Managing Food Safety Practices from Farm to Table Workshop Summary (2009) / Chapter Skim
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4 The Way Forward: Varying Perspectives
4 The Way Forward: Varying Perspectives
Pages 65-90
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From page 65... ...
Sundlof described the direction the FDA has been heading over the past year or so with respect to food safety, including the November 2007 launch of its Food Protection Plan, which calls for a range of domestic and international initiatives and activities. The second panelist was Caroline Smith DeWaal of the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
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From page 66... ...
USDA's involvement in a range of international regulatory activities. A lengthy discussion on several key topics followed the panelist presentations: • he need to improve communication between industry and T government • he global nature of the food supply chain: challenges and T opportunities • ivergent opinions about the need for more government oversight D on farms • Controversy around the notion of a single unified food agency • Water quality and waste management: who is responsible?
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From page 67... ...
In November 2007, FDA launched its Food Protection Plan, based on three core elements, or pillars: prevention, intervention, and response: 1. Prevention: This is where the FDA will be putting the greatest em phasis, Sundlof noted.
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From page 68... ...
2. ntervention: This component of the Food Protection Plan relies I on targeted risk-based inspections and again encompasses several initiatives and activities: a.
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From page 69... ...
A Consumer Advocacy Perspective on Moving Forward Presenter: Caroline Smith DeWaal DeWaal reflected on her participation in an IOM Food and Nutrition Board workshop held in this very room about 10 years ago. The focus of that workshop was on the structure of the U.S.
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From page 70... ...
leadership role with respect to consumer protection. For example, she would like to see greater expertise applied to the important role of risk communication, so that risk communication triggers the appropriate consumer responses.
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So, while risk assessment and risk management have both received a lot of attention and are both moving forward, risk communication has not received the same level of attention at either the national or international level. It is time.
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From page 72... ...
. • need to reach consensus on key criteria that impact food safety We and public health regardless of where that food is produced, pro cessed, distributed or consumed.
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From page 73... ...
Too often, new college graduates focus on animal nutrition, food microbiology or some other discipline and are not seeing the whole picture with respect to the way the different components of the supply chain are linked together. A USDA Perspective on Moving Forward Presenter: Richard Raymond Raymond began by echoing other comments on the international nature of the food supply chain, pointing to ground hamburger as an example: you don't know whether the ground beef you are eating came from Uruguay, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, or elsewhere.
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From page 74... ...
This new information system will not only alleviate some of this type of data-mining frustration, it will also allow for risk-based inspections of both processing and, eventually, slaughter plants. Right now, as bound by law, USDA spends exactly the same amount of time inspecting a ground beef plant as it does a plant that processes chicken noodle soup.
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From page 75... ...
? International inspections and equivalency-testing need to be just as risk-based as domestic food safety considerations, he said.
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The USDA has done a good job at keeping consumers informed about food safety policy and has made efforts to improve risk communication, she said. Noting that the FDA has far fewer personnel available to
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There are many good examples of well-vetted, consistent supply chains, with most companies having assembled them for their own use. He argued that the criteria for standards exist -- now, the private and public sectors need to sit down and agree that these criteria exist so that we can move forward.
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From page 78... ...
federal government efforts have impacted the global food supply chain by decreasing the proportion of U.S. imports of products not processed according to GAPs.
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From page 79... ...
This includes developing a mechanism for data sharing in the event that a regulatory agency needs that information. Doyle reiterated what Robach had argued both during his presentation and in response to the previous question about the global nature of the food supply chain: that we need to take a step back and re-evaluate our criteria for safe food production, distribution, and consumption and then make sure that those criteria are being employed.
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From page 80... ...
Instead, we need to spend our time and energy on solving the legal and financial problems that already exist within each individual agency. For example, the law does not allow risk-based inspections: Not only does a ground beef plant receive the same level of inspection as a chicken noodle soup plant; tomato soup plants receive no inspections.
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From page 81... ...
Water Quality and Waste Management Robach said that, from a processing standpoint, water quality is an extremely important issue. Water is obviously a key input into all food production processes, and Cargill treats water as a critical ingredient and evaluates it the same way it does any other product ingredient.
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From page 82... ...
Bruhn noted that both issues (i.e., water quality and waste management) were the subjects of active areas of research.
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president and spokesperson Nancy Donley. Donley remarked that after closely following food safety issues for 15 years, ever since the Jack-inthe-Box epidemic really catapulted the issue of food safety into the public eye, despite new technologies and other innovations and new research, and new money allocated to agencies for food safety projects, food borne illnesses still occur and people still die from them.
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From page 84... ...
She noted a 2001 publication in Emerging Infectious Diseases by Robert Tauxe, where Tauxe argued that if half of all ground beef, poultry, and processed meats were irradiated, over 350 lives would be saved every year and more than 6,000 serious foodborne illnesses averted. DeWaal remarked that FDA has approved irradiation of spinach and lettuce, which marks a step forward in improving food safety for leafy greens.
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From page 85... ...
Raymond commented that, obviously, the USDA does as much traceability as it can to determine contamination sources. This can be especially difficult with ground beef in particular, given that grinders mix and match products not only from different slaughterhouses but from different countries (i.e., trim from the United States is blended with trim from other countries in order to make a leaner burger)
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From page 86... ...
In reference to the Salmonella outbreak that was traced back to pot pies, he noted that in fact a lot of people did not cook the pies correctly. He noted the typically low wattage of microwaves in, for example, college dorm rooms and the reality that most people do not leave their microwaveable products in the microwave as per many product cooking instructions (e.g., cook on "high" for four minutes and then leave
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Gaining an International Perspective Groth commented again on the lack of a developing country perspective in this workshop. He mentioned an upcoming food production meeting in Beijing, China, where food safety would be featured prominently.
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There is a lot to be learned from that: It is possible to meet very high food safety standards when there is market incentive and with sufficient technical capacity or support. Raymond agreed that any time experts with an interest in food safety meet the meeting is useful, no matter where the meeting is held.
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From page 89... ...
? Ensuring safe food for all is going to become more difficult as these opportunistic pathogens continue to emerge.
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