Prevention Details: Foreign Material Removal

We talked last time about giving credit to the fresh-cut industry for the prevention investments they've made in the food safety battle. Kudos to them for the GAPs, GMPs, and HACCP implementations that really are providing large benefits to the safety of our food.

The part of this prevention effort I know about is in the detection and removal of foreign material (FM) and product defects from a stream of fresh-cut product. This prevention doesn't come cheap up front, but the paybacks can come quickly, not only in recall prevention, but also in labor reduction and quality improvements. GAPs can help prevent some FM from coming into the process line, but any outdoor crop will have the inevitable evidence of some creature being present. Whether by land or by air, insects, birds, animals and humans all have the potential to leave items behind in a growing area, and those items can be picked up during the harvesting process, and tranferred to the processing plant.

How do we get rid of FM? Washing will remove some, but do you really want to put FM in your wash water? Most HACCP plans would specify removal of FM prior to any wash to avoid potential contamination. But, using people to inspect your product prior to wash is the last thing you can afford to do, if you can even find them to start with.

Of course, there is a pretty good solution today, and that is to use an automated sorter, which uses a nearly magical combination of mechanical, electronic, optical, pneumatic, and software components to detect and remove FM and product defects. This sounds pretty complicated, so how do you know what is really required? We'll cover those basic needs and functions next time.

Stumble It!

Bookmark on del.icio.us

What about some credit for prevention?

Wow, how quickly the bad-guy designation gets shifted. For two months, and up until just a few days ago, the FDA bore the brunt of press finger pointing in the Saintpaul outbreak. Suddenly, that finger is pointing at the food industry, and produce suppliers in particular, because they resisted an undefined and expensive tracking methodology. Although it is human nature to try to find a haunch on which to sizzle the blame brand, this ignores the fact that a trace back system doesn't address many basic food safety issues.
http://www.newsinferno.com/archives/3522
http://www.news-sentinel.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080728/EDITORIAL/807280306

Forget about all the investments you have made in actually preventing an outbreak in the first place; GAPs, GMPs, HACCP, triple wash, automated dosing systems, optical inspection equipment, and cold chain investments. If you're associated with the food chain, your feet are in the fire for not embracing trace-back.
Can we go back to those pesky economics? How much will it cost taxpayers and food companies to implement a trace-back system? Are there other investment options that would give a better return on the food safety dollar?
In the EU, a group has provided initial funding for a type of trace-back system, based on the technology available in micro-devices, with a pilot program slated for release in 2010.
http://www.traceback-ip.eu/index.php Sounds intriguing, but it appears underfunded at €15,5M for the scope of work. Perhaps this pioneering work can be used to help model a cost effective system elsewhere.
Do you think a trace back system would be an effective tool in the food safety arsenal? Let me know what you think. Meantime, let's all work to help increase the public awareness of the tremendous effort the fresh produce industry has invested into prevention, and give them some well-earned credit.

Stumble It!

Bookmark on del.icio.us

Outbreaks and Economics

First off, apologies for the gap between last time we talked and now. United FreshTech came and went, and life happened for all of us, at the same time our industry is coping with another frustrating & financially damaging outbreak.

Consumer safety is important, but overall common sense and yes, economics must play a part. Condemning an entire industry segment or two (and yes, that's essentially what the FDA has done with their recommendations) for an unknown source of infection is not appropriate. The cost to the fresh-cut industry can be measured in the hundreds of millions, and the prevented harm is likely less than ten million; something like a 50:1 ratio. In my opinion, the economic impact of the FDA's actions is out of scale with the harm prevented. OK, the press probably has some culpability here, too, since dramatic headlines and highlights leave out most of the important detail the FDA has articulated. But the real source of the problem is within our own government's processes. http://www.fda.gov/oc/opacom/hottopics/tomatoes.html

Does our government routinely demand this same sacrifice from other industries besides food? Even if there are regulations requiring other industries (maybe like the auto industry) to outspend benefit 50:1, those industries have a much better chance to recover additional costs in the marketplace. Fresh-cut is perishable and won't hold until the research is done and analysis published.

While I'm picking on our own government's processes, do you know what the CDC's definition of an outbreak is? "Two or more cases of the same disease that share a common exposure". Although two people sick might seem like enough to classify it as an outbreak if one of them is me, generally, I think we should save our "outbreak" classification for much larger groups.

I do care about the health & well being of Americans, I just think our US system has become too sensitive and reactionary, and this is expensive for all in the end. I'd like to see some reasonable and proactive process improvements before the next outbreak. Let me know what you think.

Stumble It!

Bookmark on del.icio.us