data that can be used to identify potential risks, automated track and trace systems contribute to many preventive food safety measures as well as to the following corrective responses:

  • For perishable products, automated traceability can identify how long specific perishables have been in supply chain. This allows you to avoid using ingredients close to spoilage and to remove overdue products from the distribution chain.
  • During mock recalls, automated tracking systems reduce the time spent away from regular production and allow you consistent information throughout the organization, eliminating wasted effort due to miscommunications.
  • Automated systems reduce the time needed for notifications both internally and externally in the case of an incident affecting food quality or safety. This leads to faster line clearance and faster isolation of the possibly contaminated product.
  • With more effective accounting for possibly affected batches, you can better identify where to apply cleanup measures in the production chain.

In short, automated tracking can improve implementation of preventive controls to stop the contaminated product from reaching the marketplace, and in cases in which corrective actions are required, the automated system can help you respond more quickly and can reduce the scope of risk.

Not just Foodstuffs

Although raw ingredients and food products obviously require traceability, they aren’t the only traceable inventory that can impact food safety. Automated lot tracking can enhance food safety efforts related to all inventory items used in food processing/manufacturing:

  • Packaging. A sub-standard packaging lot can allow incursion of harmful substances or the growth of harmful bacteria. Leakers can contaminate an entire batch of meat or poultry product. Automated lot tracking can help you rapidly isolate the bad lot and know which production lines have already used the sub-standard materials.
  • Labeling. If an inferior adhesive has been applied to a batch of labels, you can identify which product lots to pull from the distribution chain. You can do the same if your quality controls find a batch of inaccurate labels.
  • Protective equipment and clothing. Gloves, masks and other protective gear must function properly to ensure the safety of your workers and also to prevent contamination from being introduced on the production line. An inferior batch of protective gloves that tear during use, for example, could violate your food safety practices. Identifying the bad batch quickly and removing it from the operations area immediately can save potential contamination.
  • Cleaning solutions. Even a batch of cleaning solution can be sub-par. If tests show that cleaning has not eliminated the targeted bacteria, for example, you can more quickly take measures to determine whether the root cause of the problem was a procedural issue or a quality issue with the batch of cleaner.

Beyond the Production Line

The benefits of automated tracking systems to your food safety program extend beyond the production line. They can also enhance decision-making, vendor management and communications functions.

When it comes to potential contamination, decision making needs to be both timely and based on the best information available. Automated systems can provide you with accurate information quickly to help you answer these and other key questions, so that the decision on what actions to take can be based on good information:

  • How widespread is the potential contamination?
  • Where is the product in the production and distribution chains?
  • Have we already exposed consumers?

These systems can put the answers to these questions in front of the appropriate decision makers early in the process. The technology can be configured to allow access to the data via a browser, so if those who make the final decisions are located elsewhere, they can see in real time the same information that you are seeing in the plant. This makes communication about potential contamination more effective and clear, since everyone can see the same thing at the same time, and it can eliminate the potential for miscommunication up the chain of command.

By identifying where bad lots entered your supply chain, automated track-and-trace can enhance supplier accountability. You can accurately see if you have vendors with recurring issues in the quality of the supplies they are providing.

Automated Inventory Tracking Technologies

An automated inventory tracking system depends on three components:

  • A physical component, such as a label or tag, which contains detailed information identifying the specific lot or item.
  • A database, where each discrete data item is stored.
  • A reporting interface that allows people to access and use the identification information. This is the programming code that performs searches, retrieves the data, and formats the information in a formatted report, which is then presented on the screen, saved to a file, or sent to a printer.

The most common physical components used by automated inventory tracking systems rely on barcode or RFID technology, or a combination of both. The choice of which technology to use to integrate into the inventory management database layer of the system depends on a number of factors, but both have been proven extremely accurate (some sources say up to 99%). What is more important than the choice of tracking tools is the quality of the data encoded in them.

The latest in tracking technology uses an engineered DNA marker, in the form of an edible spray. When applied to produce, this DNA marker can track the individual item (i.e., an apple, head of lettuce or onion), along the entire food supply chain, identifying where it was farmed, the date it was picked, and where it was processed.

Whatever form of technology you employ, ensuring that your data is complete and accurate and can be integrated into both your supply and distribution chain is critical to realizing the benefits of that system in supporting your food safety efforts.

The WDS Food Safety Team also contributed to this article.