Industry officials in food safety who have been there commonly warn "you don’t want to be exchanging business cards with your regulators at the beginning of a food safety event." Whether an outbreak, recall, natural disaster, or other event, knowing your regulators in advance of the event results in a much more effective relationship during challenging times.
Corrective actions in food safety require quality assurance tools to inform written procedures for identifying and correcting problems, reducing the likelihood of reoccurrence, and preventing affected food from entering commerce.
By transforming maintenance into a preventive control, its effectiveness is enhanced by helping prevent food safety issues from occurring and increasing the company's confidence in its quality and food safety programs.
The meat and poultry industry faced unprecedented disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic, as employees worked in tight quarters on production lines, making it especially vulnerable. What is the current state of knowledge of the risk factors for such workers?
The growth in plant-based foods requires a closer look at the safety of their ingredients and raw materials as well as the adoption of an integrated approach to food safety in this young product category.
Knowledge of food safety is essential to enhance safe food handling practices and compliance. Still, knowledge and training alone are insufficient to ensure safe practices and staff compliance. Learn about the role of organizational factors on improving employees' food safety behaviors and the culture of food safety system implementation.
Ten years after we first defined food fraud in an academic sense, there has been a lot of progress, but we still have a long way to go. Learn how management systems are maturing and shifting resource allocations and what this means for the future.
As Chairman of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, Congressman Krishnamoorthi initiated an investigation into toxic metals in baby food to find alarming levels from a variety of companies. In response, the Congressman has introduced the Baby Food Safety Act. In addition, the FDA responded to the Oversight investigation by introducing their “Closer to Zero” campaign, but the campaign does not go far enough nor fast enough.
For all the food safety benefits that Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) and preventive controls have brought us, perhaps public health would be better served if companies put the most effort toward managing their greatest risks instead of thinking of risk in yes/no terms.