Tag Archives: traceability

Matt Brown
FST Soapbox

Technology in the Food Chain: Insights from the IFT 2023 Traceability Challenge Report

By Matt Brown
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Matt Brown

In a report released in May of 2023, the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) offered an encouraging and attainable outlook for cooperative and effective functionality throughout the global food supply chain. And with traceability as the primary goal in this diverse landscape of users, challenges and solutions abound. Less a snapshot of where we have been, this report is a helpful guide to where we are going and how best the industry will achieve compliance to the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) by January 20, 2026.

Traceability Challenges in a Global Food Supply Chain

Traceability is a common goal in all industries. But when food and beverage is your bread and butter, the ability to trace a single ingredient can be a matter of life and death. Based on findings in a 2006 study, the Center for Disease Control (CDC) reported the following yearly totals: 37.2 million cases of foodborne illnesses; 228,744 resulting hospitalizations; and 2,612 deaths.[1] In order to improve the landscape of health and safety in the food and beverage industry, the IFT in conjunction with the FDA embarked on a study[2] of how low- or no-cost technology could improve traceability for businesses within the global food supply chain.

One of the greatest challenges in achieving uniform traceability lies in the vastness within the food supply chain itself. Those beholden to compliance are defined as “all persons who manufacture, process, pack, or hold foods that appear on the Food Traceability List (FTL).[3]” And this rule applies to all foods that are consumed in the U.S. market, not just those grown in the U.S. All laborers—planters, harvesters, processors, handlers, packers, distributors, shippers and retailers—who interact with any item on the FTL[4] must be recorded and tracked according to FDA guidelines. These guidelines include procedural protocol for food handling as well as timelines for processing and documentation. Whether the starting point of a single ingredient is stateside or overseas, it generally travels several places before arriving on a grocery store shelf or appearing on a restaurant’s menu.

Within this huge network of players lies the next challenge: economic and technological diversity. While economy and technology are not always one and the same, the typical overlap is demonstrated in the specific case of a head of lettuce. On one end of the supply chain continuum, a head of lettuce begins its journey in a field. There are no handheld scanners or databases in this lettuce’s origin story. There is only the hot sun, an irrigation system, and hard-working people laboring up and down the rows of lettuce. Now flash forward to Aisle 1 of your local grocery store. By now this lettuce has been inspected, washed, shrink-wrapped, labeled, UPC-ed, shipped, received and shelved. With each new set of hands it has passed through—both human and mechanical—it has likely experienced an ascending economic stratum with advancing technological features at each step. Sophistication and automation often increase exponentially as the number of places on the continuum increases. A head of lettuce purchased at your local farmers market, for instance, may have only changed hands once or not at all, while a vacuum-sealed carton of greens at your regional mega-outlet has likely seen many locales as well as top-of-the-line technology and automation.

In addition to a variety of technologies, it is likely that this head of lettuce has also passed through the hands of people speaking multiple languages. The laborers at the beginning of the continuum are often non-native English speakers. And regardless of a laborer’s native tongue, lower rates of literacy are common in entry level food industry jobs. According to statistics published by the Department of Labor in 2018, 77% of U.S. farmworkers report Spanish as their primary language. And the same report states that the average level of formal education completed was eighth grade.[5] Therefore, compliance across the continuum must be translatable and comprehendible to all levels of experience and available in all languages of users.

The challenge of complete supply chain compliance from one end of the spectrum to the other warrants cooperation across many lines: state, national, linguistic, cultural and economic to name a few. The need for intuitive solutions and an easy to implement process is paramount.

Technology as the Traceability Solution

With a better understanding of the global food supply chain itself, it is not hard to see why solutions can be found in the tech sector. When the food supply chain existed primarily in a local economy, keeping paper records was a viable process. Now the food supply chain is a global enterprise, and as such, processes must also operate on a global scale.

Tech solutions offer ready-made customization. Language translations, infographics, flowcharts and videos are easily incorporated into platforms for ease of use across all segments of the supply chain. This is beneficial to both domestic and international operations, and it is especially advantageous to those whose operations span both.

The availability of cloud-based platforms has elevated technological capabilities. No longer does every physical operation need its own dedicated server; rather, information is stored and remains accessible anywhere—from a single lettuce field all the way to the grocery store aisle across the world.

“It used to be common that shipments would arrive without necessary paperwork such as invoices, bills of lading or certificates of analysis. Even shipping labels would commonly be ripped off or illegible,” says Geoff Ellis, COO of Wherefour. “Things get lost in the mail. But when all pertinent information is stored in the cloud, it’s unquestionably accessible to the receiver, the shipper and the transport company.”

Not only does the use of cloud-based technology streamline operations for shipping and receiving, but it does the work ahead of time for quality assurance and regulatory compliance. Documentation does not have to be intentionally gathered and prepared for audits. Everything is already in order when a cloud-based tech platform is employed.

The FSMA’s Traceability Plan guide[6] mandates specific controls and standards for record keeping, all of which are reliant on lot codes. Lot code traceability is easily achievable with a comprehensive software solution. And data sharing is significantly improved with a cloud-based system. All involved parties can be in separate parts of one building or in different parts of the world, and they can still be on the same page operationally.

Expertise in the Tech Sector

With the FDA’s commitment to increased traceability, a shift in focus from response to prevention is apparent. And tech solutions have the unique ability to measure efficacy in procedural implementation across the supply chain continuum. Records are created, stored and shared in perpetuity, and those records can be instantly accessed from any location. Leaders in the tech industry are interested in creating solutions that are scalable and transferable. It is not uncommon for a platform whose original design was to address problems in one industry to end up solving a problem in a different industry altogether. Software solutions are by nature about operational functionality and can be applied to any operation therein.

Furthermore, evolution in the tech sector is rapid and collaborative. Expert insights and advancements drive competitors to continually improve and increase productivity and efficiency. “The tech sector is driven by a healthy sense of collaboration and competition,” says Ellis. “It’s exciting to watch the bar being raised by our competitors. It really motivates us to raise it even further with each new feature we develop.”

In order to achieve FSMA compliance within the diverse global food supply chain, implementing low- or no-cost tech-enabled traceability solutions is essential. It is in everyone’s best interest to remove any barriers that would otherwise prevent viable and nutritious food from getting to market.

References

[1] Scallan, E., Hoekstra, R. M., Angulo, F. J., Tauxe, R. V., Widdowson, M., Roy, S. L….Griffin, P. M. (2011). Foodborne Illness Acquired in the United States—Major Pathogens. Emerging Infectious Diseases, 17(1), 7-15. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid1701.p11101

[2] Bratager, Sarah…Grantham, Alison. (2023, May 17). IFT’s Tech-Enabled Traceability Insights Based on the FDA’s Low- or No-Cost Traceability Challenge Submissions. Retrieved from https://www.ift.org/-/media/gftc/pdfs/ift-tech-insights-fda-nolowcost-traceability-report-2023.pdf

[3] FSMA Final Rule on Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods. (2023, June 26). Retrieved from https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/fsma-final-rule-requirements-additional-traceability-records-certain-foods

[4] Food Traceability List. (2023, June 26). Retrieved from https://www.fda.gov/food/food-safety-modernization-act-fsma/food-traceability-list

[5] Hernandez, Trish and Gabbard, Susan. (2018, January). Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) 2015-2016: A Demographic and Employment Profile of United State Farmworkers. 10-14. Retrieved from https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ETA/naws/pdfs/NAWS_Research_Report_13.pdf

[6] Requirements for Additional Traceability Records for Certain Foods: What You Need to Know About the FDA Regulation: Guidance for Industry. Small Entity Compliance Guide. (2023, May). Retrieved from https://www.fda.gov/media/168142/download

 

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.

 

Gururaj (Guru) Rao
FST Soapbox

How to Overcome Food Logistics Challenges with Delivery Technology

By Gururaj (Guru) Rao
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Gururaj (Guru) Rao

The food logistics industry faces numerous obstacles. With changing government regulations and complex supply chains, it can be difficult for businesses to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of food logistics. There are several areas of expertise that must be taken into account when running a successful operation in this space, including regulatory compliance, financial forecasting and risk mitigation, customer demands and preferences assessment, resource optimization, technology integration, infrastructure development, and maintenance.

Each of these tasks require careful planning and execution to ensure smooth operations while also controlling costs associated with delivering the end-product on time. It is crucial for businesses operating in this sector to stay up-to-date with the latest trends in order to effectively plan for any eventualities that may arise, and this is where delivery technology can help.

How Delivery Technology Can Mitigate Food Logistics Disruption

Strategic Planning. Understanding customer needs and optimizing delivery routes is key to successful food logistics. To start, assess historical patterns of past deliveries and service levels. Long-term recurring plans should be applicable for periods of a quarter or two. Previously, route planning was done with pen and paper, but now computers can quickly assign new staff to existing regular routes. This technology can help you test your recurring route plans and optimize the number of deliveries to meet customer service goals while reducing mileage and streamlining the whole process.

Real-Time Visibility and Monitoring. Real-time visibility and monitoring are vital for any successful delivery operation, allowing you to verify that your deliveries are on track. You can monitor driver location and ETA information as well as average stop times, dwell times, fuel usage, and onboard temperatures. This is especially important for food deliveries, where it is crucial to keep the food at the proper temperature.

Order status can be viewed by the sales team too, so they can inform customers of any changes in their orders quickly. Unforeseen events that may delay delivery can occur. Therefore, it is essential to have a plan B in place that includes automatic notifications to keep customers updated. Although this may cause initial disappointment, taking this extra step will foster a sense of trust and reliability with customers.

Delivery Execution. Delivery execution is one of the most critical steps in the food delivery process. With modern technology, such as GS1 barcodes and delivery capture devices, wholesale food delivery is faster than ever before. Benefits of this technology include tracking goods for food safety, capturing proof of delivery, contactless delivery, electronic documentation, custom workflow capture, return capture and item substitution for customer satisfaction, and exception capture to identify and solve problems in real time. All of these features help guarantee that the customer receives their order safely and quickly.

Analytics and Reporting. Delivery technology is revolutionizing the data collection and analysis process for food logistics, enabling businesses to make informed decisions with insights from detailed reports. It can generate reports about on-time vs. delayed deliveries, popular items delivered, inventory age, miles driven vs. planned miles, driver performance, and spoilage/returns.

This data will help pinpoint customer preferences, manage food waste, boost fuel efficiency, increase driver productivity and improve quality control. Plus, these reporting tools also help to facilitate recalls in case of a food issue—letting businesses swiftly remove any affected items from circulation while avoiding customer complaints.

There’s a lot that goes into traceability. Here’s what is required:

  • Record product lot numbers every time products arrive at the warehouse
  • Maintain the traceability of raw materials as appropriate
  • Manage the movement of every product effectively during delivery
  • Identify the location of every product lot quickly

Food is what connects our world. It invites us all to experience other cultures and brings people together. That’s why it’s so important that this food logistics industry works like a well-oiled machine, and that can only happen if we readily adapt to current situations with the use of available technologies.

Paul Damaren and Francine Shaw

The Return to Hospitality: How To Enhance Employee Onboarding

By Francine L. Shaw, Paul Damaren
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Paul Damaren and Francine Shaw

After restaurants nationwide experienced several years of a stressful, disruptive labor shortage, the leisure and hospitality industry has recently added 128,000 jobs, leading all sectors.

Hiring new employees is exciting, especially after years of being seriously understaffed. As you welcome new employees to your team, do not underestimate the importance of onboarding, as 69% of employees are more likely to stay with a company for three years if they were onboarded properly. Additionally, organizations with an official onboarding process experience 50% greater new-hire productivity.

When new hires are trained properly, they feel more confident in their roles and the companies they work for can maximize safety, quality, and compliance. To accomplish this, restaurants and other food businesses should:

Adopt Integrated Digital Solutions

Tech solutions can improve all aspects of your operations, making everything from budgeting to scheduling, forecasting, purchasing, and inspecting more efficient, accurate, and streamlined. Tech tools offer many significant benefits, helping your brand save time and money, reduce waste, and optimize operations.

What’s more, an integrated tech stack can help you get a holistic view of your entire enterprise, whether you have one location or dozens. Easy-to-understand reports provide critical information, allowing operators to make more informed, data-driven decisions.

Digital tools do require an investment, but they offer a tremendous ROI. These solutions help improve safety, efficiency, transparency, accuracy, and consistency. These positive changes boost key performance indicators, including increased sales, profits, customer loyalty, and employee retention.

Prioritize Safety, Quality, and Compliance

Each year, 48 million (1 in 6) Americans get sick from contaminated food or beverages. Don’t let food safety breaches happen at your business!

Prioritize a food safety culture, where all employees work together to maximize safety and minimize risks. Put food safety protocols in place and be certain that all employees are following them. Provide the proper tools for employees to ensure food safety, such as Bluetooth sensors that can tell when walk-in temperatures rise above safe temperatures, and state-of-the-art food thermometers that ensure foods are cooked to proper temps.

It’s not enough just to follow proper food safety protocols yourself, you must be sure that all your suppliers adhere to the strictest food safety standards, as well. If you are following all the right protocols, but a supplier delivers compromised products, your customers (and your business) are at risk.

Food safety and quality assurance must be followed from each product’s point of origin until it’s prepared and served to the consumer. Audit all suppliers regularly and be sure that they have proper, up-to-date safety certifications. When you have multiple suppliers—as most food businesses do—it can be overwhelming to track and organize these important safety certifications manually. Tech tools make this ongoing process easier and more accurate.

Modernize Training Efforts

Some food brands, particularly smaller companies, think that they don’t need a formal training or onboarding process, or they rely on antiquated training programs that have been in place for many years. Swap out your outdated (and/or informal) training programs in favor of something more modern, relevant, and tech driven.

Add more interactive tech elements to your training program, such as microlearning platforms and gamification, to make the information more engaging and memorable. Supplement online training efforts with a live trainer, who can spotlight best practices, answer questions, and role play with your employees to make the lessons stick.

Don’t just tell employees what to do but explain why the rules are so important. Employees are more likely to comply when they understand why the rules are in place.

Keep in mind that training never officially ends. Provide ongoing training opportunities so employees on all shifts can keep important information top-of-mind. Digital tools not only provide key information during initial onboarding, but are essential for reinforcing lessons, delivering updates, and sending reminders throughout each employee’s tenure.

Work to Retain Employees

Did you know that the average restaurant employee changes jobs every 56 days, and that losing a front-line employee costs a restaurant an average of $5,864?

Digital solutions can help you retain employees, as these technologies make their jobs much easier. Tech tools can streamline tedious administrative tasks, such as inspections and inventory, so your employees can spend more time doing the things they enjoy, such as cooking delicious meals and interacting with guests.

Offer competitive pay, appealing benefits, growth opportunities, mentorship, and a supportive culture. And don’t discount the “seemingly small” gestures that can be a big deal to your team. Thank your employees often and sincerely. Praise them in staff meetings for going above and beyond. Write thank you notes. Give bonuses and small gifts. Promote from within.

Get Inspired by Innovative Brands

It may sound like something out of a science fiction novel, but White Castle has a robot working its fryer. Dominos has delivered its first pizza by drone. KFC is using facial recognition technology that recognizes repeat visitors and tailors their experiences based on their past orders and meal preferences. And Panera Bread uses geofencing to track each customer’s location so employees can promptly bring their order to their vehicle.

Your organization may not yet be able to afford robotics in your kitchen or drone deliveries, and that’s OK. But, as tech solutions become more affordable, accessible, and user-friendly for food businesses of all sizes and budgets, it’s clear that technology is improving many aspects of our industry. Digital solutions are no longer “nice to have” luxury items. They’re necessities for brands that prioritize consistently excellent and safe experiences.

By investigating and integrating new technologies, you can provide better service, safer food, and a more convenient dining experience. All of which will help you better meet (and exceed) customer expectations.

Kari Hensien, RizePoint
FST Soapbox

2023 Predictions: Technology’s Growing Role in Food Safety

By Kari Hensien
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Kari Hensien, RizePoint

Amid continuing threats to our food supply, food businesses should understand how tech tools can help improve all facets of their operations—from increasing sustainability to ensuring their suppliers are committed to safety and quality. In the coming year, more operators will rely on technology to save money, reduce waste, improve training, boost accuracy, and make more informed business decisions.

The good news is that tech solutions have become more affordable and accessible for food businesses of all sizes. Therefore, digital solutions will become more widely used in the coming year, as food businesses ditch their manual systems and/or disjointed tech stacks that don’t provide holistic views of their enterprise in favor of modern, integrated, intuitive tools.

Following are some of the key challenges that necessitate a shift to new technologies.

The Need for Sustainable Food Production

Climate change is putting food production at risk. Extreme weather is destroying traditionally grown crops and, moving forward, there will be a renewed effort around sustainable food production, including efforts such as vertical farming, hydroponics, and aquaponics.

The food industry must leverage technology to address multiple issues, from reducing greenhouse gas emissions to changing the way we grow food. Faster innovation is essential to make farming more sustainable, create new infrastructure, reduce our dependence on foreign food supplies, increase the transparency all along the supply chain, and reduce risk from farm to table.

Quality and Accuracy are King

Integrated software can boost accuracy, which will elevate a variety of critical metrics, including revenue, safety, quality and customer loyalty. Tech tools help you plan better, track inventory, monitor customer preference, and anticipate upcoming needs by tracking key metrics across your enterprise. Remember, if you don’t measure accuracy, you can’t improve it. Additionally, if there are accuracy problems, these tools can help you identify if you have one problematic employee or if there are more widespread problems at a specific location (or locations). Based on this data, you can take corrective actions, including increasing training and adjusting processes.

Training Will Change

Historically, food businesses trained employees by explaining how things should be done, then expected staff to do exactly what they learned. But what if you thought about training differently? What if you used tech tools to provide critical information in bite-sized chunks to boost employees’ understanding? What if you sent information right to their phones so they always have resources at their fingertips? Then, you could use automated reminders to ensure they don’t forget a crucial safety check during a busy shift.

One important change that’s expected to trend in the coming year is building collaborative cultures versus punitive ones. It’s important that employees feel encouraged to ask questions, seek feedback, and be empowered to take ownership of safety and quality efforts. Train, practice, demonstrate, and reinforce to boost employee confidence and retention, using tech tools to reinforce these lessons.

The Supply Chain Will Become More Transparent

It’s critical to implement safety and quality protocols for your business, but that alone is not enough. Every food business must also inspect safety, quality, and traceability all along their supply chain, as well. Thanks to more affordable, accessible tech tools, this is now possible for brands of all sizes and budgets, and you can get started without a big investment. Focus on what the regulations require and use digital solutions to seamlessly manage your vendors’ safety and QA certifications. Today’s solutions allow you to organize and track this important information in a centralized location for quick, easy access.

Food Businesses Will Audit Differently

Remote brand protection grew in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic, as companies needed alternative ways to protect their locations/facilities when travel restrictions prohibited them from physically reaching them for audits or inspections. Now that the pandemic is over, expect food businesses to continue auditing differently.

Maybe it’s unrealistic to reach all your locations regularly, or it’s cost prohibitive to send in-person auditors to numerous locations multiple times per year. Tech solutions can save quality teams as much as 70% of their current program budgets, which is a huge win at a time when every dollar counts.

Increasingly, food businesses will ditch the paper checklists for more efficient, accurate, transparent, and frequent auditing, including self-assessments. Digital solutions will help ensure that every safety and quality check is done regularly (and properly). The days of relying solely on annual third-party inspections are over. Now, food businesses are embracing a combination of third-party and remote inspections plus frequent self-inspections to maximize safety and minimize risks.

It can feel overwhelming to try and manage all aspects of your organization’s safety and quality programs while also navigating the ongoing problems that are putting our food production at risk. Food businesses will have to work hard to keep the lights on and deliver products (and promises) to customers. Tech solutions will make all aspects of your business operations easier, faster, and more accurate, while also boosting safety and quality.

Jeff Chilton

What Food Manufacturers Can Learn from the Baby Formula Recall

By Jeff Chilton
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Jeff Chilton

Months after the most high-profile product recalls in U.S. history, grocery stores are replenishing their supplies of baby formula. While the news remains fresh in everyone’s memory, food manufacturers have an opportunity to reflect on the mistakes that brought about this tragic event.

Abbott Nutrition, which produces about one-fourth of the nation’s infant formula, will be associated with this year’s baby formula shortage for years because it failed on so many levels to keep products safe at its plant in Sturgis, Michigan.

Many of the factors behind this crisis could have been easily avoided or at least quickly corrected. Instead, it took a whistleblower to alert the FDA, citing falsified records, releasing of untested products, sanitation problems, information hidden from auditors, failure to take corrective actions, and traceability issues.

In addition to near irreparable damage to its brand, Abbott Nutrition and members of its executive team are facing regulatory actions, criminal prosecution, and lawsuits.

The formula recall offers an opportunity for food manufacturers to learn from Abbott’s mistakes and to prepare for intensified scrutiny from federal regulators. Let’s dive into some of the most important lessons learned from the Abbott baby formula recall.

Empower Employees
Your frontline employees are your best defense for maintaining food and workplace safety. Make sure they know they won’t face retaliation for reporting incidents. In Abbott’s case, the whistleblower talked about retaliation against employees for reporting food safety concerns. And some employees were afraid they might lose their jobs if they raised concerns.

Take Corrective Actions
A failure to take effective corrective action was a big issue across the board for Abbott and something that all companies find difficult to do. Unfortunately, in the food industry, it’s much more common to put a band-aid on a symptom than conduct a root cause analysis to identify a problem. Fix the root problem as soon as you discover it so you’re not fighting the same fire day after day.

Ensure Record-Keeping Integrity
This seems obvious, but many food manufacturers still don’t have a formalized process to maintain proper record-keeping practices. This process should be documented and shared when necessary with auditors, and there should always be a zero-tolerance policy to prevent falsified records.

Provide Audit Transparency
During the Abbott investigation and audits, there was a lack of transparency and a willingness to withhold information. This can be a fine line to walk. When your workers’ and customers’ health and safety are on the line, it’s critical to be as forthcoming as possible. When preparing for audits, there is the temptation to answer questions only when asked and to avoid volunteering additional information. However, this mentality can mask problems that will eventually come to light.

Establish Proper Sanitation Practices
Many food manufacturers fail to maintain, validate, and consistently implement proper sanitation procedures. Sanitation jobs can be challenging. They involve cold and wet processing environments and are usually worked during third shifts. Most companies struggle with an excessively high employee turnover in these positions. And with few workers on hand, they strive to prepare for the next shift in just a few hours. Maintaining sanitation procedures is a big challenge for many companies, but critical to delivering safe food products.

Validate Environmental Monitoring
Food manufacturers should have environmental monitoring programs in place where they test equipment and the processing environment for various pathogens. From food contact surfaces to areas inside the processing room—including floors, walls, and drains—to outside processing areas like break rooms and common hallways, it is imperative to identify the correct sites to sample, ensure adequate sampling frequency, and act when necessary based on the results.

Establish Traceability

Food manufacturers need to be able to trace all raw materials, packaging materials, processing aids, and anything else that goes into their finished product, as well as their shipping processes and destinations. Most companies have a good idea of where products are shipped, but they’re not as adept at tracing the raw materials and processing aids that come into their manufacturing facilities. That was one of the issues cited with Abbott Nutrition, and it’s a problem in the food industry.

Ensure Redundancy and Sustainability in the Supply Chain

Our country relies too much on just a few manufacturers to supply critical food supplies in too many areas. In the case of Abbott Nutrition, one major factory shutdown sent shockwaves through the industry and panicked consumers. Food manufacturers must have backup plans and processes in place in case of recalls, fires, tornados, floods, sabotage, or any other issue that might bring their operations to a halt.

These are some of the most prominent lessons we can all learn from Abbott’s missteps around their baby formula recall. The food industry must do as much as possible to ensure a safe and sustainable food supply. This means evaluating food safety and quality assurance systems to identify potential risks and reassessing programs to create a stronger food safety quality assurance system.

It’s also critical to develop a robust food safety culture across the entire company from the top down. Every manufacturer needs to be proactive in maintaining food safety. No company should rely on inspectors or auditors to discover their issues. They must anticipate questions and problems that can occur during audits through robust internal review processes. This not only allows them to pass their audits but also gives them the ability to proactively identify and address issues before they become major violations or national recalls that make headlines.

Kari Hensien, RizePoint
FST Soapbox

Food Crisis Backup Planning

By Kari Hensien
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Kari Hensien, RizePoint

We were collectively shocked by the Covid-19 crisis that disrupted the food industry. We didn’t see it coming and we weren’t prepared for the long-lasting, widespread repercussions of that crisis, including product and labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and record-setting inflation.

Many food businesses were reliant on certain suppliers, and if they couldn’t deliver necessary products, companies either had to go without or scramble to find an alternate solution. As an industry, we were reactive—not proactive—to the pandemic and the ensuing fallout.

Now that we have some perspective, a big takeaway is that food businesses need to have better backup plans to address supply chain disruptions, product shortages and delays. This is especially important because:

  • Extreme weather is causing crop failures, livestock deaths and suboptimal soil conditions, resulting in more world hunger. Extreme drought conditions are destroying produce out west, including in California, a region that grows significant amounts of produce to ship nationwide. The Midwest, which produces approximately three-quarters of our country’s corn supply, is facing the opposite problem, as frequent floods wash away precious soil. Europe’s record-setting heat is torching vegetation, while India is pausing exports because of a severe heat wave.
  • The ongoing Ukraine/Russian war is predicted to give rise to a “food catastrophe.” Our global food system relies on a few big food commodity exporters, and Ukraine and Russia are two of the biggest. Together, these two countries supply approximately 60% of the global sunflower oil production—a product that goes into hundreds of consumable goods. It is a significant threat to the global food supply that so many of these exports have stalled.
  • Soaring inflation and resulting record high food prices are putting food out of the reach of many, leading to a worldwide rise in food insecurity, leading to increased hunger and malnutrition. The number of food insecure people is predicted to grow globally from 440 million to 1.6 billion, and nearly 250 million people are facing famine.
  • The ongoing labor shortage is contributing to disruptions and food waste all along the supply chain. Crates of perishable foods are being left to rot in shipping containers, warehouses and trucks because there aren’t enough workers to get them safely to their final destinations.

Below are several steps food brands can take to address and prepare for these ongoing threats to the supply chain.

Use tech tools to manage your supply chain. Today’s digital solutions allow you to audit and evaluate your supply chain’s sustainability and resilience. These innovative tools can help you get a better handle on your supply chain by organizing supplier certifications into a system that offers better visibility and is easier manage.

Embrace sophisticated technologies. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI), robotics and other technologies may help solve some of our most pressing supply chain challenges. For instance, when the Suez Canal was blocked in 2021 it halted all shipments through that major passageway, causing a supply chain crisis. AI rerouted ships to avoid the blockage, so food deliveries could continue via a detour. AI can also monitor shipments to ensure safety and quality, notifying suppliers and buyers about any safety breaches.

The FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety calls for a broader approach to food safety and traceability, and AI can help achieve those goals. Moving forward, AI will be instrumental in increasing transparency all along the supply chain, providing end-to-end visibility and predicting the path of foodborne outbreaks.

Develop back up plans. How are your suppliers pivoting to manage the simultaneous threats against our global food supply? How are they preparing for climate change? What will they do if they can’t get necessary produce from California, corn from the Midwest or grain from Ukraine? How will they recruit and retain enough labor to deliver necessary products safely to their final destinations? It’s smart to find backup suppliers, especially those closer to home, to ensure an uninterrupted supply of foods. Work with suppliers that are focused on solutions, safety and quality, and keep careful track of each supplier’s safety certifications.

Consider vertical farming. Increasingly, companies are looking for alternate supplier and agriculture solutions, such as vertical farming, which grows crops closer to their final destinations. Growing foods closer to their final destination helps reduce food deserts and safety risks, boost sustainability and minimize food wastage. Vertical farms are typically indoor climate-controlled spaces. These growing conditions protect crops from severe weather, and offer a viable solution to bypass a variety of current issues from the climate crisis to supply chain headaches.

Pivot to agroecological farming. Agroecological farming practices mitigate climate change and prioritize local supply chains. Using this approach, farmers adopt agricultural techniques based on the local area and its specific social, environmental and economic conditions. Agroecology focuses on sustainability, working to reduce emissions, recycle resources and minimize waste. Those that embrace this farming approach believe that traditional farming often faces—and contributes to—a variety of problems, including soil degradation and excessive use of pollutants. Intensive, traditional farming approaches typically focus on short-term output vs. long-term sustainability, which exhausts many natural resources, local resources and wildlife. Agroecological farmers adhere to strict standards that support animal welfare, fewer pesticides and antibiotics, healthier soil and no GMOs.

Be proactive. In hindsight, we should have been more proactive during the Covid-19 crisis, developing backup plans for the huge supply chain disruptions that were headed our way. Before the pandemic, we couldn’t possibly have anticipated the ramifications of a disrupted supply chain and we didn’t understand the need to have backup plans in place for alternative food sources and waste reduction. Today, we have a more realistic perspective and recognize the need to plan ahead for any eventuality.

Our food supply is being threatened by simultaneous crises—from climate change to war—so we must be proactive, prepared, resilient and flexible in developing a solid Plan B.

 

 

Sara Bratager
FST Soapbox

The Future of Food Safety Is Data Driven

By Sara Bratager
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Sara Bratager

“Better food safety begins and ends with better data,” remarked FDA Deputy Commissioner Frank Yiannas during a speech delivered on World Food Safety Day 2022 that emphasized the immense power of data in our food system. Digitized traceability data is critical not only for efficient recalls but also for root cause analysis of foodborne illness events. Product movement, performance and environmental data sets—when aggregated and analyzed—have the power to generate valuable trend insights and inform continuous improvement initiatives in food safety.

Embracing the opportunities provided by better data, the FDA has incorporated data sharing, data quality and data analysis themes into each of the core elements of the New Era for Smarter Food Safety Blueprint. Companies across the food industry mirror that focus, integrating data-based initiatives in their organizational goals. Following are some the latest and emerging technologies entering the food safety and traceability space to support industry efforts to harness the power of data.

IoT Devices Facilitate Data Collection

Though data collection efforts often rely heavily upon human labor, the use of Internet-connected devices to collect food safety and traceability data is expanding throughout the food and beverage industry.

Sensors at the harvest level can be used to monitor climate conditions in the field, automatically alerting farmers to weather events that may impact the quality and safety of food crops. Processing facilities use sensors to monitor the temperature of ingredients and raw materials through the production process, while logistics providers are using IoT technology for cold-chain monitoring.

Radiofrequency identification (RFID) scanners can be used to track the movements of tagged food products, supporting end-to-end food traceability efforts throughout the supply chain. The range of sensors, cameras, scanners and other IoT devices empower food industry actors to access and collect more comprehensive datasets than those collected with human labor.

Data gathered by these devices can be used to manage food safety deviations in real time, quickly recall unsafe products and create valuable predictive models.

Emerging Technical Standards Promote Data Communication

Traceability begins with data collection, but it does not end there. With complex, multi-party supply chains that stretch across our global food system, data communication is critical for end-to-end traceability.

Data standards and communications protocols facilitate seamless data exchange between trading partners. Published in July 2022, GS1’s EPCIS 2.0 standard provides businesses with a standardized way of capturing and sharing traceability data. This presents a common language to capture the what, where, when, why and how of supply chain events. Digital systems that elect to speak the same “language” enable interoperable communication, simplifying the flow of data from one end of the supply chain to the other. These systems can help to reduce the incidence and severity of outbreak occurrence through quicker, more accurate recalls and investigation.

AI and Machine Learning for Improved Data Analysis

With large pools of data at their fingertips, many organizations are looking to AI to analyze and make use of their food safety data.

During the March 2022 FDA TechTalk podcast, Maria Velissariou, VP of global corporate research and development and chief science officer for Mars, Inc., discussed the company’s use of AI in management of aflatoxin: a toxin that’s prevalence is likely to increase with climate change. Meteorological, geospatial and temporal data are analyzed to create AI-based models that predict the generation of aflatoxin in food crops. This model aims to provide farmers with the tools and information needed to prevent toxin formation in the field.

Regulatory agencies are also taking advantage of novel data analysis technology. Armed with two years of seafood import data, the FDA used machine learning to develop and pilot a predictive model for the identification of non-compliant seafood shipments. The program aimed to improve the agency’s ability to target seafood products that may pose a food safety risk, allowing for more efficient use of limited product testing and investigation resources. FDA plans to apply key learnings from the pilot to explore predictive models with other regulated food products.

As the global food supply chain becomes increasingly complex, the food industry must integrate data-driven solutions by expanding the adoption of technologies that enable data collection, exchange and analysis. We’ve already seen the power of food safety and traceability data in creating predictive and preventative models that benefit public health. Now, moving forward, stakeholders from across the industry must share their findings and work collaboratively to continually raise the standard of food safety practices worldwide.

Gary Nowacki
FST Soapbox

It’s Time To Embrace Ingredient Agility

By Gary Nowacki
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Gary Nowacki

In a recent Politico report, critics blasted the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for chronic failures, including instances of contaminated baby formula, outbreaks of contaminated produce and the agency’s institutional reticence to implement changes.[1] Compounding the situation is the most fragmented global supply chain in history, making it a particularly challenging time for food and beverage companies.

Ingredients are the building blocks of the supply chain, so when circumstances threaten their integrity and availability, the ripple effect can linger for weeks, months or even years. As the FDA’s limitations become more apparent and supply chain challenges persist, brands must take responsibility for foundational change that addresses and mitigates risks related to food-, beverage- and supplement-borne illness.

Food Safety and Supply Chain Issues Challenge CPGs

As the Politico coverage pointed out, high turnover at the top of FDA has contributed to the agency’s challenges: five different commissioners have led the FDA over the last three years. In addition to concerns with federal oversight, brands are still navigating a broken supply chain, which has taken a beating over the last few years. And while the damage has come from war, trade tariffs and shipping congestion, food safety also emerged as a culprit when the FDA announced a recall of some of the country’s most popular infant formula brands. In February, the agency announced it was investigating consumer complaints of bacterial infections in four infants who were hospitalized. This bacterial infection might have contributed to death in two cases.[2]

While the recall emerged as a catalyst for the U.S. formula shortage, it wasn’t the only factor. Import restraints and market concentration (four companies produce 90% of the formula sold [3]) contributed to this perfect storm that rocked an already strained supply chain. National out-of-stock rates peaked at 70% near the end of May, and regulators announced that they did not expect relief until July. [4]

In scenarios such as this, the best defense brands can employ is to build a diverse supplier base and agile ingredient supply chain. Relying on a limited number of ingredient suppliers is a risky strategy even under the best of market conditions. But when disaster strikes, it can cripple a manufacturer and grind production to a halt. For the sake of consumers, creating agility and resilience around ingredients and sourcing is critical.

Equally important to cultivating relationships with alternate suppliers is the ability to have quick access to critical data. A robust digital document management system that offers manufacturers a unified view of products, data and processes across the business and the supply chain can help brands ensure they have a resilient ingredients network able to withstand supply chain or ingredient-sourcing issues. CPGs can benefit from instant access to millions of supplier documents to help fast-track sourcing, formulation and recipe development as well as protect themselves from potential disaster.

Pandemic Uncertainty and New Legislation

As the pandemic ramped up in March 2020, the FDA announced it would pause most foreign food inspections.[5] Additionally, regulators moved to virtual audits to keep their inspectors safe from COVID. Recalls fell. The FDA reported 495 recalls in the fiscal year 2020 and 427 in 2021. By comparison, the agency reported 526 recalls in the fiscal year 2019.[6]

The drop in recalls could be attributed to the ongoing rollout of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which strengthened food production safeguards. In addition, a proposed rule change to FSMA, Section 204, would enforce better recordkeeping and quicker recall responses. The introduction of the Formula Shortage Reporting Act of 2022, requiring immediate action from manufacturers when future disruptions to production occur, is another step toward stricter food standards.

If passed, Section 204 would require companies who process, pack or hold items on the food traceability list (FTL) to capture and store ingredient data for two years, and submit it within 24 hours of a recall.[7] Without a formal system of record in place to manage food production, tracing ingredients—where, when and from whom they came—is a difficult and complex challenge to solve. Human error, overseas suppliers, recalls and other constantly changing variables all must be tracked and monitored constantly. This diligence demands automation and collaboration at scale.

Collaboration via holistic networked platforms can facilitate that diligence by enabling global ingredients suppliers, CPG brands, co-manufacturers and packing companies to build safer, stronger and more modern supply chain networks. Today, the stakes of not having a modern supply chain and access to real-time ingredient data have grown exponentially beyond profit and competitive advantage to a whole new level of costing lives.

Nimble Access to Ingredient Data is Crucial

On May 27, U.S. Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Massachusetts, introduced the “Ensuring Safe and Toxic Free Foods Act.” The bill, co-sponsored by Sens. Richard Blumenthal, D-Connecticut, and Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, would—among other things—strengthen the Substances Generally Recognized as Safe (GRAS) Rule, which allows companies to avoid pre-market approval for food chemicals.[8]

The bill would direct the FDA to revise the GRAS Rule to include provisions that:

  • Prohibit manufacturers from designating substances as safe without supplying proper notice and supporting information to the Secretary of Health and Human Services
  • Require safety information to be publicly available on the FDA website and subject to a 90-day public review period
  • Prohibit carcinogenic substances from receiving GRAS designation
  • Prohibit substances that show reproductive or developmental toxicity from receiving GRAS designation
  • Prohibit people with conflicts of interest from serving as experts in reviewing and evaluating scientific data regarding GRAS designations

Brands must have easy access to ingredient data to ensure compliance with the GRAS revisions as well as be proactive about food safety. Software that monitors threats and regulatory risks throughout the supply chain in real-time is essential to prevent both food safety issues and supply chain disruptions. These systems transform massive amounts of data into user-friendly, actionable insights for fast and effective risk management.

Food safety remains one of the gravest public health threats to consumers worldwide. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) insists that foodborne diseases cause 76 million illnesses in the U.S. annually, leading to 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 fatalities.[9]

With the FDA still struggling to regain the agency’s pre-pandemic diligence, it’s incumbent on manufacturers to double down on food safety. Digitization—evolving from paper to relevant, real-time data—is a critical component of the path forward to improve safety and increase ingredient agility.

Technology and automation help manufacturers and suppliers work better together, collaborate on ingredient data, move more quickly and problem solve together. In today’s modern supply chain, more CPGs are investing in partnerships to increase agility and gain more resilience over the shocks we’ve seen the past few years. More flexible and collaborative tools for engaging with global ingredient supplier networks can increase safety while improving bottom line efficiency.

References:

[1] Bottemiller Evich, H. (2022, April 8). The FDA’s Food Failure. Politico.

[2] U.S. Food & Drug Administration. (2022, May 12). Powdered Infant Formula Recall: What to Know.

[3] Muller, M. & Nyler, L. (2022, May 20). How US Baby Formula Monopolies Have Failed Families. Bloomberg.

[4] KHN. (2022, May 27). FDA Chief Suggests Stockpile Of Baby Formula Once Crisis Ends In July. Kaiser Health News.

[5] U.S. Food & Drug Administration. (2021, May). Resiliency Roadmap for FDA Inspectional Oversight.

[6] U.S. PIRG Education Fund. (2022, January 31). Food Recalls Decline in 2021, but That Doesn’t Mean Food is Safer.

[7] Govinfo.gov. (2022, June 13). Formula Shortage Reporting Act of 2022.

[8] Ensuring Safe and Toxic-Free Foods Act of 2022. (2022, May 27). Ensuring Safe and Toxic Free Foods Act.

[9] Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2018). Estimates of Foodborne Illness in the United States.

 

Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine
Food Genomics

How Data Analysis Supports Food Safety

By Emily Newton
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Emily Newton, Revolutionized Magazine

Data analytics can reduce the risks of foodborne illness, improve collaboration among food processing and service teams and help identify food fraud. As technology has advanced, researchers, policy-makers and food safety professionals are finding new ways to collect, use and analyze data. Following are some of the latest advances in the field of data analytics and food safety.

Improving Risk Assessment Strategies

Data and tracking have long been integral components of food safety risk assessment. Today, researchers are combining big data, machine learning and microbial genomics to create next-generation quantitative microbial risk assessment (QMRA).

Researchers at the University of Maryland received funding from the United States Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA-NIFA) to support work that combines machine learning and computational analysis with genomic sequencing and data about foodborne pathogen characteristics. They intend to take advantage of big data available in the agriculture and food sectors and integrate data from food production, processing, food safety risk factors and genomic data to inform—and potentially transform—public health strategies to prevent foodborne diseases and speed response to outbreaks.

QMRA can be used to: predict the behavior and transmission of pathogens across food production, processing and supply chain; identify areas in the chain that could lead to contamination; and estimate the probability and consequences of adverse public health effects in the event that tainted products are consumed.

Abani Pradhan, associate professor in Nutrition and Food Science at the University of Maryland and lead investigator on this project, explains that this data analysis project should lead to better accuracy due to the inclusion of AI and genomics. “The sheer abundance of information by including molecular and genomic data available should increase the robustness of disease risk estimates by reducing the sources of uncertainty and variability in the QMRA model,” said Pradhan. “This is important because there are so many different species of each foodborne pathogen, and even within the same species, there are different variations or types called serovars.”

Pradhan’s team are starting with Salmonella, because it has more than 2,500 serovars, all of which have highly variable characteristics. How resistant a pathogen is to heat stress or antimicrobials, how infectious it is and how quickly it grows and spreads are all characteristics of the pathogen that can be partially explained by genomic data.

“The idea is to connect that genetic information with the characteristics of the pathogen to bridge the gap between the genes and the food safety aspects for consumers,” said Pradhan. “If we can use machine learning tools to understand the linkages between genotypes and phenotypes, based upon that we can determine which serovars are the most concerning so that we can focus our experimental work on those types and further strengthen our models to create a risk assessment that provides a more robust and complete picture of the risk for risk mitigation.”

Using Online Data To Detect Safety Issues

The U.S. has a robust regulatory and oversight system to identify foodborne threats. In 2019, researchers led by Adyasha Maharana of the Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education, University of Washington, wanted to see if online consumer reviews might contain safety clues that could identify unsafe food products before official inspections or recalls occurred. They created a database linking Amazon food and grocery product reviews to product recall data from the FDA, and analyzed more than 1 million Amazon reviews featuring words like “sick,” “ill” and “foul.” The results showed that only 0.4% of the Amazon reviews containing those words were for recalled products.

The researchers also found synonyms for terms linked to FDA recalls in 20,000 reviews, although those products were still on the market. The researchers concluded that this “might suggest that many more products should have been recalled or investigated” and note their work could be used to aid regulators in determining which items to investigate.

A similar project, Google’s machine-learning algorithm FINDER (Food-borne Illness Detector in Real Time), uses search and location logs to identify restaurants that could be making people sick in real time. FINDER pulls data from people’s Google search queries for terms or symptoms that suggest they may have food poisoning. It then matches that information to Google location data logs to figure out which restaurants those individuals may have visited.

They tested this approach in Las Vegas and Chicago for four months in each city. The data analysis application helped food inspectors find 25% more unsafe restaurants compared to the previously used inspection method.

Neither of these case studies suggests regulators should do away with their more established procedures. However, combining this type of data analysis with existing strategies could further enhance safety.

Reducing Food Fraud

Many of today’s consumers want to know that the food they are eating comes from organic farms or was otherwise produced to certain standards. That’s why many restaurants now list which supply chain partners they use for specific menu items. This type of data reporting and sharing also offers improved food traceability. Having accurate information about where a food or beverage originated makes it easier to address and track problems when they do occur.

End-to-end traceability and real-time monitoring technologies continue to evolve, bringing new, more powerful tools that help providers at every link of the farm to table chain identify loss, theft and potential safety issues.

At the University of Adelaide, researchers improved upon current methods of detecting wine fraud by combining fluorescence spectroscopy and machine learning to determine a beverage’s molecular fingerprint. The team looked at Cabernet Sauvignon from three different wine regions. They found that their method could correctly authenticate the geographic origins of wine with 100% accuracy.

It is impossible to remove all food and beverage safety risks from the supply chain. However, successful applications of data analysis that help keep people safer are undoubtedly steps in the right direction. As more companies in the food and beverage industry adopt new data analysis tools, other interesting possibilities will become apparent. Even as things stand, the applications are full of promise.