From farm to fork, food safety is a topic that everyone in the supply chain should embrace. The regulatory realities of 2011’s Food Safety Modernization Act were meant to usher in a new foundation in food safety; however, full implementation was interrupted by the pandemic, and numerous significant challenges remain in the fight for safe food. FDA launched its “New Era of Food Safety” in 2020 to refine food safety practices using technology and engaging a more holistic view of the practice of food safety.

One fundamental yet pragmatic question launched a specific key target in this new initiative: “What do people do when no one is looking?” Your company may have a great food safety plan on paper; it may have checked all the boxes. Your hazard analysis and recall plan may have been inspired by pristine, textbook examples of building a cohesive food safety plan. That’s terrific, but what happens on the production floor? What happens in the daily processing environment? What does an employee do when they see something go wrong? It’s critical to engage employees—and management—so that they feel supported in taking on food safety and dedicate themselves to following established protocols.

This is where the concept of “food safety culture” comes into play. Food safety culture is, in essence, the values, beliefs, and habits people share to ensure food is kept safe. “Culture” is a concept that requires a great deal of critical self-analysis, as well as a continued dedication to properly foster, support, and maintain it. Building a culture of food safety demands authentic buy-in from all levels of employees, including:

• Those on the front lines who realize their actions can have a direct consequence on the health and safety of their customers;
• The procurement department that feels empowered to make the right choices to get the right products and services to support food safety as a core value;
• A training coordinator who realizes food safety training is a core concept that should be featured during onboarding and in continuous training opportunities;
• The executive level, who should know that food safety can contribute to a healthy bottom line by mitigating significant risk/cost to the organization, as well as creating safe, quality products for their customers.

Everyone has a role to play in the creation and maintenance of a food safety culture in your operation. Here are four practical areas you can target to help measure the wellness of your food safety culture and to determine just how authentically everyone is connected to those values.

1. Provide continuous training: When it comes to establishing and maintaining a culture of food safety, training should be thought of as continuous and holistic in terms of your organization. As opposed to a “one-and-done” exposure in a topic, training is a way to introduce food safety concepts, as well as revisit them, evaluate them, and provide opportunities for continuous improvement. Some training considerations are:

• Education: Is training available to employees when they join your team? To embed a food safety culture into your company, all stakeholders should have a foundational understanding of food safety. A fundamental starting point is to be sure that food safety and your food safety culture is a target of your onboarding process for new employees. Who leads your food safety team and has passion for the subject? Target that individual as a key resource to introduce employees to food safety concepts, expectations, behaviors, and importance to the business.
• Collaboration: Do you provide training across departmental lines? From the C-Suite to maintenance staff to HR to production employees, the further you engage the diversity of departments and positions, the more that you are universalizing the realities of what food safety requires to be proactively engaged in it: behaviors, standards, goals, materials, and tools. This also provides an opportunity to reaffirm the consequences of not thinking comprehensively about food safety in your operation from all levels and from each person’s role.
• Effectiveness: How frequently are trainings offered throughout the year? Who do you assign to attend those trainings? Do your trainings reflect your findings in your risk analysis? There is no magic number in terms of training opportunities; more important than frequency is the question of efficacy and applicability. Start with those targets first to help understand how your training program needs to be engaged for your operation, and to push the advancement of knowledge with the advancement of application and practice.

2. Give regular feedback: The efficacy of food safety culture training can also be tough to measure once you have trainings in place. To holistically understand how effective your training programs are, consider implementing a program of assessments, conversations, and organizational involvement by personnel. For example, consider conducting regular “interviews” with employees, or distributing questionnaires pertaining to safe quality food (SQF), hazard analysis and critical control points (HACCP), key performance indicators (KPIs), and good manufacturing practice (GMP) policies. These tools can help to create opportunities for informal and impromptu mini-training sessions. These meetings are also a chance to build awareness of new procedures and to have open conversations between employees and managers on existing practices.

Within an organization, these are also occasions to empower employees to make informed decisions and become confident in their decision making. Asking them to share any concerns helps to set an understanding that if they see something that concerns them, they should feel comfortable saying something. Active conversations and feedback loops should be supported as parts of daily culture, not treated as isolated events.

3. Build on audit results. Internal inspections should be part of regular compliance when it comes to meeting standards for third-party audits. Similar to conducting feedback loops, having internal inspections can do quite a bit to set a regular, pressing view of food safety. Reviewing warehouse maintenance; cleaning; SQF, HACCP, and GMP-related topics; safety topics; and training materials keeps employees engaged and consistently looking for process improvements. Assigning teams of trained personnel equipped with prepared checklists to thoroughly evaluate each site and ensure that employees are doing what they say they are doing and then sharing that information with the organization creates a chance to take the pulse of commitment and focus. For example, consider how reviewing audit policy documentation each month to ensure it is up to date, verified, and validated would assist with reaffirming food safety practices. Organizations can often help build up more predictable results in their external audits by using the same questionnaires in the internal inspections and keeping those as usable frameworks to judge efforts throughout the year.
4. Take stock of objectives for food safety and celebrate wins. It helps to know what your targets are going to be and how to structure them. Focusing on areas that are most applicable to your facility and production type can elevate those areas for attention and measurement. Preventive controls, standard operating procedures (SOPs), KPIs, corrective actions, and core hazards are great starting points for establishing a program of action and focus. These key areas also provide numerous opportunities to talk about other food safety issues and build conversations that will inevitably lead to other targets.

To help meet these objectives and measurements, remember to clearly create and delineate employee incentive programs that demonstrate behaviors that will adding to the culture of food safety. Forming a cadence of recognition and rewards is a way to celebrate wins for the company while also applauding employee involvement and commitment. These rewards can include interpersonal affirmations, giveaways, postings around the office, annual recognition, and award events.

The more you emphasize the importance of a food safety culture, the more you highlight an appreciation for doing the right thing and the more you reaffirm that food safety is top of mind and that everyone can make a difference.

Johnson is director of safety and corporate compliance and Bartkowiak is vice president of corporate responsibility and development at Nelson-Jameson. They can be reached at w.johnson@nelsonjameson.com and m.bartkowiak@nelsonjameson.com, respectively.

The post Tips to Improve Your Company’s Food Safety Culture appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

According to data from the Food and Agriculture Information Sharing and Analysis Center on the 200 to 300 ransomware attacks tracked each month in the U.S., approximately 10 to 20 are directed at agrifood businesses. The most famous case in recent years was the attack on JBS in May 2021, which resulted in an $11 million ransom payment after the meat giant had to close all of its beef plants across the country.

Even when no ransom is paid, the consequences of a cyberattack include high direct costs, disruptions up and down the supply chain, and damaged brand reputation, with the possible addition of theft of trade secrets and legal consequences. In April 2023, a network breach forced cold storage and logistics company Americold to take compromised servers offline, blocking all inbound and outbound deliveries. “With an attack like the one that hit Americold, you’ll have damages on both sides of the equation,” says Michael Delaney, corporate attorney at legal firm Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, based in St. Louis. “The manufacturer will have to either stop production because they don’t have enough storage space at the plant, or find an alternative distributor. On the other side, the distributor cannot get the product out to the retailer. The manufacturer may sue the distributor, while the retailer may sue both, if they breached the contract.”

Although most cases of cyberattacks that we read about on the news affect large public companies, smaller businesses are not exempt from risk. In an FBI notification issued in September 2021, the agency warned that larger agrifood businesses “are targeted based on their perceived ability to pay higher ransom demands, while smaller entities may be seen as soft targets.”

Food Safety Risks

Ransomware attacks tend to hit IT environments, which focus on data storage and communication. For food manufacturers, however, the risk extends to the operational technology side of the business that controls production. In a hypothetical attack, cybercriminals could exploit the vulnerability of industrial control systems (ICS)—the hardware and software that control equipment and processes—finding their way to the production floor and putting the quality and safety of food products at risk. “ICS systems control all sorts of devices, such as temperature sensors, gate valves, or automatic sampling systems,” says Col. John Hoffman, senior research fellow with the Food Protection and Defense Institute at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. “By taking control of them, one could increase the temperature of an oven, shut down a refrigerator, or change parameters of a recipe, possibly adding an unwanted allergen.”

Most ICS systems used in the food industry are built on legacy technology that wasn’t designed to be connected to the internet. Now that they are plugged in for data collection and remote monitoring and servicing, their lack of protection is putting production plants at risk. Their gradual replacement with modern IoT devices might actually create new vulnerabilities, rather than reduce them. “Smart devices that send and receive data over the internet tend to bypass a lot of the security measures—such as firewalls—that protect both modern and legacy systems, exposing them to attacks,” says Rich Witucki, principal industrial consultant at industrial cybersecurity company Dragos.

As Eran Fine, CEO and co-founder of NanoLock, an Israel-based developer of cybersecurity solutions for industrial systems, says, connectivity itself is a variable that increases risk: “Hybrid systems are not necessarily more secure, but create different problems. While legacy technology is extremely vulnerable, it’s also less connected. IoT devices bring about more connectivity. They may be harder to breach, but once that happens, intruders may jump from the legacy into the new and vice versa.”

Even a single act of sabotage could have disastrous consequences. In 2015, 300,000 chickens in South Carolina were killed after someone tampered with the barn’s climate controls. In 2018, 1,200 pigs died of suffocation in an automated barn in the Netherlands, due to a malfunction of the remotely-controlled ventilation system. Although neither case was a cyber­attack, as the industry is relying more on remotely controlled equipment, autonomous tractors, and smart sensors, the risk of something similar being done by cybercriminals is real.

Cyberattacks may start long before they are discovered: “Cybercriminals usually do some kind of recon first, looking for vulnerable targets,” says Witucki. “Once they’re in, they try to elevate their user privileges so they can exploit other pieces of software. For example, they might move from the enterprise resource planning (ERP) to the manufacturing execution system (MES), to the supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system, which monitors and controls all phases of food preparation, such as recipes, time, and temperature.”

In most cases, what allows the intrusion is human error: “Employees are the biggest vulnerability,” says Hoffman. “They may compromise their home computer and then use it to log into the company’s system to clock in work hours or check their email on their work computer and click on something they shouldn’t  click on. Insufficient cyber hygiene is a big issue.”

National Security

Ransomware cases are increasing across all industries, as they are a quick and effective way to make money. But a criminal’s motive can be more than purely financial: “Companies sometimes are targeted by competitive moves,” says Hoffman. “Imagine a supplier that won a bid for a large contract, and a competitor breaks into its ICS to compromise the quality and safety of products. The company wouldn’t be able to comply with its obligations, eventually losing the contract. These attacks occur especially in China and Asian markets, but we’re beginning to see them in the U.S. and Europe, too.”

The breach can also be caused by insiders: “A criminal might pay a disgruntled employee one year’s worth of salary just to plug a USB stick into the system during a night shift, to change the ingredients’ dosage and cause severe quality issues,” says Fine.

But motives could be even more worrying. The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) identified food and agriculture as one of the 16 sectors that are critical to the country’s security, health, and safety. Such strategic importance makes the industry an appealing target of state-sponsored cyberattacks: “If you wanted to take out a country, the first thing you would do is contaminate their food and water,” says Kristin Demoranville, CEO and founder of AnzenSage, a cybersecurity advisory consultancy for the food sector. “Thankfully, right now, cybercriminals are financially motivated, so they’re not going to kill anybody, at least not intentionally. But if they decide to flip the switch, the food supply chain is still so legacy driven that it could have horrible consequences.”

Recent attacks on producers of staple foods offer a glimpse of what could happen on a larger scale. In 2021, an Iowa farming co-op had to go completely offline and use manual processes after being hit by a ransomware; in 2022, a similar attack forced H.P. Hood Dairy to close its 13 plants; in 2023, a cyberattack shut down 10 water controllers in agricultural areas in Israel, temporarily halting the irrigation systems. “A synchronized cyberattack that completely disrupts the supply of water, bread, or milk could bring a country to its knees,” says Fine. “Besides, food is necessary not only for consumers, but also to armies. And when you starve an army, you’re in a better position to win.”

Risk Aversion in the Food Industry

The increasing attacks on agrifood businesses are a signal that the response to these threats is still insufficient: “In the food industry, cybersecurity is usually considered of secondary importance compared to production uptime and safety,” says Demoranville. “With food contaminations, the reaction is instant and visceral, because it’s clear to everyone that people might die. The same goes for cyberattacks, but people don’t understand it yet.”

“Many companies have an ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’ mentality,” says Hoffman. “The legacy operating systems they’ve been using for years still work fine, and they like the convenience of connectivity, so they decide to keep them without segregating them into a separate network.”

One symptom of insufficient cybersecurity culture is lack of alignment within organizations: “Cybersecurity officers and production managers speak different languages,” says Fine. “While one will want to implement stronger passwords and multifactor authentication, the other needs to keep up with the production schedule and might see those measures as a waste of time.”

The risk of such a siloed mentality is to leave large portions of a company’s network unprotected: “Devices such as electronic door locks, security cameras, and door security systems aren’t part of a food production line, but are usually connected to the network,” says Hoffman. “A lot of companies don’t realize that those devices are exposed too: Bad guys could get into the camera’s firmware, and from there to more critical items.”

Fine believes the food sector needs a specific approach to cybersecurity: “Food manufacturing is not like a bank, which is very structured and allows you to control who gets in and who stays out. It’s a high-traffic and chaotic environment, where hundreds of people can influence production. Floor staff, but also visitors and vendors, may—knowingly or unknowingly—bring malware in when they connect to your equipment. Trying to outsmart the bad guys is futile: They have enough time, resources, and motivation to find the vulnerability. What we see companies do is try to detect attacks, while what they should really do is prevent and protect and realize that cyberattacks can come from any direction.”

If attacks can come from anywhere, the best defense, says Witucki, “is a layered structure, with firewalls in front of the legacy devices, network monitoring, and regular backups, so if somebody exploits a vulnerability to attack your system, you could get back up to speed relatively quickly. Also, you should have an incident response plan specific to ICS, so you would know what to during an emergency.”

When responding to an attack, it’s also important to address all possible legal implications: “You should immediately check the contracts and purchase orders with your customers to see if you are under obligation to report the incident to them and if you have any liability. The next step is to check if you have any insurance coverage,” says Delaney.

For Demoranville, the change to increased security must come from the top: “The executive level and the board need to agree that cybersecurity is a priority,” she says. “If that doesn’t happen, anything that gets done will be disbanded quickly. More companies should set up a strong change management board where representatives from all departments, including production and quality, meet once a week to discuss what’s happening in their environment. Ultimately, you can save lives and money if you do that properly.”

Tolu is a freelance writer based in Spain. Reach him at andrea@andreatolu.com.

The post Cybersecurity in the Food Industry appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

Editor’s note: Thirty years ago, in 1993, Dr. Detwiler’s 16-month-old son Riley died of E. coli poisoning caused by an outbreak in ground beef from the restaurant chain Jack in the Box. Following Riley’s death, Dr. Detwiler became an influential food safety advocate and champion for families impacted by foodborne illness. His work and speaking engagements over the past 30 years have brought him in front of a U.S. President and countless food safety experts and have focused on creating awareness among the general public, pushing for regulatory reform from lawmakers, and holding the food industry accountable for keeping the food we eat safe.

Fast food, third-party, ghost kitchen, and quick service are concepts that seem so ephemeral in the context of the last mile for food and for food safety; ­however, the journey that brought safety to our food today stretches back over a generation.

As we look back at 30 years of food safety culture, we should consider the legacy of these three decades as one of progress and achievement. These decades, however, were not without examples of failure and loss. The next 30 years will bring new challenges and opportunities for the industry to build upon this legacy, as it will play a key role in company reputations, their success, and in ensuring food safety for the health and well-being of all consumers.

A Herculean Effort

Having a unique perspective as a participant in and observer of the development of a “food safety culture” in the three decades since my son’s death from E. coli poisoning in 1993, I frequently speak before corporate executives not only about the true burden of foodborne disease, but also about the past and future of food safety. Highlights of my presentations are not only my family’s story, but others’ as well.

I share how, many years ago, I met with the parent of a young boy who had survived an E. coli illness when he was 4 years old. His mother shared his progress with me but was sad to talk about the difficult time he had in accepting that he couldn’t use his left arm, a result of the stroke he had while sick. She talked about how he knew that he couldn’t play like the other boys in his school.

We can, collaboratively and with the use of new technologies, muster the Herculean effort: the enormous amount of work, strength, and courage that is needed to prevent failures in food safety and to prevent consumers from being harmed and parents from living with a forever-empty chair at their family table.

But then, she pulled out a crayon-colored image for me to see. She revealed how her son had said he wished someone at the food company could have done something to prevent him from becoming sick and that, in her son’s words, “that person would have been his hero.” He did not draw someone in a fancy business suit or in a food industry smock: no hair net, no gloves. Instead, he drew a superhero flying and wearing red tights and a cape.

This story has always reminded me of the 1906 London Daily Times literary review of Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle, a book that gave the public a peek into the unsanitary conditions at meatpacking plants in Chicago. The review stated: “Unhappily we have good reason for believing it to be all fact, not fiction. The action of the President … remove all doubt and give the book very great importance … it is with nothing less than horror that we learn it to be true. The things described by Mr. Sinclair happened yesterday, are happening today, and will happen tomorrow and the next day, until some Hercules comes to cleanse the filthy stable.”

While Hercules does not really ­exist, we can, collaboratively and with the use of new technologies, muster the ­Herculean effort: the enormous amount of work, strength, and courage that is needed to prevent failures in food safety and to prevent consumers from being harmed and parents from living with a forever-empty chair at their family table.

My presentations tend to include an image of that crayon drawing of a superhero in flight. I state how each and every person in my audience plays a role in this Herculean effort. I stress that, even in this age of D.C. and Marvel movies, they are perceived as real superheroes in the eyes of those who depend on them to make their food safe. The actions of these superheroes are critical to the lives of so many.

This Herculean effort takes an unwavering commitment to safety from all employees and stakeholders involved in the food production process. This includes not only those directly involved in food production but also those in support functions such as maintenance, transportation, and packaging. Each leader and worker must be well trained and fully committed to following established food safety protocols and procedures.

The importance of corporate legacy in food safety cannot be overstated, as this defines us as individuals and as organizations. A robust food safety culture, investing in the necessary resources and technology, and demonstrating a commitment to transparency and accountability is how we build a strong reputation for food safety—one that is critical for the success of any food company.

The Legacy

I must point out that, as we talk today about food safety legacy, we can look back in our lifetime at the events of 30 years ago as the impetus for our current food safety culture. When we look to the future, however, we cannot lose track of the fact that whoever is at the helm of a food company 30 years from now will likely not have even been born until after that landmark event in 1993.

So, how do we make sure that what we hold on to now as a legacy is still in place and even optimized well into the future?

First, we must understand and prioritize the “why” behind our food safety ­mission so we can better align our values with our actions and create a lasting impact.

Second, while we should hold on to the bright spots in a company’s history of food safety achievements, we must place equal importance on acknowledging the darker moments, such as incidents of food contamination or unethical business practices. By confronting these challenges head-on and learning from our mistakes, we can build a stronger and more resilient future.

As we strive to keep a strong commitment to food safety, we can ensure that our Herculean effort will long continue to protect brand reputation, as well as consumers. Ultimately, neither the legacy that we leave behind, nor our consumers, should be accepted as ephemeral.

Dr. Detwiler is an author, advisor, keynote speaker, and an associate teaching professor of food policy and corporate social responsibility at Northeastern University’s College of Professional Studies in Boston. He has long been respected for his three decades of experience as an author, advisor, professor, speaker, and food safety advocate. His book Food Safety: Past, Present, and Predictions is read by students at multiple universities. Reach him at detwilerconsultinggroup@gmail.com.

The post Guest Editorial: The Legacy of Food Safety appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. In the August/September 2023 issue of FQ&S, we’ll hear more from Frank Yiannas, specifically about his time at Walmart and his thoughts on the importance of and challenges with food traceability.

Frank Yiannas, MPH, is FDA’s former deputy commissioner for food policy and response, a position he held from in 2018 to 2023. Before joining FDA, Yiannas served in food safety leadership roles at Walmart and the Walt Disney Company, and as president of the International Association for Food Protection. He’s authored two books, Food Safety Culture and Food Safety = Behavior.

Food Quality & Safety: Looking back over the last 30 years in food safety, what big moments stand out to you?

Frank Yiannas: When I look back at the 30 years, which would go back to 1993, I think of the Jack-in-the-Box outbreak and E. coli. This was such a milestone event in terms of tragic consequences; hundreds of people becoming ill—lots of them children—and four deaths among kids. This is a real reminder that foodborne disease is not about statistics, there are real faces to foodborne disease. That was such a monumental event because it started to change our thinking of the paradigm, which is that this just “cook it” mentality wasn’t good enough; that we all had to work on reducing contamination early in the production chain.

Another one for me is in 1996, CDC launched FoodNet using pulse field gel electrophoresis with just a few states: Minnesota, Massachusetts, Texas, and the state of Washington. That was a real game changer; we could now increasingly find these needles in the haystack because of this new discriminating tool. We could then figure out whether these cases of illnesses were associated with related pathogens.

In 2006, there was another seminal event in which we saw a pretty large outbreak in our country linked to bagged spinach. CDC and FDA advised consumers not to eat bag spinach because consumers were becoming ill with E. coli O157:H7. It took FDA two weeks to identify the source. That was the first outbreak that really put a spotlight on the need for better food traceability.

In more recent times, what stands out to me is the pandemic and how the food and ag industry—which I’m so grateful for—responded through that event. Although the SARS-CoV-2 virus was not transmitted by food, it wreaked havoc on food supply chains.

I’m also very honored to have worked with the men and women at FDA to launch the New Era of Smarter Food Safety at the beginning of this decade. There’s some great work happening right now at the agency with the Final Food Traceability Rule and work FDA is doing on machine learning to detect violative seafood shipments.

It’s a long, rich history. I would just encourage your readers to go back, understand, and study some of these monumental milestone events, because I think they’re important in illuminating and informing the future.

FQ&S: Do you think we’ve become any better at learning from the past?

FY: You have to have very high standards when it comes to wanting to improve food safety and the wellness and quality of life of consumers. If you ask if we’ve learned the lessons of the past well enough and are we at a fast enough pace, the answer is no.

A perfect example is, in 2006, the bagged spinach outbreak; public health officials and regulators at the state level couldn’t identify its source for about two weeks. We had to pull spinach from all grocery store shelves. The industry was devastated for a period of about seven years and spinach sales never recovered. In 2018, we have a romaine lettuce outbreak that looks very, very similar. What were the lessons learned? Why hadn’t we made more progress?

In fact, this is one of the reasons I left the private sector for the public sector. One of the first things I worked on when I entered FDA was finalizing the food traceability rule, because while we’re getting really good at finding what I call these needles in the haystack, we can’t find the haystacks—the foods that cause the illnesses—and that’s unacceptable.

Again, I encourage readers to become students of history, in general, but if this is your profession, become a student of food safety history. There are a lot of lessons to be learned.

FQ&S: What were the challenges in promoting the concept of food safety culture?

FY: In the early days, I gave a discussion at a large food safety conference on the importance of food safety culture, which was this idea that we had to leverage insights regarding behavioral science principles, concepts about human behavior, and organizational culture. Somebody who I respected came up to me afterward and said, “Frank, why are you talking about food safety culture here at this conference? This is a conference about the hard sciences and the hard stuff. Culture is ‘soft stuff.’” I think, by divine providence, words came into my mouth, and I said, “It’s because I think this soft stuff is the hard stuff.”

I realized early in my career that I needed to get people to do food safety the right way. I’m not going to do that through HACCP plans alone. They’re really important, but I need to learn a little bit more about human behavior and organizational culture. You can write the best policies and procedures. You can talk the best game. Your CEO needs to talk about it, but the thing that matters most is what your fellow employees are seeing other employees do on the plant floor. You can talk hand washing until you’re blue in the face. When they walk into their establishment, whether it’s a manufacturing facility or food service or retail establishment, if they don’t see other people washing their hands, they’ll say it’s not part of the culture here. At the end of the day, it’s what people do, not what they say that matters most.

FQ&S: How do you think industry has embraced this concept? What do you think we could do better?

FY: I think we’ve come a long way, but I have mixed views on the current state. I’m grateful to see that now people don’t react negatively when you’re talking about food safety culture. In fact, at every food safety conference people are now focused on food safety culture as being a prerequisite to effective food safety management. That’s good but, in some respects, it took us a long time to get here and we’re still at the point where people don’t understand it well enough. People still think of “food safety culture” as a tagline or a slogan, this vague or abstract concept. We have to start really distilling down food safety culture to a blending of food science and behavioral science principles and organizational culture principles.  And we need to food safety culture as a subset of our profession based on science.

FQ&S: What do you see in the future for the industry?

FY: I sincerely believe that some of our best solutions stand ahead of us. We have new tools, new approaches, and new technologies. We’re living in the digital age where better food safety begins and ends with better data. It’s that simple. I think we’re going to see more progress in the next 10 years than we saw in the past 30, just because of the tools available to the next generation of food safety professionals and food safety leaders. I firmly believe that we’ll look back on food safety 30 years from now and say, really? That’s the way you guys used to do things?

FQ&S: Tell us more about your vision for the digital age of food safety.

FY: Think about a day and age where, instead of writing standards about how a facility should operate, writing HACCP plans, and then periodically going in and doing a physical inspection, imagine a world in which these food establishments and foods are given digital identities and digital voices through sensor technology where we can monitor them more regularly—some of them almost in real time. That’s going to happen. The New Era is really important, and I’m excited to see how food safety is going to change. We’re seeing it with food traceability. We’re seeing it a big way with the predictive analytics. But there’s a lot more that needs to be and can be done.

FQ&S: Do you think we’re focusing enough on the next generation of the profession?

FY: While I am a big believer in the future being enhanced through tech-enabled solutions, smarter food safety begins with people. Food safety has to and will always be people led. It’ll be increasingly technology enabled, but we need to continue to invest in attracting the best and the brightest. We have to continue to invest in and develop people. Some of the greatest leaders and mentors I’ve ever worked with took a personal interest in developing Frank Yiannas, and I hope that I and other food safety professionals can do this too. I’m encouraged about the future primarily because of the younger generation that I talk to. The future of food safety and food and ag, in general, is very bright because of this next generation of leaders.

The post Q&A With Frank Yiannas on Food Safety’s Past and Future appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), in conjunction with the World Health Organization (WHO), released a report on in early April detailing the safety of cell-cultured meats, and noting that more data generation and sharing at the global level are necessary to create an atmosphere of safety and regulation.

“The goal of the FAO/WHO publication is to capture key food safety issues in a timely manner, before products are widely available on the world market,” a spokesperson for FAO says. “In this way, relevant authorities, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, will be equipped with up-to-date information and scientific knowledge on cell-based food production to consider potentially important regulatory actions and learn from experienced countries so that good practices can be shared.”

The report begins with a review of the current literature on the terminology, production process, and regulatory frameworks around cell-cultured foods.

Breanna Duffy, director of responsible research and innovation for New Harvest, a nonprofit research institute that focuses on cultivated meat, notes that FAO is clear from the get-go that it is not dictating terminology to be used, though “cell-based,” “cultivated,” and “cultured” were revealed to be the three major phrases used by all sectors of the field. “‘Cell-based foods’ is used to provide consistent terminology throughout the document, but the report calls for competent authorities to carefully consider which terminologies are most appropriate in their country,” she tells Food Quality & Safety. “The report breaks it down by sector—authorities, industry, academia, and the media—providing some interesting insights into each sector’s preferred terminology and how [it has] changed over time.”

One section of the report details in-depth case studies of regulatory frameworks in 10 jurisdictions, highlighting which parts of current regulations may be applicable to cell-cultured meats and where gaps remain. The report also emphasizes that there is a lack of information and data available to support regulators in making informed decisions on cell-based foods and calls for more data sharing globally.

The report contains a list of potential hazards from cell-based food production, agreed upon by 23 international experts who took part in a meeting in Singapore in November 2022, which New Harvest was a part of. “The causal chain examples for each identified hazard illustrate the chain of events that would need to occur for the hazard to reach consumers and illustrates opportunities to control the hazard at each ‘link’ in the chain,” Duffy says. “For every hazard, there are existing mitigation and testing control measures, many of which can be taken from adjacent fields.”

Paul Mozdziak, PhD, physiology graduate program director in the department of poultry science at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, says that the report’s chief takeaway is that producers and scientists around the world are trying to work together to come up consistent food safety points and regulations for the products. “A lot of the work was taking the information that was already out there and putting it into a single document,” he says. “It’s a place where a company or college student or anyone can learn what the technology is, what the hazards are, what the control points are and learn the things the regulators are worried about relative to cultured meat.”

The hope, he says, is to see that the technology and regulations help bring these products to market.

The post FAO Issues Report on Safety of Cell-Cultured Meats appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

The COVID-19 pandemic was the start of an influx of challenges for food retail and restaurant establishments, with lingering effects leading to labor shortages, supply chain disruptions, and inflationary pressures. This operational shift has forced these establishments to reassess current food safety standards and procedures and adjust where needed.

According to the World Health Organization, nearly 600 million people fall ill after consuming contaminated food every year. A single outbreak can cost a restaurant business upwards of two million dollars according to a 2018 study published in Public Health Reports and, with at least 31 different types of foodborne pathogens to worry about, food safety protocols should be at the top of every priority list for restaurant establishments.

To better protect customers, employees and restaurant owners and operators need to have confidence in their food safety programs. A proper food safety program doesn’t just “pass the test.” A solid food safety program ensures proper food safety practices happen every day, focuses on high-risk issues, and has buy-in from all employee levels, including from senior leadership.

To achieve this, restaurant owners and managers should be able to answer “yes” to the following three questions:

1. Is Food Safety Practiced Consistently?

According to Steritech assessment data, restaurant brands consistently experience a higher number of food safety issues on particular days of the week. The specific days of the week vary by brand, but virtually all brands have at least one day of the week when their issue count is consistently and significantly higher.

The data revealed that the location’s worst day often corresponded with the days when more personnel were present. This indicates that the issue is not always caused by a labor gap, but a leadership gap. The common factor seems to be that leadership is focused on something other than food prep on certain days: delivery days, inventory shifts, manager meetings or other tasks. It also correlates to the experience level of the leadership present; for example, issue counts often rise on the general manager’s regular day off.

The difference between a restaurant’s best day of the week and their worst day is typically between 12% and 18%, but for some brands, that variance is more than 30%. Restaurant owners and managers need to recognize and pay close attention to those “opportunity days” to ensure that proper and consistent food safety practices are being executed at every shift.

2. Is There a Plan in Place to Handle High-Risk Activities?

High-risk activities will be different for every establishment, but it’s likely that every brand has a few. Being able to identify which activities have the strongest links to foodborne illness for a particular restaurant is the first step toward handling those concerns. Some common high-risk activities include, but are not limited to:

• Cooling, reheating, and hot and cold handling;
• Cross-contamination during storage and handling practices;
• Cleaning, sanitizing, and handwashing; and
• Date marking and timely disposal of expired products.

Once a restaurant’s specific high-risk activities have been identified, the next step should be to implement documented food safety management systems for each critical process. A documented food safety management system should cover three parts: the procedures for each critical risk, the training to implement those procedures, and defined monitoring of the implemented procedures.

At first, creating a food safety management plan for each critical issue may appear to be a daunting task, but it’s a task that will better protect employees, customers, and the restaurant. When creating this food safety plan, take it one step at a time. Start with a task that will generate immediate success to get the ball rolling, and then use that positive momentum to further expand the plan.

3. Do Leadership and Management Understand Food Safety Protocols?

Building an effective restaurant food safety program requires engagement and buy-in from all stakeholders. Recent FDA studies found approximately 60% fewer critical issues cited when the person in charge could knowledgeably discuss their food safety management systems.

When food safety programs focus exclusively on location-level employees, the senior leadership team is left out of a crucial part of business operations. In successful organizations, senior company leaders drive processes and programs that keep the entire organization continuously improving.

Food retail and restaurant operators should train leadership and management teams to support food safety programs by practicing “S.A.F.E.” measures.

• Say: What managers say can provide vital reminders to keep food safety in everyone’s awareness every day. Managers and leaders can take simple food safety reminders a step further by also communicating the “why” behind each job. This will help to reinforce the importance of each task to front-line staff.
• Act: The way managers act is also a critical component of effective food safety programs. What leaders do—or fail to do—sends a message to everyone who sees them about the establishment’s food safety values. Simple actions such as hand washing when an employee enters the kitchen, wearing hair restraints, checking temperature logs, or reviewing recent inspection reports will illustrate the importance of those daily tasks to front-line staff.
• Feedback: Leaders are also responsible for being receptive to feedback from those they lead, but this is often overlooked. When leaders and managers can both provide feedback and be open to receiving feedback from their team members, it opens the door to positive two-way communication, which also helps foster a self-sustaining culture of food safety.
• Encourage: There is great power in encouraging positive behaviors. Traditional food safety programs typically focus on the bad findings. Instead, use positive recognition to reinforce good behaviors and send the message that excellent food safety will be rewarded. Positive recognition boosts morale and creates pride, which ultimately embeds itself into the culture. It also creates a platform for employees to receive constructive feedback when it becomes necessary.

Whether managing a single, family-owned restaurant, or a multi-location franchise establishment, creating a positive food safety culture is essential. In this new era of limited staff, high turnover rates, consistent supply chain demands and various other challenges impeding the restaurant industry, owners and operators certainly have a tough job ahead.

A system of strong procedures, training, and monitoring can ensure consistent food safety every day. Pair this with S.A.F.E. food safety practices by leadership at all levels to help build a solid food safety culture for everyone involved.

Boyles is vice president of food safety at Steritech.

The post Food Safety for Restaurants appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

Frank Yiannas, FDA’s deputy commissioner of food policy and response, announced Wednesday that he is stepping down from the position, effective February 24, 2023.

Yiannas assumed the position in December 2018 and has been instrumental in overseeing the agency’s “New Era of Smarter Food Safety,” a plan that builds on foundations set down in the Food Safety Modernization Act and focuses on technology and traceability.

His resignation announcement comes on the heels of the infant formula crisis. In a letter to FDA Commissioner Robert Califf announcing his upcoming departure, Yiannas recalls how he considered leaving the agency in early 2022, until the formula incidents helped him decide to postpone his decision so that he could assist in tackling the crisis. With the Abbott facility involved in the outbreak now reopen, and infant formula becoming more available, he has revisited his 2022 decision. In the letter, he notes that “the necessary monitoring, data systems, and insights are now in place through the 21 Forward platform to help address the current and any future infant formula supply chain challenges.” Yiannas says he felt this was the right time to leave.

In the letter, Yiannas also urged Califf to “consider transferring the small, yet exceptional staff comprising the Office of Food Policy and Response (OFPR) to a new office of the Deputy Commissioner for Foods.”

The post Frank Yiannas Resigns from FDA appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

While a number of studies have shown a connection between dark chocolate and heavy metals cadmium and lead, a new report by Consumer Reports has shed more light on the issue. In its research, the organization measured levels of heavy metals in 28 different dark chocolate products and detected cadmium and lead in all of them. The tested products included chocolate from Hershey’s, Theo, Trader Joe’s and other popular brands.

Too many as these two heavy metals have been linked to several health problems for both children and adults and the FDA notes that lead is toxic to humans and can affect people of any age or health status—though it is most problematic to children and pregnant women. By law, food manufacturers have a responsibility to implement controls to significantly minimize or prevent exposure to chemical hazards, lead included.

In January, Mars Inc. was hit with a proposed class action in New York federal court accusing the confectionery giant of failing to disclose lead and cadmium in several of its dark chocolate bars. A similar claim was made against The Hershey Co., which is facing a suit of its own.

In the latter case, the class action was brought by Christopher Lazazzaro, who cited the Consumer Reports study in the court documents, which tested a trio of Hershey’s dark chocolate bars—Hershey’s Special Dark Mildly Sweet Chocolate, Lily’s Extra Dark Chocolate 70% Cocoa, and Lily’s Extreme Dark Chocolate 85% Cocoa—and found them all to contain the heavy metals. The lawsuit is seeking $5 million from Hershey’s, claiming the chocolate giant’s advertising and marketing campaign for the dark chocolate bars were “false, deceptive, and misleading” since the labels said nothing about containing lead and cadmium.

A week after the suit against Hershey’s was filed, a similar one against Trader Joe’s came about, with the plaintiff saying that the company failed to disclose that the Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate 72% Cacao and Trader Joe’s The Dark Chocolate Lover’s Chocolate 85% Cacao both contain lead and cadmium.

Still, the National Confectioners Association (NCA), which represents most of the major chocolate companies, claims that the levels found are not dangerous. In 2019, NCA partnered with As You Sow, an organization that pushes for corporate accountability, on a three-year study on the main sources of lead and cadmium in chocolate products and what can be done to lower the amounts. This came about after a 2018 settlement between As You Sow and 32 members of the confectionery industry. “Cadmium and lead are present in cocoa and chocolate due to the soil,” says Christopher Gindlesperger, a spokesperson for NCA. “The products cited in this study are in compliance with strict quality and safety requirements, and the levels provided to us by Consumer Reports testing are well under the limits established by our settlement [with As You Sow].”

The post Report Finds “Dangerous” Levels of Lead, Cadmium in Some Dark Chocolate Products appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

On December 23, the Senate finally confirmed Jose Emilio Esteban, PhD, as USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety, on the last day of business before the 177th Congress closed.

Dr. Esteban was nominated for the position by President Biden in November 2021, and has spent the last four years as chief scientist for the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), offering scientific advice to support agency policies including the disciplines of microbiology, chemistry, and pathology. He’s been with the agency since 2001.

The post Esteban Confirmed by Senate as USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

An Ohio-based company that produces 22 million pounds of ready-to-cook chicken weekly, with a focus on accountability and product safety, was recently named winner of the 2022 Food Quality & Safety award in the large company category.

Case Farms Chicken of Winesburg, Ohio, which employs 3,300 associates across all of its facilities, distinguished itself from other businesses by growing a corporate culture of “getting it right” and focusing on the latest technology when it comes to food safety and quality.

The award, presented annually by Food Quality & Safety, honors the dedication and achievement of an organization that makes significant contributions to upholding the highest food standards supported by quantifiable results. This year, our panel of judges, composed of food quality and safety experts, determined that Case Farms demonstrated a comprehensive food safety and quality management program that included a corporate willingness to invest in advanced technology and improvements for food safety. Its Salmonella-reduction program yielded particularly strong results.

Founded in 1986 by Thomas R. Shelton, Case Farms started with the purchase of a family-owned farm called Case Egg & Poultry that included a processing plant in Winesburg, a hatchery in Strasburg, Ohio, and a food distribution center in Akron, Ohio. In its first year, Case Farms processed 135,000 chickens per week and had 140 employees. In the following decades, it grew by acquiring operations in North Carolina and Ohio.

The company’s core values are “honesty, accountability, trust, success, and diversity.” Its Winesburg processing facility employs 675 associates who manufacture fresh and frozen marinated and non-marinated products, including bone-in products, portion-controlled fillets, tenders, and nuggets. Customers include some of the largest and most recognized casual dining, food services, and quick-service restaurants currently available. The company has four facilities, with a corporate complex in Troutman, N.C.

Quality is the main topic at the company, says Larry Epling, senior director of quality assurance/food safety and regulatory, who has been with the company for seven years. “We meet with our founder and chairman of the board every Monday morning, and the first thing we talk about is our quality,” Epling says. “It’s been like that since he started the company 36 years ago.”

A Commitment to Invest in Technology

Case Farms saw a need to update its capabilities and move to new technologies when its customer base moved from using basic raw poultry products to value-added products geared toward quick-serve restaurant chains and casual dining establishments.

In the past year or so, the company has added technologies to maintain and improve food safety. These upgrades include a conveying system that eliminates the need for  associates to touch the product after it goes through the portion control sorters, reducing the potential for cross contamination. The system also helps reduce overall microorganism counts and, in turn, helps improve shelf life.

To further improve pathogen control, Case Farms uses Zee Co.’s Pathogen Control Center, a chemical intervention control system that offers precision concentration mixing and reporting for antimicrobial interventions. The system is accessible remotely around the clock and issues alerts to any disruption in the target ranges of concentrations. The processing flow includes three water jet cutting systems that include fillet-harvesting robots. This equipment aids in the reduction of the product handling of portion-control fillets, once again decreasing the possibility of cross contamination and lowering microbial loading by reducing human handling.

A variable retention time freezer helps prevent microbial growth by eliminating the long freeze times typical with conventional freezers. The enhanced freezing process also eliminates unnecessary product aging by not having product waiting to be transported to a freezer and long blast freezing times. That translates into additional days that a restaurant customer can use the product. The freezer can also reduce excess marinade. Products can be grouped and frozen independently according to their optimal freeze times, which locks in flavors and moisture.

Case Farms has installed new redundant systems to strengthen its product traceability system. That includes systems to affix product IDs and production dates and times for each case of food. The primary labeling system affixes essential information using a master case label. The secondary systems read the master bar code and spray the information onto the cases using inkjet printers. The printer data serves as a backup if any labels are lost.

The company has also added several technologies to help it improve and assure quality and respond more quickly to changing customer demands. The SafetyChain plant management platform helps improve compliance to the specifications of different customers, which reduces or eliminates product returns. Using the system, the company can also more efficiently identify and control defects using statistical process control measures. The system alerts workers when a failure occurs so they can respond quickly.

The CFS RoboScan can automatically scan barcodes on an entire pallet of finished product cases and generate a unique label for that pallet. The system is integrated into the company’s CGS R8 inventory management system. Before, workers had to manually scan every label before a pallet could be released. Case Farms partnered with CFS while the company was developing the technology, which has industry-wide applications. The Case Farms Winesburg location was used as a pilot site.

To ensure that marinade batches are consistently accurate, the Food Processing Equipment Co.’s automatic screen prompts and computer controls make sure the proper amounts of water and seasoning are added at the proper times so that the flavor matches its original formulation and customer expectations.

One big investment was the purchase of auto deboning equipment, which helped the company provide more consistent raw materials than having the meat manually deboned by workers. It is especially important to have this consistency for its portion-control equipment and products.

The water jet cutting systems that help with safety also help ensure product quality. They often help the company quickly adapt to changes requested by customers, who frequently update their menus and portion sizes. The systems help improve product yield, keep the product consistent, reduce waste, decrease labor, and increase productivity.

Salmonella Reduction

USDA pays a lot of attention to Salmonella in poultry. Out of an abundance of caution, Epling says, “We consider every bird coming into the plant to be positive,” adding that the company has designed a multi-hurdle intervention process to bring the number of positive chickens down to zero. He says that, obviously, not every bird is positive, but if the company runs its program predicated on that assumption, it should catch any pathogens that come in. In line with recent regulatory changes, Case Farms uses a multiple-hurdle approach to stamp out Salmonella across the production environment. The plan starts with a peracetic acid bath after slaughter and defeathering. This approach means that the failure of one intervention wouldn’t bring down the entire system.

Once the new system was installed at its Winesburg plant, the company conducted an efficacy study to determine optimum contact time. The system achieved better results in pathogen reduction by ensuring the antimicrobial remains on the chicken for a longer period of time. “We’re gaining more contact, which gives the antimicrobial more time to be effective,” Epling says.

The company has ordered two of the systems for the Winesburg plant. It has also tested the system at one of its North Carolina plants and has ordered it for that plant, too. The company is using what it learns to recommend whether the vaccines to immunize the birds need to be tweaked or new ones developed in order to further eliminate Salmonella before the pathogen gets into the plant.

Training Leads to Long-Term Company Viability

Case Farms relies on internal and external training programs and offers educational assistance and internal monitoring. It sees training as a tool for developing the company’s future leaders. It also employs subject-matter experts in food safety who are certified through the National Registry and ServSafe. Those two expert groups, individually and together, have developed the company’s internal online training sessions and are developing a food safety training program for all salaried supervisors and managers at its facilities.

Case Farms uses individual development plans to help key quality team members throughout the company progress to the next level, for example, from an hourly associate to a salaried supervisor. The company says it believes firmly that mentoring internally is the key to ensure consistency in product and critical programs for food quality and safety.

It used this approach in 2021 to help develop a HACCP coordinator into a facility quality assurance manager, and a quality assurance supervisor into a HACCP coordinator.

The company also offers a training program consisting of core subjects that includes SSOP execution, HACCP X-ray verification procedures, bird rinse sampling, and allergen control procedures. Employees also receive annual refresher training on their anniversary date using the company’s online, interactive Alchemy system. This refresher training includes 25 subjects, and about one-quarter of them are focused on food safety. Included training sessions cover preventing food con­tamination, foreign material control, and basic microbiology. The company has a partnership with the University of Arizona that allows eligible employees to continue their academic education at a reduced cost.

Senior Management Drives the Food Safety Plan

Case Farms has a comprehensive food safety plan using SSOP and HACCP as its foundation. The Winesburg facility has three separate HACCP plans for slaughter, raw intact meat, and raw non-intact meat and maintains seven critical control points at the plant.

The HACCP program is managed by a trained HACCP coordinator. The company has a cross-functional HACCP team. Each of its plans is reassessed annually. It conducts reassessments of the plans internally and occasionally uses a third-party consultant to validate its reassessment process.

The food safety program has multiple hurdles that use several separate programs to work in conjunction with each other to ensure product safety. Senior management drives and supports the company’s food safety mission. Epling says that the key to the company’s success is the food safety and quality leadership from all members of management, along with the education and training offered to associates; these ensure the safety of its products—from development all the way through to the consumer.

All of the company’s non-packaging vendors must supply an independent GFSI audit each year, and it also has a certified auditor on staff who conducts animal and quality systems audits.

Case Farms has partnered with Zee Co. to supply antimicrobial intervention compounds and conduct monthly audits of its intervention program. Additionally, the company has partnered with QSI as a contract sanitation service.

Sustainability

The company is committed to environmental sustainability.
One example of this commitment is its use of a new ­storage and distribution center in Winesburg that has eliminated the need to transport products to other cold storage facilities. This investment has reduced the company’s amount of landfill by moving from corrugated combo bins to reusable plastic ones, resulting in a reduction of 154,791 pounds of corrugated material going to a landfill in 2021 over the previous year’s rate, and it also reduces the use of paper.

Epling says that quality assurance is sometimes is seen as a cost center at a company because it doesn’t always garner a monetary profit. He sees it differently, however. “The reality is that increased quality brings you more business and brings more money to the bottom line,” he says.

We couldn’t agree more.

The post Case Farms Chicken Wins 2022 <i>Food Quality & Safety</i> Award in the Large Company Category appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.