What you need to know about recent food safety regulations & defense legislation
Foodborne illness: the public health threat that hides in plain sight
As recent hysteria surrounding the Ebola crisis reached fever-pitch, most people overlooked a bigger, albeit less dramatic threat that’s more widespread and closer to home: foodborne illness. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), foodborne outbreaks cause 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations and 3,000 deaths each year – those are scary-big numbers. And cases of food-borne illness are almost always under-
The good news: two of the biggest pieces of legislation in food safety history were enacted in the past two years. The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed into law in 2011 and the Sanitary Transportation Act was introduced early this year – both go a long way to keep U.S. food and feed supplies safe for people and animals.
The fix: the biggest overhaul to food safety legislation since the Food and Drug Act was enacted in 1938.
The FSMA aims to keep harmful food from reaching consumers. Unlike previous laws, it shifts the focus from reactive to proactive measures, via six major provisions:
- Preventive control requirements for human food
- Preventive control requirements for animal food
- New standards for produce safety
- A foreign supplier verification program, for companies that import foods
- Accreditation of third-party auditors to audit new rules and compliance
- Food defense strategies to prevent intentional foodborne illness outbreaks (terrorism)
How does FSMA affect you? As a shipper, carrier or distributor you must:
- Use temperature-controlled vehicles with on-board sensors to transport perishables at the proper temperature
- Monitor temperatures from the time products leave production facilities to when they reach store shelves
- Comply with frequent inspections and record-keeping and testing requirements
Food safety on wheels: the Sanitary Transportation Act
An offshoot of the FSMA law, the proposed Sanitary Transportation ruling aims to minimize in-transit food safety risks resulting from unsafe or unsanitary practices. Risks range from improper refrigeration to cross-contamination of containers due to improper sanitation, backhauling of hazardous materials or inadequate packaging.
Other abuses include improper loading practices (mixing loads that could cross-contaminate foods or leaving raw materials on unrefrigerated docks), poor pest control, lack of driver training, poor employee hygiene and improper holding practices. These are the types of abuses the FDA hopes to prevent. The ruling was proposed in early January 2014. The FDA is currently sifting through industry feedback and possible changes to the ruling based on that input. Once published, the ruling will go into effect 60 days later, with compliance dates tiered based on business size. Once it passes, the act will proactively prevent food contamination in six ways:
- Vehicle/transport equipment: must be designed and maintained to prevent food contamination, e.g. via roof leads or door seal gaps in trailers
- Transportation operations: requires adequate temperature controls and separation of food and non-food items in the same load
- Information exchange: prevents cross-contamination by setting protocols for shippers, carriers & receivers about prior cargo, temperature control and cleaning
- Training: in sanitary transportation practices
- Records: requires that shippers and carriers maintain written records of cleaning, prior cargo and temperature control
- Waivers: allows FDA to wave requirements if unsanitary conditions won’t result
Do you ship, carry, or receive food products? Export food to the U.S.? The onus is on you to properly refrigerate and protect food while it’s being transported. That means making sure containers are properly sealed, nothing is shipped with food that could harm consumers and no one can tamper with food cargo.
Written by Steve Alberda. Steve is Director of Safety and Health at Ryder System, Inc. He is an occupational safety and food safety & defense professional with 33 years of experience. Throughout his career, Mr. Alberda has played an active role in occupational safety and health, food processing operations, food safety and food defense.
