In recent years, sharp downturns in global corn and wheat prices have forced farmers to re-evaluate their grain marketing strategy. While hundreds of factors have impacted grain prices over the last decade, the ones that generate headlines typically center on broader macroeconomic issues. Two primary factors include: 1) the surge in corn production from Brazil and Argentina, which has increased competitiveness for American farmers, and 2) the rise of wheat production and exports along the Black Sea, which has created new price challenges for producers in the U.S. and Canada.

Naturally, shifting dynamics have driven conversations on grain quality at the local level. High-quality grains that meet rigid buyer specifications can capture a higher price. Most farmers know that higher protein content and less crop damage provides the opportunity to fetch a better price. For farmers to get ahead in the midst of continued grain pricing fluctuations, they need to address buyer concerns and incorporate several small, measurable steps into their best practices.

Global Reputations Start at Home

Most farmers already know where their crops are heading, who their buyer is, and what products will be developed from their harvest. But to understand the food quality challenges, they need to look at the broadest possible supply chain to recognize the impact that a few small mistakes can have on end products around the world.

The U.S. Grain Council  (USGC) is responsible for marketing U.S. grain to countries all around the globe. Price and quality remain the two primary factors on which deals are based. In a low-price world, the organization has heard more and more about the importance of grain quality.

Tom Sleight, president and CEO of USGC,  recently penned an editorial in which he explained how more buyers have increased their complaints about grains arriving on their soil. The list of complaints ranges from broken kernels and dust, to a diverse roster of foreign materials. This might seem like a standard concern, until you dig deeper and learn that the foreign materials include anything from stainless steel bolts and dead animals, to the “occasional” cell phone. These foreign materials did not magically appear at the final destination, and buyers have grown increasingly frustrated by the problem enough to seek alternative sources of grain.

“These concerns can affect our competitive position,”  Sleight wrote  on the impact of these concerns. “In this marketplace, many customers look at all options—from South America and the Black Sea region.”

Not all of these quality concerns are the direct result of farming operations, many are the result of multiple transfers into different vessels across a dozen time zones. However, it is important to know that whether you are 10 miles from a mill or the first stop of a trip into another hemisphere, food quality control starts at the farm level.

As the USGC explains, farmers can take a few steps to preserve grain quality. These factors can also play a major role in securing a higher price when they bring their grain to market.

Protecting and Preserving Grain Quality

Ensuring grain quality does not need to be a grueling task. Once harvest is complete, four simple steps can protect and preserve grain for when it is time to bring it to market.

1. Understand speed of harvest. In a conversation with Kurt Shultz, director of global strategies, USGC, he says that farmers don’t have a lot of control over events ahead of the harvest. Weather and other key factors can alter the pace and success of the harvest on a year-to-year basis.

However, the speed of the harvest can certainly affect the quality of the grain as it is gathered. Farmers rushing to gather their grain can increase the accumulation of foreign materials. Shultz says that this begins a chain reaction that leads to the accumulation of foreign materials downstream like dust.

2.  Clean the grain and grain storage. Grain sanitation during harvest is the first line of defense against quality problems down the supply chain. Pests do not traditionally invade when crops first arrive in storage. They tend to enter bin openings or have been present in bins before arrival. Thus, sweeping a bin out before new grain is dumped into it is a simple way to manage against insects in the grain.

Another simple thing to do is get the grain tested to understand what good and bad variables are in the grain. The fact is, diseases like aflatoxin in corn or vomitoxin in cereals can cause serious problems for animals who are consuming the grain, and diseases can transfer up through the food value chain towards the consumer.

As all grain companies are now testing for these diseases, farmers need to be more proactive about knowing their grain’s quality. This empowers a farmer to clean and/or separate good grain from bad grain, and ensures a higher quality food chain.

3. Focus on the drying process. Drying grain immediately after it is harvested is also critical as high moisture can create major quality problems. Spoilage and loss due to mold can begin to reduce the quality of grains in less than 24 hours. Farmers are better equipped to dry grains today than they have been at almost any time in the last several decades. Still, drying grain is a time consuming task, and proper drying techniques must be taken into account: utilizing appropriate heat, having correct levels of static air pressure in the drying chamber, cooling grains at a slow rate, and handling wet grains as little and as gently as possible.

Drying grain slowly prevents stress cracks in kernels, a problem that can compound. In fact, buyers from South Korea and Japan have recently raised concerns about dust once they reach the destination abroad, a direct result of cracked kernels in storage. Many farms have invested in chain conveyors or rubber belt conveyors in lieu of the traditional screw-type auger for moving grains. Despite the higher cost of such equipment over augers, the damage done to kernels is far less, and farmers may be rewarded for improved grain quality.

4.  Monitor the grain in storage. As farm storage bins have grown in size, the task of monitoring the grain in the bin has become more difficult. Four decades ago, large farm bins were 10,000 bushels in size; today they exceed 100,000 in some cases. The expanding height and diameter of grain storage bins make detecting “hot spots” even more difficult than in the smaller bins of years past. Today, farmers often choose to invest thousands of dollars towards in-bin monitoring systems. These systems are sophisticated such that they detect changes in stored grain’s temperature, humidity and moisture content, and the amount of carbon dioxide in grain bins. Farmers who detect spoilage quickly are often able to “rescue” a grain bin and prevent significant economic loss.

Getting the Best Price for Your Grain

The four processes listed above are critical steps for preservation and delivery of quality. But there is an additional step to the process that can ensure success and improve a farmer’s reputation for quality. For farmers to compete on quality, they need to know what separates their grain from local competitors.

Farmers can take two important steps to ensure that they find buyers who are willing to pay more for their grain.

First, farmers should always have specifications on hand to ensure that they can begin the marketing process with all the information needed to attract buyers. Tight markets like the ones witnessed in the  Summer of 2017 in the Dakotas  had a shortage of high-quality wheat. With that in mind, many buyers scrambled to find higher protein levels to meet their quotas. Buyers are willing to pay more money for grain with distinct specifications like protein content, falling number and hard vitreous and non-vitreous kernels, and moisture levels.

In today’s agricultural markets, low prices do favor buyers and reduce a seller’s power. However, grain testing gives farmers more power in the market. For example, tools like FarmLead’s GrainTests.com platform give farmers the ability to understand their quality by connecting them to over 50 independent grain testing labs to test their grain.

When buyers are stretched for product, they cite the importance of having all of the data in front of them to make a quick and sensible purchasing decision. “As a buyer, one of the most valuable things that we need to see is those tests,” said Courtney Boryski, a grain trader with Hansen-Mueller, in an  interview with FarmLead. “With durum, spring wheat, and hard wheat, we need to see these quality specs.” Boryski admitted that she will pay more money for grain and related specifications that she needs.

However, she also stressed the importance of having all of this data available. “It’s valuable to see if they have grading tests for what they are selling,” she added. “I may pay a higher price because I can get what I want.”

The second way to get a better price in this environment is to consider alternative markets. One of the increasingly popular ways to meet new buyers is to engage them on digital marketplaces that enable farmers to showcase their grain and quality. Farmers who market their grain to more buyers have more opportunities to sell their product to new markets. In some cases, farmers who sell grain through online marketplaces are able to negotiate better crop prices than their local-market average. With access to more buyers, competition for high-quality products increase. In addition, buyers are able to quickly file through a number of offers and new sources that they may not have known existed in specific markets.

Adding a few best practices to farm management and grain marketing efforts will help farmers get a better price and improve their reputation for quality in an increasingly competitive industry. After all, the farmer is catering to the consumer. Getting the most of every dollar that a consumer spends on food is rooted in knowing the quality of grain as soon as it comes off the field.

Turner is the CEO of  FarmLead. Reach him at b.turner@farmlead.com.

The post Being Proactive About Grain Quality appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

Editor’s Note: This is the first installment of a year-long series that highlights the food safety initiatives, programs, and activities implemented in certain U.S. states.

If you love lakes, gophers, and exemplary food safety infrastructure and leadership, Minnesota is the place for you. Welcome to the incomparable Land of 10,000 Lakes, the indomitable Gopher State, a state that showcases strong and enviable food safety priorities and relationships among regulatory agencies, academia, agriculture, industry, and consumers that are arguably second to none.

How did this seemingly idyllic situation come to be?

Simply stated, Minnesota citizens have a historical and inspiring commitment to public health, according to William Hueston, DVM, MS, PhD, ACVPM, a professor of veterinary medicine, public health, and public affairs who directs global leadership initiatives for the Center for Animal Health and Food Safety (CAHFS) at the University of Minnesota (UMN) College of Veterinary Medicine.

For starters, there has long been close collaboration between the Minnesota Department of Health’s (MDH) foodborne disease epidemiologists and the MDH laboratory that handles samples from sick people, Dr. Hueston says. “The MDH Infectious Disease section focuses on aggressive scientific investigation of disease outbreaks and documentation of findings in refereed scientific journals,” he relates. “Not only do they rapidly respond to foodborne disease, they also continue to raise the bar on the methods used to investigate and respond effectively to outbreaks.”

Another food safety plus in Minnesota is the collocation of the MDH, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA), and the Board of Animal Health in the Orville Freeman Building in downtown St. Paul, the state capital. “The MDH lab for human samples and the MDA lab for food samples are side by side,” Dr. Hueston says, “and there is direct connection between the laboratory building and the epidemiologists. Working side by side builds collaboration and teamwork for more effective investigations and response.”

Dr. Hueston is also quick to extol the food safety benefits of what he calls the unique partnership between Minnesota government agencies and UMN.

“There is a very strong epidemiology training program at the UMN School of Public Health (SPH) so that many, if not most, of the MDH epidemiologists have training and graduate degrees from UMN,” he begins. “And there is active recruitment of MDH and MDA employees as adjunct faculty, so that UMN students get ‘real’ insights into the way government works and how to handle current foodborne illness challenges.”

Minnesota boasts one of the most effective foodborne disease surveillance systems in the U.S., Dr. Hueston points out, thanks to an infrastructure whereby the investigation of the food consumption history of ill people begins immediately, as samples are received at the lab from physicians.

To that end, UMN public health students (who are available to work nights and weekends outside the normal work window of state government employees), Golden Gophers affectionately known as “team diarrhea,” conduct phone interviews with consumers stricken with foodborne illness in a timely fashion.

“The MDH was early to adopt molecular tools for ‘fingerprinting’ the bacteria recovered from diarrhea, allowing identification of the connections between patients and between sick people and contaminated food,” Dr. Hueston adds. “And MDH was an early contributor to PulseNet, the CDC clearinghouse for pulse field electrophoresis ‘fingerprints’ across the nation. The PulseNet partnership has enabled Minnesota to crack several high visibility national foodborne illness outbreaks where other states and federal government agencies were stumped.”

Center of Excellence

Acknowledging the excellence and leadership exuded by the MDH and UMN SPH, on Aug. 31, 2012 the CDC designated Minnesota as an Integrated Food Safety Center of Excellence (CoE) to help fulfill its role in the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA).

The Minnesota CoE is facilitated by a joint partnership of the MDH and UMN SPH. Kirk Smith, DVM, MS, PhD, manager of the MDH Foodborne, Waterborne, Vectorborne, and Zoonotic Diseases Section, serves as director of the Minnesota CoE. Craig Hedberg, PhD, professor of environmental health in the UMN SPH, is the co-director and Joshua Rounds, MPH, MDH senior epidemiologist, serves as CoE coordinator.

“In accordance with the FSMA legislation, we are committed to improving training, research, continuing education, and outreach related to food safety and the prevention of foodborne illness,” Dr. Smith says. “In particular, we work to identify and implement best practices in foodborne illness surveillance and outbreak investigation, and serve as a resource for local, state, and federal public health professionals who respond to foodborne illness outbreaks.”

All of the Centers were chosen through a competitive process in which a panel reviewed and evaluated applications. The review panel scored and ranked the applications and CDC designated the states scoring the highest on their applications as Integrated Food Safety Centers of Excellence. The original five Centers were designated in 2012, and the newest Center, New York, joined the program in 2015. To date, the designated Centers are Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, New York, Oregon, and Tennessee.

“The CDC could not afford to fully fund all 50 states relative to foodborne disease outbreak detection and surveillance, so they selected the better equipped states that could help the others,” Dr. Smith mentions. To date the Minnesota CoE has received about $200,000 annually from CDC, with a recent increase to $400,000 in 2015.

Specifically funded under CDC’s Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases Cooperative Agreement, the Centers have developed a variety of tools and resources to help other state and local health departments track and respond to cases of foodborne illness. These products, available online at no charge, include training courses, guidance documents, and templates.

In addition to these online products, the Centers receive funding to assist state and local health departments on a one-on-one basis, either in person or via remote consultation.
CDC supports the Centers by providing funding, subject matter expertise, and technical assistance. Programmatic staff at the CDC coordinate national activities, promote collaboration among the Centers and with other programs, and work to increase awareness of the program.

With CDC’s support, the Minnesota CoE aims to provide technical help and training in epidemiological, laboratory, and environmental investigations of foodborne illness outbreaks;
decrease the burden of foodborne illness using improved techniques in detection, investigation, control, and reporting; and use information gathered during outbreak investigations to prevent future illnesses and outbreaks

To that end, the Minnesota CoE develops and shares best practices through six main activity areas:

1. Collaborating with public health professionals to strengthen foodborne illness surveillance and outbreak investigations;
2. Analyzing the timeliness and effectiveness of foodborne illness surveillance and outbreak response activities;
3. Training state and local public health staff in epidemiological and environmental investigation of foodborne illness, including timeliness, coordination, and standardization of the investigation process;
4. Establishing fellowships, stipends, and scholarships to educate future epidemiology and food safety leaders in foodborne disease surveillance and outbreak investigation and to address critical workforce shortages;
5. Strengthening capacity to participate in foodborne illness surveillance and environmental assessment information systems; and
6. Conducting food safety program evaluations and outreach activities focused on increasing prevention, communication, and education.

“We believe we already had a good program and were doing a good job of detecting foodborne outbreaks in a speedy manner before the CoE was established,” Dr. Smith relates. “And we already had state-of-the-art surveillance. The CoE allows us to augment other work and translate our knowledge and tools to other states.”

This infrastructure and capacity are evidence of Minnesota’s excellence in food safety leadership, Dr. Smith says.

“In Minnesota, on the regulatory side, we are excellent,” he asserts. “We enjoy collaboration with our laboratory and regulatory partners, who are strong. We are a centralized health department. We gave a good setup, a good system, and resources.”

In 2014 there were 60 confirmed foodborne disease outbreaks in Minnesota, with 37 (62 percent) being caused by norovirus, six (10 percent) due to Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, and five (8 percent) being traced to Salmonella. In 2013 there were 42 confirmed foodborne disease outbreaks in the state, with 21 (50 percent) being caused by norovirus and eight (19 percent) being traced to Salmonella.

The CoE was responsible for refining the tools that Minnesota’s food safety professionals used in detecting and investigating those outbreaks, Dr. Smith says.

“The Minnesota CoE partners have a passion for success,” Dr. Smith emphasizes. “We continually strive to improve our surveillance capabilities and increase the speed with which we detect foodborne disease outbreaks. We learn from outbreaks. Outbreaks help us to learn how food gets contaminated and how to prevent future outbreaks.”

Rapid Response Team

Within the MDA Food and Feed Safety Division (FFSD), the Rapid Response Team (RRT) is charged with investigating food safety issues that arise as part of foodborne illness outbreaks or problems identified in food or animal feed facilities in Minnesota, according to Alida Sorenson, MPH, recall coordinator and an investigator for the RRT.

Founded in 2008, the RRT consists of technical experts in food manufacturing, food inspection, microbiology, and epidemiology. There are two full-time RRT staff, and the remaining members are brought in on an as-needed basis, Sorenson notes.

“Members of the RRT work closely with the epidemiologists at the MDH when people become sick from food,” Sorenson relates. “This team quickly traces contaminated foods back to their source to help identify the cause of an outbreak. The RRT was instrumental in helping to solve several large national outbreaks in recent years.”

The RRT also works closely with inspectors in the FFSD when a food facility in Minnesota has a microbiological contamination problem, Sorenson continues. “Team members coordinate the investigation to identify the sources of contamination, if the contamination likely got into the food, and which food products may be subject to recall,” she explains. “This work is done quickly to prevent contaminated food from being sold and to ensure that the public is informed of any potentially contaminated food products that may be in their homes.”

The RRT provides response leadership and assistance to a variety of investigations, Sorenson says.

“During fiscal year 2014, the RRT conducted 53 investigations, of which 47 percent were investigations into human illness and 13 resulted in a recall and/or consumer advisory,” she notes. “Sampling was conducted in 22 of the investigations, and18 of the 22 sampling assignments yielded positive results for the pathogen, allergen, or pesticide of interest.”

In fiscal year 2015, RRT was involved in 42 investigations, of which 83 percent were investigations into human illness and six resulted in a product recall. “As testament to RRT efficiency, some 60 percent of all 2015 investigations were completed in less than a month,” Sorenson points out. “And it is important to mention that the RRT assisted in the response to the widely publicized outbreak of highly-pathogenic avian influenza in Minnesota.”

The RRT has developed procedures and best practices for how a response team should function that have become models for other states. “Minnesota has mentored New York State in developing their own RRT, and just recently took on the mentorship of the newest RRT, Wisconsin,” Sorenson says. “Minnesota RRT mentorship responsibilities include regular check-ins with the mentee, providing guidance during response activities, and sharing procedural documents to assist in the development of the mentee state’s RRT.”

Minnesota is one of 20 states (18 funded by an FDA cooperative agreement, Minnesota included, and two with no FDA funding) that participate in the federal RRT program, says Carrie Rigdon, PhD, supervisor of response, training, and outreach for the MDA FFSD. “The RRT program has made great strides in ensuring rapid, consistent, and coordinated investigations and regulatory response to foodborne illness outbreaks and other food safety emergencies,” she mentions.

“Minnesota has a strong network of expertise from government agencies, academia, and industry,” Dr. Rigdon adds. “The MDH has developed the ‘Minnesota Model,’ the gold standard for identification of outbreaks used by states across the U.S.”

Food Safety Partnership

An entity of the MDH and established in 2002, the Food Safety Partnership (FSP) of Minnesota is a consortium of environmental health professionals, industry partners, and other stakeholders working together to protect the public health in the area of food safety.

“The FSP is open to regulators, industry, and the public and we have some 3,652 subscribers to our website,” says Sarah Leach, RS/REHS, planner-principal for the MDH and coordinator of the MDH Food Manager Certification Program. Leach notes that she is not aware of any other states that have such partnerships.

According to Leach, the FSP maintains a steering committee comprised of members from state and local health entities, and industry. The responsibilities of the Steering Committee are to provide an FSP agenda, including committee reports; and information regarding current initiatives, emerging trends, new law and science, and other food-related topics of interest; provide presentations, including an epidemiology report, at each FSP meeting on topics requested by the partnership; serve as liaison to the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine and the Minnesota Food Safety and Defense Taskforce; and provide leadership, collaboration, and support for initiatives suggested and supported by the membership.

“Minnesota is geographically large,” Leach points out. “We have a large metropolitan area (the Twin Cities), several smaller cities (such as Rochester and Duluth), an extensive resort industry, and numerous rural and agricultural communities. Thus, the FSP provides a forum for diverse stakeholders to work together to advance food safety in our state. In particular, the video-conference and live streaming format of our regular FSP meetings provide opportunities for participation from across the entire state.”

Those regular video-conferences among its food safety professionals make Minnesota stand out, Leach emphasizes. “In Minnesota, staff from more than 30 regulatory agencies license and inspect our 30,000 retail food establishments,” she points out. “A challenge that comes with this diversity is to provide consistent and uniform regulation. Since 2012, MDH Food, Pools, and Lodging Services (FPLS) has convened ‘Regulators’ Breakfast’ video-conference meetings every other month, during which we share announcements, discuss food code interpretations, and network with colleagues. Contributors to meetings frequently include MDH staff, staff from delegated partner agencies, and MDA staff.”

In addition to educational meetings, the FSP publishes a quarterly newsletter that includes a training calendar highlighting upcoming trainings sponsored by the MDH FPLS and also columns called In the News and Bug of the Quarter.

Leach believes the MDH FPLS and the FSP impact Minnesota in a positive way. “We work hard every day to protect, maintain, and improve the health of all Minnesotans by promoting a strong food safety culture,” she emphasizes.

Center for Animal Health and Food Safety

While the Minnesota CoE focuses primarily on detection, rapid investigation, and response, another UMN partnership, the aforementioned CAHFS, looks at the entire food system with an eye for prevention, according to Scott Wells, DVM, PhD, CAHFS director.

“Founded in 2001, CAHFS seeks to improve Minnesota and global animal health, food safety, and public health by building veterinary public health capacity, providing risk assessments and policy summaries, facilitating collaborative research, responding to emerging foreign animal diseases, and delivering relevant outreach,” Dr. Wells says.

Creating and facilitating strong working relationships among food systems professionals in the private sector, government, and academia are at the core of CAHFS, Dr. Wells notes. “CAHFS believes an interdisciplinary approach is required to successfully address food safety issues, drawing upon the knowledge, skills, and vision of all those involved,” he emphasizes. “Working with its partners, CAHFS strives to effectively address animal and food safety issues so that people and animals can live healthier lives.”

Continuous improvement is fostered through leadership development and skill building that utilize experiential educational designed for adult learners and the promotion of cross-sectoral applied research collaboration using systems thinking approaches, Dr. Wells adds.

“CAHFS promotes trans-disciplinary collaboration for addressing the complex food safety challenges at the interfaces of human, animal, and environmental health, bringing together experts from many disciplines to catalyze break-through thinking and new approaches using risk analysis and epidemiology,” Dr. Wells relates. “Complementing this applied research is active involvement in policy development through the summarizing of current scientific knowledge about pressing food, agriculture and nutrition related issues in simple formats using non-technical language through the UMN Food Policy Research Center.”

According to Dr. Wells, the CAHFS expands its own capacity while training the next generation of food system professionals through a two-year Veterinary Public Health and Preventive Medicine Residency program and a Dual Doctor of Veterinary Medicine/Master of Public Health degree program where veterinary students from any program can pursue the advanced public health training concurrently using distance education and intensive short courses.

“These degree programs are matched by a portfolio of professional development programs for graduate students and early to mid-career professionals,” Dr. Wells says. “The Food Systems Leadership Certificate provides broad understanding of food production, food policy, and food protection while expanding communication skills and critical thinking for specialists with deep expertise in a single disciplinary area.”

The Farm-to-Table experiential learning provides a week long integrated look at food production and protection in various sites around the world. Past programs have been held in Chile, Netherlands, Panama, Thailand, and Uganda, as well as the U.S.

Finally, there’s an Engaging Intergovernmental Organizations short course that takes participants to the headquarters of the World Organization for Animal Health, the World Health Organization, the World Trade Organization, and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

“With this short course, the organizations are demystified and participants expand their professional networks with key leaders while also learning how better to collaborate internationally,” Dr. Wells relates.

Food Safety and Defense Task Force

Congratulations are in order for Minnesota’s pace-setting Food Safety and Defense Task Force, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2015.

Launched in 1990, Minnesota’s is one of the first such state task forces, if not the original task force, according to Joseph Scimeca, PhD, assistant vice president of global regulatory and scientific affairs in the Corporate Food Safety, Quality, and Regulatory Affairs Department of Cargill, Wayzata, Minn.

In fact, a proclamation by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton declaring May 19, 2015 as Food Safety and Defense Task Force Day in honor of this landmark anniversary showcases the Gopher State’s leadership in this regard.

In 1990 Hubert H. Humphrey, III, then Minnesota’s Attorney General, created a Task Force on Food Safety. This new Task Force was comprised of consumers, farmers, academicians, food industry representatives, and others, all united to examine the food delivery system in Minnesota and the U.S.

The group evolved to become the Minnesota Food Safety and Defense Task Force, which is formalized under state statute. (The most recent related Minnesota statue, 28A.21 was established in 2007).

“My understanding is that now more than half the states have established similar task forces,” notes Dr. Scimeca, a Task Force member since 1999 and chair since 2005.

Comprised of 16 members appointed by the governor for four-year terms, Minnesota’s Task Force includes the Minnesota Commissioner of Agriculture; the Commissioner of Health; representatives of FDA, USDA, UMN, and the Minnesota Farm Bureau; and nine additional members representing the public, as well as food and agriculture industries and groups.

The Commissioner of Agriculture provides support staff, office space, and administrative services for the Task Force.

The Minnesota Task Force meets five to eight times each year. During these meetings, presentations are made by knowledgeable speakers on current topics in food safety and defense, including the state’s Food Protection Rapid Response Team, the Food and Agriculture Sector Criticality Assessment Tool, Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Standards, Voluntary National Retail Food Regulatory Program Standards, the Pet Event Tracking Network, the FDA Reportable Food Registry, and FSMA.

Beyond enlightening itself, the Task Force coordinates educational efforts about various aspects of food safety; providing advice and coordination to state agencies; serving as a source of information and referral for the public, news media, and other entities concerned with food safety; and making recommendations to the U.S. Congress, the Minnesota legislature, and others about appropriate actions to improve food safety.

“The Task Force is also a vehicle for the MDA to implement the provisions of FSMA related to stakeholder participation, outreach, education, and training for the new rules,” Dr. Scimeca says. “Additionally, the Task Force plays an important role as the bridge between officials of federal, state, and local food regulatory agencies, industry, academia, and consumers as the U.S. moves toward implementation of an integrated food safety system.”

An incentive for state task forces was initiated in 2003 with FDA’s launching of the Food Protection Task Force grant, now making available to state food protection task forces up to $10,000 for five years, awarded under the umbrella of support for conferences, scientific meetings, and other food safety activities.

The purpose of such grant-funded events is to provide a forum for all stakeholder’s of the food protection system; assist in adopting or implementing the Food Code and other food protection regulations; and promoting the integration of an efficient statewide food safety/defense system that maximizes the protection of public health through prevention, intervention, and response, including the early detection and contamination of foodborne illness.

Using these FDA funds since the grant was established, and also private funds before then and currently, the Minnesota Task Force has sponsored one or two conferences or workshops each year since 2000 focusing on current food safety or defense issues and concerns.

“Our Task Force offers opportunities to stakeholders to gain new knowledge that may not be offered in any other format or venue,” Dr. Scimeca points out.

“Our overarching achievement is the long-standing establishment of a tripartite collaborative effort that includes industry, government, and academia with the goal to advance food safety and defense in the state of Minnesota,” Dr. Scimeca relates. “Minnesota is well-recognized nationally for this strong tripartite partnership. A secondary benefit has been the facilitation of establishing relationships within each of these sectors. For example, the federal, state, and local governmental connectively within our state is seen as a model for other states.”

These inter-sector relationships that have been forged over time serve Minnesota extremely well, Dr. Scimeca emphasizes. “Whenever the time comes for the sectors to collaborate, be it for investigating a foodborne disease outbreak, developing food safety and regulatory training for small and medium companies, collaborating in teaching college students how the food safety and public health system works, or hosting foreign governmental officials, Minnesota excels,” he boasts.

Leake, doing business as Food Safety Ink, is a food safety consultant, auditor, and award-winning journalist based in Wilmington, N.C. Reach her at LLLeake@aol.com.

Is Your State Newsworthy?

Dear Readers,

This year Food Quality & Safety is showcasing states that excel when it comes to food safety/food protection and defense initiatives. One state will be featured in each of the six 2016 issues (both the print and online versions). Minnesota was the first to be spotlighted in the February/March issue. North Carolina will follow in April/May.

Your input regarding what additional states should be featured in this landmark series is welcomed! So feel free to drop a brief note highlighting what you believe is great relative to food safety/food protection and defense in any particular state, touching especially on public health, regulatory, academia, and/or industry components and collaborations.

Send your recommendations at your earliest convenience to Linda L. Leake, MS, at LLLeake@aol.com

In the subject line simply put: recommending a state for FQ&S.

–FQ&S

The post Minnesota’s Exemplary Food Safety Initiatives appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

Image Credit: PerkinElmer
Figure 1: Example separation of the involatile components of whisky, trace shows compounds detected with negative mode ionization. Labeled peaks are assigned from the accurate mass of the major component.

The problem of food and drink fraud is not new; with the increasing complexity in our supply chains it is a very real and modern problem that continues to be an issue globally. Counterfeiting of spirit brands are a major concern posing a serious health risk by providing inferior or even toxic products. Furthermore, these practices damage not only the spirits industry but also government revenues, with an estimated cost to the industry of more than $1 billion a year. According to spiritsEUROPE, it’s estimated that a quarter of products sold in China as imported spirits are actually fakes.

Analyzing Whisky with LC/MS

Adulteration is a major problem for the global drinks industry; whisky in particularly is prone to fraudulent activity with single malt Scotch whisky brands a continued target as they command a price premium. So how can suppliers within the food chain be assured of the authenticity of the products they are distributing and selling?

Image Credit: PerkinElmer
Figure 2: Negative mode Scores Plot of PC1 v PC2 shows grouping of the two Canadian (red) and four Scotch (blue) samples. Loadings plot displays the marker compounds that most strongly differentiate whiskies in negative mode.

Establishing the geographical origin offers traceability and reassurance of product quality. Malt whiskies contain a large number of compounds, which vary according to the local ingredients used, fermentation, distillation, and maturation processes. This enables the ability to build profiles of different whiskies and in turn show correlation related to geographic origin, as indicated by marker compounds that strongly correlate to location. So monitoring these marker substances in products can be used in an effort to keep control of this problem and accurately identify adulteration when it occurs.

Whiskies from different geographical origins were analyzed by both accurate mass electrospray liquid chromatography/mass spectrometry (LC/MS) and by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS), to create a detailed profile of involatile organic and inorganic components.

Commercial Scotch and Canadian whiskies were purchased in plastic miniature bottles. The whiskies used were two Canadian blends, three Scotch blends, and one single malt Scotch. Samples were evaporated to dryness to remove ethanol and volatile components, dissolved in water, and analyzed by LC/MS to detect the low volatility compounds. Data was generated on a mass time-of-flight (TOF) instrument (PerkinElmer AxION 2 TOF and Flexar FX-15 UHPLC system) in both positive and negative modes.

Over 100 compounds were detected in total, although a few compounds were detected in both positive and negative modes; an example trace is illustrated in Figure 1. Many known compounds could be assigned from the formulas; some were identified as phenolics and terpenes, originating from the oak barrels used to mature the whiskies and from the barley used in the fermentation mash.

For elemental analysis, each whisky was evaporated to dryness, re-dissolved in an acidic solution and analyzed in collision mode using a PerkinElmer NexION 300D ICP-MS instrument. Completed analytical work essentially generates a number of different raw datasets that can be reviewed via principle component analysis.

Analysis of the negative ion mode results (see Figure 2) showed clearly resolved sample groups, with the Canadian whiskies separated from the Scotch whiskies. The loadings plot revealed significant markers with significantly different intensities between the sample groups.

Image Credit: PerkinElmer
Figure 3: Data fused organic and inorganic markers results in a Scores plot of PC1 v PC2 v PC3, showing complete separation of all the groups of whisky samples.

Strong differentiators between the whiskies in negative ion mode identified include capric and lauric acids. These acids derive from barley lipids and remain in the whisky after alembic distillation from copper pots. They are detected at higher levels in Scotch whiskies. Another strong differentiator for Canadian whisky was identified as containing sulfur (by mass and isotopic pattern), which may relate to the caramel that is legally added to these blends. Another clear marker, ellagic acid, is the end product of the degradation of barley tannins and also present in oak wood; and is detected at high levels in certain Scotch whiskies. So a number of markers has clearly been detected and identified for the various whiskies tested using negative ion mode LC/MS, however complete separation of all samples studied was not able to be obtained.

Data Fusion

Review of the same parameters for positive ion mode LC/MS also revealed markers that helped to distinguish between the Canadian blends and Scotch whiskies. But like the LC/MS results in negative mode, it failed to distinguish between two Scotch blend samples. How can this issue be resolved and allow for an unambiguous result to help confirm authenticity? By fusing data from orthogonal analytical techniques, LC/MS and ICP-MS, there’s an opportunity to develop truly unique product profiles. By fusing together the inorganic and organic markers into one table enabled a complete separation of all of the whisky groups, see Figure 3.

Image Credit: PerkinElmer
Figure 4: Attenuated total reflectance.

The LC/MS and ICP-MS analyses detected chemicals and elements related to the wood, maturation, and distillation methods used in whisky production. It’s only when using data fusion (combining results from independent analyses on the same samples) that a more complete differentiation of blends was produced. This output reveals characteristic markers that aid determination of the origin of different whiskies. And similar analysis could be used to assign the geographical origins of unknown whiskies and to highlight adulterated and fraudulent samples.

Rapid Screening Methodologies

It’s been shown how sophisticated analytical techniques can be employed to generate unique profiles that can be used as markers for origin and authenticity. Whilst providing very insightful data and analysis, such methodologies do not lend themselves to swift screening. Molecular spectroscopic-based technologies are particularly well suited to rapid screening testing. They are relatively inexpensive, easy to operate, and give a fast answer.

Using IR Spectroscopy

Whisky samples have been studied by both mid- and near-infrared (IR) spectroscopy. There are also a number of different sampling techniques that can be employed when collecting IR measurements. One of the fastest and certainly most convenient for real-time analysis of whisky samples is by attenuated total reflectance (ATR) (see Figure 4).

Image Credit: PerkinElmer
Figure 5: ATR spectra of whisky (top), ethanol (middle), and water (bottom).

In ATR, the sample is placed on top of a suitable crystal material. The IR beam passes through the crystal, which then penetrates a small distance into the sample before it is reflected back in to the crystal and to the IR detector, generating an IR spectrum. Due to the strong absorptions present in mid-IR, ATR can be applied successfully.

Figure 5 on page 41 shows the ATR spectra for a whisky sample, ethanol, and water. Since water and ethanol are the major ingredients in whisky, it is dominated by their spectral features. The mid-IR region of the spectrum is obscured by the very strongly absorbing bands for water (in the approximate regions of 1,640 cm-1 and 3,400 cm-1). The weaker bands in the near-IR region of the spectrum are much more suitable for the analysis of such aqueous based samples; in this region, it is possible to observe the combination bands for water (at 5,167 cm-1) and ethanol (in the region 4,420 cm-1 to 4,300 cm-1).

The mid-IR region is the best spectral region for identification of materials. Since this region is greatly obscured in whisky by water, it is difficult to use for determination of other ingredients. It is possible to decrease the intensity of the water bands (by working in the near-IR region), but this would also sacrifice the intensity from the other ingredients. So how can accurate identification compounds within predominately aqueous liquids be achieved?

Image Credit: PerkinElmer
Figure 6: Spectra of whisky residue (top) and ­caramel sample (bottom).

Using a heated ATR accessory (heated to 65 degrees Celsius) allows for the evaporation of the water and ethanol to leave behind a residue of the other ingredients within the whisky. This residue can then be analyzed without the strong inferences afforded by the present of water and ethanol. The residue spectrum obtained appears very similar to the spectrum of the caramel ingredient used in these whiskies as shown in Figure 6.

The addition of E150 a caramel is permitted within Whisky legislation to achieve consistency of color within whiskies. The ATR technique should be capable of identifying the type of caramel additive used.

Study of Whisky Blends

As IR sampling and measurements are easy and fast, the technique lends itself to rapid screening testing. The ATR spectra of a series of commercially available blends were measured to determine if it would be possible to differentiate the blends using their spectra, Figure 7.

Image Credit: PerkinElmer
Figure 7: Black – Blend A. Red – Blend B.
Green – Blend C. Blue – Blend D.

As seen in Figure 7, the spectral shapes are similar, but the overall intensities differ among blends. This suggests different amounts of caramel and/or other dissolved non-volatiles are present in the different blends. Blends A and B differ only by alcohol content. Blend C and Blend D appear the most similar. Applying chemometrics to the spectral data would allow for qualitative identification of the blends. A soft independent modeling by class analogy (SIMCA) algorithm has been applied to this blend data and shows that the different blends separate out into different classes of materials within the model, see Figure 8.

Image Credit: PerkinElmer
Figure 8: SIMCA plot showing separation of the whisky blend samples.

Measuring the different blends by UV-visible spectroscopy (UV-vis) showed very similar results to those generated by IR; with different absorbance intensities recorded, see Figure 9, which also translated into separate groups when the SIMCA plot was applied. UV-vis could offer a potentially faster route to results, but its real advantage over IR is in the measurement and quantification of sample color. Color is often added to counterfeit spirits and the ability for UV-vis to differentiate between real and fake products provides a valuable tool in the arsenal to fight fraud.

Image Credit: PerkinElmer
Figure 9: Second derivative spectra of Blends A (black), B (red), C (green), D (blue).

As seen in this article, it is possible to distinguish between different blends of Scotch whisky with simple ATR IR measurements. Utilizing the same methodology, it’s also possible to differentiate between French, Scotch, and Spanish whiskies, and whisky from other non-Scotch spirits. Accordingly, it’s feasible to distinguish samples that have been diluted with water and or ethanol, offering a robust solution for the authentication of whisky.

Dr. Vosloo is the senior leader of strategy and global applications at PerkinElmer. Reach her at nicola.vosloo@perkinelmer.com.

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Image Credit: © Jérôme Rommé – Fotolia.com

“Big data” is being talked about everywhere, including increasingly in the context of food safety and food quality. For example, while only one symposium covered “big data” in the 2014 annual meeting of the International Association of Food Protection (IAFP), the recent 2015 IAFP annual meeting included at least four sessions that mentioned “big data” in the session title or abstract. While the potential of big data and data analytics to improve our ability to address food safety and quality issues is increasingly recognized, use of these tools in food safety and quality still appears to be limited. Even if “big data” are used in this space, many may argue that the amount of data used in these cases rarely qualify as truly being big data, rather these data may often simply be large traditional datasets. While big data may only be slowly making their way into food safety and quality, there is a need for food science professionals to critically discuss and contemplate the impact of big data and associated analytics to allow for timely and appropriate implementation and use of these tools in food safety and quality to achieve improved decision making.

Big Data Introduction

While many definitions exist for “big data,” a common definition reads along the lines of “Big data is a broad term for datasets so large or complex that traditional data processing applications are inadequate” (Wikipedia, accessed Aug. 3, 2015). Based on Douglas Laney’s definition of data by the “3Vs,” today a “4V” definition of big data is often used, which can be summarized as “Big data represents high volume, high velocity, high veracity, and/or high variety information assets that require new forms of processing to enable enhanced decision making, insight discovery, and process optimization.” Often, “big data” also is linked to predictive analytics, as compared to the more typical use of data in food safety, which focuses on retrospective identification of associations and increasingly real-time or near real-time monitoring of processes. Most uses of large datasets and big data analytics in food safety and quality to date focus on providing improved root cause and retrospective analyses, but development and use predictive analytics in food safety is likely to grow quickly in the near future.

Big Data Sources for Food

Many of the early discussions on big data have focused on the use of genomics data as well as social media-related information in food safety. Whole genome sequencing (WGS)-based subtyping has been used for more than five years to create large sets of data that can be used for high resolution subtype characterization of foodborne pathogens (and spoilage organisms), which allows for better outbreak detection and source attribution. Importantly, WGS data for foodborne pathogens are also often rapidly released by public health and regulatory agencies, allowing for use of these data by industry. For example, WGS data for Listeria monocytogenes isolates identified as having been obtained from ice cream in Kansas became publicly available soon after a listeriosis outbreak linked to ice cream (with cases in Kansas) was reported in early 2015. Other omics datasets, such as metagenomics data, have also been used to identify and characterize food spoilage issues. It is likely that these types of data sources will also increasingly become available to the food industry.

(click for larger image)
Big Data in Food Safety and Quality – A Call to Action for Industry

Use of social media-related information has seen considerable early enthusiasm based on initial reports that suggested that “Google Flu Trends” can allow for early detection of flu outbreaks. Subsequent studies have suggested though that this tool may often inaccurately predict flu outbreaks. However, a recent CDC report suggests that mining of Yelp reviews can help public health agencies to identify foodborne disease outbreaks, which are linked to restaurants and may have otherwise gone undetected. Similarly, sales data, including data from shopper club cards and similar instruments, are also available to many retailers and companies and can be used to help detect and identify foodborne disease outbreaks, aiding in rapid initiation of product recalls and other consumer safety actions.

In addition to data sources briefly discussed above, food safety professionals can also have the opportunity to access a number of other structured and unstructured data sources, including often large amounts of data that are automatically captured through recording devices in food processing and retail environments (e.g., temperature data for heat treatment steps or refrigerated storage) and employment data (identifying the individuals that perform certain tasks, such as sanitation, on a given day). Unstructured data that could be mined for relevant information include, but are not limited to, video-captured data of facilities and employees.

It is also possible to rapidly acquire, often with no cost (other than computer and personnel time), large sets of metadata associated with samples that have been collected for microbiological or other testing. For example, public data sources are available that provide weather patterns (temperature, rain events, wind direction and speed, etc.) that are associated with a sample collection site and a specific sample collection date. These type of data can be used to rapidly determine whether out-of-spec samples (for example, samples positive for a pathogen or indicator organism) are associated with specific weather patterns (for instance, rain in the preceding day(s)), which can help in root cause analysis; for instance, associations with rain may indicate roof leaks or other water intrusions as a root cause. These same metadata could also be used for predictive analytics that may show an increased risk of pathogen findings or spoilage events after certain weather patterns, which could trigger enhanced preventive efforts.

Examples of Approaches in Food

One of the most mature examples of the use of large datasets in food safety is the use of WGS-based subtyping methods by both public health and regulatory agencies. In the U.S., the CDC and state partners are performing WGS on every human clinical Listeria monocytogenes isolate. Similarly, regulatory agencies such as the U.S. FDA are currently performing WGS of foodborne pathogen isolates obtained from foods and food associated sources. WGS will determine the sequence of virtually all 3 million nucleotides (A, T, C, and Gs) in the Listeria monocytogenes genome, typically with at least a 20-fold coverage, therefore creating 60 million data point per genome, which is used for extremely high resolution subtyping. Use of these WGS tools has significantly improved the ability of public health agencies to detect human listeriosis outbreaks, which allows for identification of more outbreaks than with previous subtyping tools (i.e., pulse field gel electrophoresis), including detection of smaller outbreaks (with less than five cases) that may also have gone undetected previously. As these tools are being applied to other pathogens, in particular Salmonella, the number of detected outbreaks caused by these other pathogens will likely increase considerably.

In addition to WGS, metagenomics-based tools also provide large datasets (often providing gigabases of sequence data), which can help characterize total microbial populations in samples. These tools have allowed for detection of new or previously unrecognized pathogens in clinical and food samples and have been shown to detect pathogens that were undetected by traditional microbiological methods. These methods also can facilitate detection and identification of spoilage issues and could be used as untargeted screening tools for raw materials streams and ingredients.

Use of geographic information system (GIS)-based datasets to predict and manage food safety risks are also rapidly gaining traction. For example, recent studies have shown how GIS data can be used to predict locations and time intervals that may represent a higher risk for foodborne pathogen contamination in fields.

The Challenges

While there clearly is considerable potential for big data-based approaches to facilitate improved approaches to food safety and food quality, a number of challenges remain for industry to take advantage of these tools. Most of these challenges are not unique to this industry, but some of them may be more pronounced. For example, data capture in the food industry is still often manual and often involves paper records that cannot be used easily for data mining. Also, there are few trained data ­scientists who are also familiar with food systems type issues (or food systems ­scientists who can work with large datasets), which further affects the ability of industry to develop and implement effective systems that utilize large datasets to address food safety and quality issues. Based on these and other challenges, there is a clear need for the industry to take action to prepare to take advantage of big-data tools and solutions for food safety and quality dilemmas.

What Could the Future Bring?

With the rapid advances in both collection and analysis of big data, it can be valuable to speculate on what the medium- and long-term future may look like as these tools are increasingly applied to food safety and quality. For example, the use of WGS for characterization of foodborne pathogen isolates by regulatory and public health agencies in the U.S. has gone hand-in-hand with rapid public release of full sequencing data. This puts industry in a position where it may soon be able to monitor subtype data for human clinical isolates and where it can then rapidly detect possible outbreaks, e.g. through comparisons with subtype data for isolates from processing facilities and other data (e.g., distribution pathways, purchase patterns). In the processing environment, integration of diverse data sources with historical microbial testing data may not only allow for improved and accelerated root cause analysis, but also for prediction of time intervals that may present lower and higher risk for spoilage or food safety issues; this information could be used to adjust food safety and operational practices in near real-time to include additional barriers and controls, including adjustments in preventative maintenance schedules, etc. Data sources that could be used in these analyses include weather patterns, environmental parameters in a facility (monitoring humidity, dews points, etc.), and equipment related parameters (vibration, flow rates, etc.).

With possibilities that may seem nearly unlimited, it’s essential for industry to critically evaluate its needs and high impact areas and define specific questions and issues, rather than simply collecting increasingly large datasets and hoping that “something useful will come out of it.”

Dr. Wiedmann is the Gellert family professor of food safety in the Department of Food Science at Cornell University and a member of the Cornell Institute for Food Systems. He also serves as director of graduate studies for the Field of Food Science and Technology at Cornell. Reach him at mw16@cornell.edu.

AUTHOR ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I acknowledge helpful and stimulating discussion with many colleagues on the topic of big data in food safety, including with Frank Yiannas, Pajau Vangay, Laura Strawn, Jamie Kaufman, Sean Leighton, Barbara Kowalcyk, Julie Stafford, Courtney Parker, and many others. This article is based on a presentation at the 2014 Cornell Food Systems Global Summit.

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Mineral water manufacturing processes are susceptible to yeast, mold, and bacterial contamination.

A rapid microbiology system that can detect potential contamination three times faster than traditional monitoring methods would result in significant cost savings and consistent, timely release of products to market.

Image 1 (click to enlarge): Fluorescent staining. Note: Fluorescence detection is a non-destructive method that enables the microorganisms to continue to grow after they have been stained in order to identify them using standard ID technology. (Image Credit: EMD  Millipore)

Fluorescence-based technology offers rapid, quantitative detection of microorganisms over a broad range of filterable matrices. These easy-to-use systems employ industry-standard membrane filtration techniques to detect viable and culturable microorganisms down to 1 colony forming unit (CFU) per sample. Test results are comparable to current microbial test results, which facilitate the validation of these rapid systems in any laboratory. The non-destructiveness of these methods also enables the identification of microorganisms detected during the initial fluorescent count using current ID methods.

Materials and Methods

Hardware:

• Fluorescence reader systems (EZFKIT001WW, MXQUANK01)
• Filtration systems (EZFTIMIC01, MXPPLUS01)

Consumables:

• Fluorescence reagent kit (EZFREAG57, MXQTV0KT1)
• 100 milliliter, 0.45 micrometer mixed cellulose ester filter and funnels (MZHAWG101, MXHAWG124)

Media:

• Yeast extract agar, powder (1037500500)
• m-Enterococcus agar base (1.05289.0500)
• Lactose TTC with Tergitol 7 agar, powder (1076800500)
• Cetrimide agar (MXSMCET48)
• Cetrimide agar with naladixic acid (MXSMCET24)
• Sabouraud dextrose agar (MXSMSDA48)
• Membrane-filter Enterococcus-selective agar acc. to SLANETZ and BARTLEY (1052620500)

Matrices tested:

• Various mineral waters—direct well, storage tank, and final products

Microorganisms:

• All strains challenged were wild types isolated from industrial environments
• Coliforms that ferment lactose after 24 hours
• Coliforms that ferment lactose after 48 hours
• Blue/green Pseudomonas aeruginosa
• Fluorescent Pseudomonas aeruginosa
• Enterococcus faecalis
• Pseudomonas sp.
• Zygosaccharomyces bailii
• Aspergillus brasiliensis
• Candida intermedia

Principle of Detection

The principle of the fluorescence detection is based on an enzymatic reaction. The fluorogenic substrate used is a non-fluorescent viability marker that is cleaved by non-specific ubiquitous intracellular enzymes, resulting in a fluorescent product. Natural amplification of fluorescence by intracellular accumulation is an indicator of microbial metabolism. The dye is diluted in a staining buffer enhancing cell-membrane permeability and thus facilitating the introduction of dye into cells (see Image 1).

Protocol for Rapid Detection

The following is a standard protocol to detect waterborne microorganisms in samples of interest with fluorescence detection.

1. A filtration unit is installed onto the filtration system.
2. The appropriate volume of sample is poured into the filtration unit.
3. After filtration, the membrane is disconnected from the device and aseptically transferred onto media and incubated.
4. After incubation, the membrane is stained with the fluorogenic reagent for 30 minutes at 32.5 degrees Celsius +/- 2.5 degrees Celsius.
5. The fluorescent micro colonies are counted using the fluorescence reader.
6. After detection, the stained membrane can be re-incubated on fresh media for traditional plate count and identification if required.

Definition of a Rapid Incubation Time

An appropriate incubation time is defined as the minimum time necessary to achieve a recovery rate higher than 70 percent compared to the traditional method. The calculation is based on both formulas:

• The fluorescence recovery is the fluorescent count compared to the traditional method count. Fluorescence recovery (percentage) = (average of fluorescence counts/average of traditional method count) x 100.
• The viability recovery is the colony count on stained membranes after re-incubation compared to the traditional method count. Viability recovery (percentage) = (average of CFU counts after re-incubation/average of traditional method counts) x 100.

An optimal incubation time should allow sufficient fluorescent signal intensity, fluorescence, and viability recoveries above 70 percent (see Image 2).

Image 2: The image on the right illustrates a sufficient fluorescent signal intensity translating into an appropriate incubation time. The picture on the left shows that an accurate count is not possible if the intensity of the fluorescence is too low due to an insufficient incubation time. (Image Credit: EMD Millipore)

Table 1 summarizes incubation conditions corresponding to each matrix.

Table 1: Incubation conditions corresponding to each matrix.

Results and Interpretation

Table 2 provides results for mineral water, direct well testing at 22 degrees Celsius using yeast extract agar. Waterborne microorganisms are accurately detected with the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology after 24 hours of incubation at 22 degrees Celsius on yeast extract medium, versus 72 hours with the compendial method.

Table 2: Results of the mineral water, direct well testing.

Table 3 and Image 3 provide results for mineral water from a storage tank at 22 degrees Celsius. Spoilage microorganisms are accurately detected with the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology after 48 hours of incubation at 22 degrees Celsius on yeast extract medium, versus 72 hours with the compendial method.

Table 3: Results of the mineral water, storage tank test.

Image 3: The image on the left shows the size of fluorescent spots after a 48-hour incubation period at 22°C on yeast extract medium with naturally contaminated water. It shows very large spots compared to the image on the right, which shows the usual spot size expected after an optimal incubation time. (Image Credit: EMD Millipore)

Table 4 provides results for coliforms that ferment lactose after 24 hours. Conditions were 37 degrees Celsius, lactose TTC with Tergitol 7 medium. The detection of coliforms that ferment lactose after 24 hours using the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology is accurate after 16 hours of incubation on lactose TTC with Tergitol 7 medium, versus 48 hours with the compendial method.

Results for coliforms that ferment lactose after 48 hours are shown in Table 5 (37 degrees Celsius, lactose TTC with Tergitol 7 medium). Coliform strains that ferment lactose after 48 hours are accurately detected with the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology after 14 hours of incubation at 37 degrees Celsius on lactose TTC with Tergitol 7 medium, versus 48 hours with the compendial method.

Table 6 summarizes results for Enterococcus faecalis (37 degrees Celsius, m-Enterococcus agar).

Table 6: Results of the Enterococcus faecalis test.

Enterococcus faecalis is accurately detected with the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology after 20 hours of incubation at 37 degrees Celsius on m-Enterococcus Agar medium, versus 48 hours with the compendial method.

Enterococci are classically grown on Enterococcus-selective agar according to Slanetz and Bartley. However, the triphenyl tetrazolium chloride (TTC) contained in the medium interacts with the fluorescent signal, resulting in the observation of dark spots compared to the fluorescent ones that should be observed (see Image 4).

Image 4: The image on the left shows dark enterococci colonies observed in the presence of TTC. The image in the middle shows well-defined fluorescent spots obtained on Slanetz-Bartley without TTC. The colour change is maintained after re-incubation on Slanetz-Bartley with TTC (image on the right). Enteroccoi, 37°C, Slanetz-Bartley with TTC and without TTC. (Image Credit: EMD Millipore)

To avoid this phenomenon and to preserve the visual characteristics of this selective medium, the membrane incubation before labelling was done on classical m-Enterococcus agar medium (no TTC). After fluorescent detection of microorganisms, the membrane was re-incubated on Enterococcus-selective agar according to Slanetz and Bartley (with TTC). This allowed the recovery of the colonies with the typical color they would assume if the full incubation were done on the selective medium.

Table 7: Results of the blue/green Pseudomonas aeruginosa test.

Blue/green Pseudomonas aeruginosa is shown in Table 7 (37 degrees Celsius, cetrimide agar). The detection of blue/green Pseudomonas aeruginosa using the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology is accurate after 18 hours of incubation on cetrimide agar medium, versus 48 hours with the compendial method.

Table 8 provides results for fluorescent Pseudomonas aeruginosa (37 degrees Celsius, cetrimide agar). Fluorescent Pseudomonas aeruginosa is accurately detected with the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology after 18 hours of incubation at 37 degrees Celsius on cetrimide medium. The fluorescence-based technology is fully compatible with the cetrimide agar with nalidixic acid, versus 48 hours with the compendial method.

Table 8: Results of the fluorescent Pseudomonas aeruginosa test.

For microorganisms that grow by proliferation on the membrane, such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa, fluorescent detection is more accurate than a naked eye-reading. When many small colonies in the same area are very close to one another, they often merge during growth, leading to only one colony being counted on the final traditional membrane. When using fluorescent technology, since the detection occurs earlier in the growth phase, the fluorescent count is more accurate in showing the real number of microorganisms present in the tested sample.

This phenomenon accounts for the lower number of colonies obtained with the re-incubated and traditional membranes, as opposed to the fluorescent stained membranes.

Table 9 summarizes results for Aspergillus brasiliensis (28 degrees Celsius, Sabouraud dextrose agar). The detection of Aspergillus brasiliensis using the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology is accurate after 30 hours of incubation on cetrimide agar, versus 7 days with the compendial method.

Table 9: Results of the Aspergillus brasiliensis test.

Table 10: Results of the Candida intermedia testing.

Candida intermedia results are shown in Table 10 (28 degrees Celsius, Sabouraud dextrose agar). Candida intermedia is accurately detected with the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology after 30 hours of incubation at 28 degrees Celsius on Sabouraud dextrose agar, versus 7 days with the compendial method.

Table 11 presents results for Zygosaccharomyces bailii (28 degrees Celsius, Sabouraud dextrose agar).

Table 11: Results of the Zygosaccharomyces bailii test.

Zygosaccharomyces bailii is accurately detected with the EMD Millipore fluorescent technology after 40 hours of incubation at 28 degrees Celsius on Sabouraud dextrose agar, versus 72 hours with the compendial method.

Illustration of Fluorescent Stained Membranes

Table 12 presents some typical images obtained using the EMD Millipore fluorescence-based technology, labeling different microbial species after membrane filtration and incubation on nutritive agar.

Table 12: Images of fluorescent membranes with microorganisms.

Summary of Performances

Table 13 provides an overview of the different time savings observed during this study for rapid microbial detection using the EMD Millipore fluorescence-based technology compared to traditional microbial filtration.

Table 13: Summary of the EMD Millipore fluorescence-based technology performances using environmental strains or naturally contaminated mineral waters.

Depending on the matrix challenged, the nutritive medium, and the microorganism growth kinetics, the rapid detection fluorescence based-technology can reduce the time to result by a factor of two to four compared to the compendial microbiological method.

Conclusion

Using fluorescence technology as a microbiology quality-control tool dramatically reduces the time needed to detect yeast, mold, and bacterial contaminations in mineral water. As an example, this article demonstrates that the EMD Millipore fluorescence-based technology can replace the compendial microbiological method with a two to four-fold faster time to result and compatibility with the standard culture media traditionally used for the detection of spoilage microorganisms in mineral water. Moreover, as the method is non-destructive, each fluorescent micro colony detected will continue to grow to yield visible colonies, allowing the identification of contaminants using conventional identification methods.

The faster release of products not only brings logistical advantages for a manufacturer, but in addition there is the financial benefit associated with bringing products to the market faster. A rapid method that enables the release of products faster and results in a reduction in the amount of stock held in the warehouse therefore has a positive improvement in the company cash flow.

Venchiarutti is an application training scientist, BioMonitoring R&D, at Millipore S.A.S. Reach him at adrien.venchiarutti@emdmillipore.com. Valton El Khoury is also an application training scientist, BioMonitoring R&D, at Millipore S.A.S. Reach her at nathalie.valton-el-khoury@emdmillipore.com.

The post Detecting Contaminants in Mineral Water: An Application Note appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

(IMAGE CREDIT: ©ZSOLT FULOP /RCFOTOSTOCK /SUKHAREVSKYY DMYTRO -FOTOLIA.COM)

Fifteen years ago, the number of craft distilleries in the U.S. barely topped 20. By 2010, there were 90, and today that number is edging toward 1,000.¹ The craft spirits industry is riding the wave of public enthusiasm for distilled spirits and locally sourced foods and beverages.

Overall revenue in the distilled spirits market—including the industrial-sized brand-name distilleries—has increased significantly in the past 15 years, reaching an all-time high of $4.2 billion in 2014, according to the Distilled Spirits Council. The craft distillery share of that revenue was $400 to $500 million, representing about 1.7 percent share of the spirits market by volume.¹

Nicole Austin, master blender at King’s County Distillery, Brooklyn, N.Y., says there has been a significant shift in market trends since the late 1990s. “In the ’80s and ’90s, during the height of the appletini cosmo drink, people weren’t caring or asking questions about how things were made or where they came from or even distinguished what was good or what was bad. It was just, ‘I want the purple drink or the green one.’”

Now, things are different, agrees Ralph Erenzo, co-founder of Tuthilltown Spirits Farm Distillery, Gardiner, N.Y.

Maggie Campbell, head distiller and vice president, Privateer Rum, Ipswich, Mass. (Image Credit: @Privateer Rum)

“The general market itself began to be inclined toward handmade goods, to know where they are coming from, to know what they are made of, and to know the people who are making them. And they were insisting on higher quality,” says Erenzo, whose distillery was the first in New York State when it started operation in 2005. “Suddenly, vodka started falling off and there was a new generation of drinkers who were exploring whisky and aged spirits again. We never anticipated the kind of success we have had.”

This change in general tastes has benefitted the distilling industry, which has undergone extraordinary development in a very short period of time, he says.

Pouring Quality into Craft Spirits

Quality in craft spirits is rightly measured by taste. “With every batch, what is most important to us is whether it meets our flavor profile and deciding whether we would want to drink this and whether it is a quality product,” says Andrew Tice, head distiller at House Spirits Distillery, Portland, Ore. “A lot of our best tools for that are our experience and tasting the product every day.”

Maggie Campbell, head distiller and vice president at Privateer Rum, Ipswich, Mass., says that craft distillers have a unique relationship with their customers. “People understand that we are a small handmade product and that, if we want to make it better, we will make it better. But with that comes the commitment that if it is not better, we have to be willing to throw it away.”

Coaxing out the desired flavors requires aging spirits in barrels from different places in the warehouse and then blending spirits from different barrels to get “this large spectrum of character,” Campbell explains.

“When the spirit is fresh off the still, we call that the primary flavor. At that stage it will taste like a fresh cut green apple.” Secondary flavor development happens when both the flavors from the wood and the spirit can be tasted. “And eventually when it has enough age to it, that fresh cut apple will begin to taste like dried apple peel and that oak flavor will begin to taste like caramel and vanilla and lavender. We call that tertiary flavor development. It is like imagining a fresh fruit becoming a dried fruit. That’s how we know that the flavor has actually matured,” Campbell says.

Distiller Colton Weinstein at Corsair Distillery in Nashville. (Image Credit: Corsair)

For Austin, skillful blending is key. “The number one thing I focus on for quality control is determining, after the barrels have matured, which ones are ready to come out and which barrels are going to be blended together to create the product. Blending is a lot about nosing and tasting, knowing what you are aiming for, setting rules and parameters for yourself, being committed to not taking a shortcut and just dumping barrels in a tank because you have got to bottle,” she says.

The art of spirit making is the nosing and tasting rather than a scientific analysis. “There is no scientific test for delicious. So much of that process is the brain making sense about what it is smelling, putting together vanilla, cinnamon, and fruit smells, and interpreting that to mean apple pie. That’s where the artistry comes in,” Austin says.

Flavor Begins in Ingredients, Oak Barrels

Selecting high quality ingredients is the first step in quality and consistency. Craft distilleries are known for being willing to experiment with a variety of ingredients to build in unique flavor. Corsair Distillery in Nashville, for example, uses quinoa in a whiskey and has started its own malting facility so that it can establish specifications for malting, according to distiller Colton Weinstein. Corsair buys barley but is hoping to start growing its own in the future to have even more control over the quality of the raw ingredient.

Achieving consistency of ingredients is a concern, Erenzo says, given that each batch of raw material is different. A distiller may start with one crop of rye and the next season have a different crop, grown during a different weather cycle. “That’s where the blending comes in to get your desired flavor profile,” he says.

Ralph Erenzo and Brian Lee, founders of Tuthilltown Spirits Farm Distillery, Gardiner, N.Y. (Image Credit: Tuthilltown)

Distilling begins with selecting ingredients, of course, but it’s in the charred oak barrels where the spirits are aged that the flavor notes develop. Getting enough of those barrels can be a challenge, however. The rapid growth in craft distilleries began at about the same time as the housing slowdown, a slowdown that trickled down to the wood harvesting business and led to a shortage of dried oak for coopers, who could not keep up with the increasing demand for aged barrels.

Erenzo says that when Tuthilltown started distilling spirit, it was one of only about 10 in the country, and getting barrels wasn’t much of a problem. Now, with between 700 and 800 distilleries operating in the U.S., cooperages are working around the clock to keep up with the demand, and some have an 8-month waiting list.

The wood in the barrel comes with its own history—whether it grew slowly or quickly, its age when cut, whether it was air dried or kiln dried, how long it sat in the cooper’s yard protected or unprotected, or how it was charred. Barrel making is an art, distillers say, and a good barrel isn’t made in a day.

“You can’t get around the fact that it is a natural product, and you can’t get around the fact that when you fill it in September or in November, the weather will be slightly different, even if all the barrels are kept in the same room together,” Austin explains. But those differences are desirable because the finished product should not have just one note. “You build that complexity by bringing those barrels together.”

Temperature interacts with the wood barrels during the aging process. If whisky is placed in a barrel in October, it will take longer to age than if it is placed in the barrel in May because the temperature will drop during the first months of aging, according to Erenzo. Tuthilltown has no climate control in the building where its barrels are aging, so “whatever happens outside is what is happening inside, which is absolutely necessary,” he says.

A barrel is charred so that the sugars in the wood are caramelized. When the barrel is filled with a spirit, the barrel warms up, the wood expands and sucks the liquid spirit, a solvent, into the wood. The solvent then dissolves the sugars and tannins and colors that are in the oak. When the barrel cools off, the wood contracts and pushes the liquid back out into the barrel. “So that hot-cold cycle is very important because that is what causes the exchange between the liquid and the wood,” Erenzo says.

Tuthilltown now ships some freshly emptied barrels used to age one of its whiskeys to a maple syrup producer in Canada. After the maple syrup has been aged in the barrels for 4 to 5 months, those barrels are shipped back to Tuthilltown where they are refilled with rye whiskey. Both the maple syrup and the whiskey benefit from this exchange of flavors, Erenzo says.

Thomas Mooney, CEO and co-founder of House Spirits and president of the American Craft Spirits Association, says that, unlike craft brewers who must control temperature to ensure the quality of their products, craft distillers want that variation. “Whiskey matures at a better rate and gets to a better place if you have temperature variation. What a craft brewer tries to avoid is what we actually look for.”

According to Weinstein, temperature control is also not an issue in storage and shipping. Keeping a distilled spirit out of direct sunlight is a good idea, but temperature ranges will not affect the quality of the spirit even after it is bottled.

Ensuring Safety

Andrew Tice, head distiller at House Spirits, Portland, Oreg. (Image Credit: House Spirits)

Although the alcohol content of distilled spirit is a sanitizer on its own, safety concerns are considered paramount within the industry. Campbell, who has an extensive background in Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points, or HACCP, understands the various ways that contamination can be introduced into the product. Every barrel must be visually inspected and smelled for the presence of sulfur, taint, and even a dead animal; any bag of ingredients with even a small tear should be thrown out.

Staff must be trained about safety protocols for using ladders and chemical cleaners. No sparks or flames can be allowed in the building, and welding repair must be done outside the building. Every hose pump should be rinsed with reverse osmosis water; all of the fittings must be cleaned after every use and then stored; every bottle must be inspected before filling.

“People who are around stills and high-proof alcohol tend to be pretty aware of the danger. But it’s the little things that many people don’t think about, such as ladders, chemical cleaners, and cleaning materials,” Campbell says.

Most craft distilleries have not yet caught the attention of OSHA, but the potential for an inspection is always present. Monthly training at Privateer Rum focuses on preventing accidents, and the company has compiled a safety notebook that includes the ”near misses” that could potentially have been serious accidents.

Challenges of Small Volumes

There are advantages and disadvantages to operating a distillery on a small scale. A certain number of employees are needed to make distilled spirits, but there can be a point at which a company becomes staff-heavy without the sales to cover those costs. Purchasing of grain and other essential ingredients and barrels is more expensive when a distiller can only buy in small volumes. Without enough storage space, bottles and other supplies cannot be purchased in large quantities, driving up costs.

According to Mooney, there is a lot of overhead associated with running the distillery and compliance with federal, state, and local regulations. “We know we will never have the cost structure of a large brand, which is why you rarely see our brands at comparable prices.”

Austin says there are many inefficiencies of labor because of the size of craft distilleries. “A distillery 100 times the size of us may have only 20 percent to 30 percent more staff.” Big distilleries are also in a stronger negotiating position with distributors because they operate on a bigger scale, she says.

Disposing of waste is a huge operational and safety issue and an expensive one for smaller operations, comments Erenzo.

“Almost no distiller that gets into the business thinks about waste, but it’s one of our biggest and most expensive problems,” he says.

Meanwhile, getting rid of thousands of gallons of spent mash requires trucking it somewhere because it cannot be spread on the ground or dumped into the municipal waste system. An expected revision of a Food Safety Modernization Act, or FSMA, proposal that spent grain intended for animal feed must first be inspected and then packaged will be welcomed by the industry, he says. For large distilleries with huge quantities of spent grain, selling it is another form of revenue; for craft distillers disposing of it is only an expense.

There are advantages to operating a small distillery that offset the disadvantages, one of the best being that these operations can be “very agile,” according to Campbell. “If I want to change something or tweak something, it’s very easy, whereas in a large distillery we wouldn’t be able to do that. We get to question what we do and try out new things.”

“Our advantage is that we can be more nimble,” Mooney says. “We can create products and test them out here, and there are no layers of bureaucracy to go through. We look for all the ways that being small is an advantage and that allow us to make things with greater care.”

References

1. Distilled Spirits Council 2014 Industry Review. New York City. Feb. 3, 2015. Accessed Sept. 3, 2015.

The post Developing a Taste for Specialty Distilleries appeared first on Food Quality & Safety.

Image Credit: © Alex Yeung – Fotolia.com

Perhaps poutine is your thing, that ubiquitous Canadian fast food dish featuring French fries and cheese curds topped with light brown gravy. Maybe you take to tacos, tamales, and enchiladas, those iconic staples of Mexican cuisine. You could have an affinity for the all-American favorites, hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, and mom’s apple pie à la mode.

Your personal preferences aside, these culinary delights are all popular mainstays in three wildly different countries that share three undeniable commonalities. They are friendly neighbors, they are important food trade partners, and they are devoted to food safety.

O Canada / Ô Canada

The Canadian food safety system is a mature one, where the shared responsibility paradigm between industry, consumers and government oversight is well illustrated, says Samuel Godefroy, PhD, professor of food risk analysis and regulatory systems with University Laval’s Faculty of Agriculture and Food Sciences in Québec, Canada and formerly (2009 to 2015) director general of Health Canada’s Food Directorate, Canada’s federal food standard setting body.

Dr. Godefroy is quick to mention a consumer survey conducted in 2010, where a representative sample of Canadians indicated that witnessing a higher number of recalls (during 2009 and 2010) for them was more conducive to having a higher level of trust in the country’s food safety system rather than the opposite.

“This demonstrates that the Canadian food system was, in fact, working,” Dr. Godefroy asserts. “When consumers achieve this level of understanding with such an overwhelming majority, it is telling as to the level of maturity achieved.”

Without question, Canada, population 35,749,600, is a world powerhouse, not just in ice hockey, but where a food safety system should be expected to thrive. With its 10 provinces and three territories extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, the land of the maple leaf covers 3.85 million square miles, making it the world’s second-largest country by total area (after Russia) and the fourth-largest country by land area, not to mention the largest country in North America. Canada’s common border with the U.S. forms the world’s longest land border.

Dr. Godefroy says several factors contribute to the trustworthiness of the food safety system north of the U.S. border.

“For starters, Canada’s food safety system has been under regular review with the purpose of updating it and strengthening it,” he begins. “The recent food safety events either at the international level, especially the 2008 melamine contamination issues related to dairy products and other food fraud scandals in various parts of the world; or at the domestic level, XL Foods’ 2012 massive beef recalls and the 2008 listeriosis outbreak, are still in the memory of Canadian consumers, producers, and regulators alike. As a result, there has been more emphasis on enhancing the food safety system in the country through major government investments, but also through added emphasis by the food industry itself to instill and maintain a food safety culture.”

Another illustration, Dr. Godefroy says, is a 2014 assessment conducted by University of Guelph researchers, led by Sylvain Charlebois, PhD, who identified Canada’s food safety system in the top ranking of food safety systems globally, based on a robust standard setting environment and on a risk-based approach.

“Moreover, Canada’s food regulatory agencies have been subjected to a number of reviews and audits, the latest of which was a 2013 Auditor General report that reviewed the country’s food recall systems,” Dr. Godefroy continues. “As a result of these reviews and audits, a number of actions have been undertaken to modernize the system and address shortcomings. This constant review and update process is considered one of the strengths of the system.”

Add to that, Dr. Godefroy says, Canada’s food safety legislation was subjected to recent updates, with an amendment to Canada’s Food and Drugs Act and the development of a new legislation under the name of Safe Food for Canadians Act.

“This latter legislation constitutes a major overhaul of the Canadian food legislative landscape with a consolidation of the various federal acts under which food is managed,” Dr. Godefroy points out. “Regulatory provisions under this legislation are still to be developed.”

Like the U.S.’s FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), the new Canadian legislation and subsequent regulatory provisions are to focus on preventive measures taken by industry to manage and mitigate food risks during production from farm to table, Dr. Godefroy explains.

“This overhaul will result in major enhancements and clarification of regulatory requirements associated with food production,” he says. “In parallel, Canada’s food inspection agency, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, has embarked on a major food inspection modernization process aiming to create a more uniform approach to inspect and enforce food safety legislations and regulations. Until recently, the system was disproportionately putting emphasis on meat and poultry and was relying on a commodity-based approach.”

While these changes will likely result in major simplification, modernization, and improvements of the country’s food regulatory system, some challenges remain, Dr. Godefroy relates.

“Fragmentation of regulatory requirements, which make a distinction between foods crossing provincial boundaries versus those that are sold within one single province, continues to be an issue,” he says. “According to the new proposed rules, the enhanced regime would only apply to the former category of foods. Foods sold within the boundaries of a single province are only subject to general rules under the Food and Drugs Act and provincial requirements. They would therefore not be subject to the application of the ‘preventive measures’ paradigm. Similarly, it will be important that the application of preventive controls and the way this is verified be commensurate with the size and importance of the food establishment. Such details of the development and application of the regulatory provisions are therefore still to be worked out.”

Also, in an environment of scarce resources, there continues to be fragmentation and dispersion of efforts, between the various levels of governments and between agencies within a single level of government overseeing food, Dr. Godefroy adds.

“For example, the risk assessment and standard setting mandate is shared between Health Canada and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, resulting in the need to rely on complex governance mechanisms and major efforts of coordination that add pressure on existing resources, all in a constrained environment,” he explains. “There are a number of opportunities for improvement in integrating efforts and maximizing the use of resources, such as the consideration of a single food standards authority. This would simplify the system for industry, for consumers, and for the agencies themselves.”

Canadian Challenges

As far as thematic priorities are concerned, Dr. Godefroy says Canada’s food safety system is challenged by the same drivers of change as what are witnessed internationally. These include:

• Applying a preventive approach through the development of guidance to identify, prevent, and/or mitigate hazards and associated risks during all phases of food production.
• Identification and management of emerging pathogens (resulting from climate change or other drivers) and occurrence of known pathogens in new food sources/vehicles.
• Continued importance of managing risks associated with allergens in food processing, without the reliance on the propagation of allergen precautionary statements on food labels.
• Multiplication of food chemical risks from known and emerging sources (environmental contamination, natural contaminants such as mycotoxins and phycotoxins, process induced chemicals) and their management in a changing environment influenced by changes in climate and food production patterns globally.
• The emergence and propagation of antibiotic-resistant pathogens from food sources and potentially linked to the administration of such drugs to food-producing animals.
• Applying the relevant risk-based approach to the management and administration of chemicals used in conjunction with food production such as packaging materials, processing aids, and other indirect additives such as sanitizers used in food production.
• The emergence of novel food formulations, which include a broader range of bioactive ingredients either extracted from other foods or from synthetic sources and added to foods as a vehicle of administration or to respond to consumer demand related to the development of functional foods. These foods have a different risk profile and currently face a system varying from either a vacuum of oversight or a too rigid environment unfavorable to product innovation.

“Canada’s food and agri-food production sector is amongst the most developed and prolific globally with a high throughput, given the sheer size of agricultural land and the vitality of the livestock sector,” Dr. Godefroy says. “Yet, Canada’s food processing sector has been shrinking, impacted by amongst other challenges, global consolidation.”

The development of innovative products is key to supporting the development of this sector, using the throughput of the primary production sector, Dr. Godefroy believes.

“Sectors such as pulse, oil seeds, and grain production continue to contribute to such innovation by creating new ingredients and new foods,” he notes. “A flexible, nimble, and agile food safety regulatory system will be imperative to support such developments, including a robust presence in international food standard development forum, in view of the importance of international market access for these products.”

Enhanced North American collaboration in creating added convergence in food regulatory provisions is also needed, Dr. Godefroy emphasizes.

“Given the level of integration of food production in North America, the ever-increasing complexity of scientific assessments to support robust risk management measures and to preserve consumer confidence, improved use of safety assessment resources to support the appropriate level of food safety oversight is definitely needed,” he says.

Distant Dream?

“In this context, and while achieving a single set of food standards in North America seem to be a distant dream, does it still make sense to have different Canadian and American scientific assessments of the same product using the same scientific methodologies, the same techniques, and sometimes even the same data?” Dr. Godefroy asks.

“The time may have come to consider the creation of a single food safety risk assessment authority for Canada and the United States,” Dr. Godefroy purports, “pooling the best of the scientific resources dedicated to this area and providing advice to food safety regulators in both countries.”

This would not impede the ability of each country to develop its own set of food standards, based on its own policy and risk management considerations, but at least the reliance on scientific assessments would be consistent and streamlined, he notes.

“This is without speaking of the importance and weight that such assessments would have on the international stage, positioning North America as a center of excellence of science-driven food safety oversight,” Dr. Godefroy emphasizes. “If Europe with its far more diverse population and its 28 countries did it, why can’t our two countries with their decades of food safety and food regulatory cooperation achieve this goal?”

And what about including Mexico in any possible North American regulatory collaboration?

“With the relevant efforts of coordination and capacity building, I would think that it would be the natural subsequent step once Canada and the U.S. manage to agree to move in that direction and implement the idea,” Dr. Godefroy says.

Southern Ally/Aliado al Sur

Every growing season, thousands of trucks, nearly 200,000 trucks, cross the border from Mexico into the U.S. to deliver more than 3 million metric tons of luscious fresh fruits and vegetables to U.S. markets, according to Cristóbal Chaidez, PhD, a food safety research scientist focusing on microbial contamination of food, water, and the environment, and director of the National Food Safety Research Laboratory of the Centro de Investigación en Alimentación y Desarrollo (Research Center in Food and Development), a government agency based in Culiacán, Mexico.

Among Mexico’s 2014 top 10 exports, vegetables (the only food item on the list) ranked tenth, and were valued at $5,497,363,000, according to worldstopexports.com.

Not surprisingly, a whopping 60 percent of Mexico’s agricultural exports go to the U.S. Along with iconic chili peppers of assorted varieties, edible export products from South of the border include coffee, corn, and,wheat, plus the aforementioned array of tropical fruits and various winter fruits and vegetables.

“Fresh produce from Mexico has the potential to meet most of the growing global demand for fruit and vegetable products,” Dr. Chaidez boasts. “However, the globalization of the food supply may introduce new food safety risks and the potential widespread dissemination of contaminated food.”

Several pre- and post-harvest factors can contribute to the presence of microbial pathogens on fresh produce, Dr. Chaidez points out, including irrigation water, soil, feces, insects, composted manure, wild and domestic animals, and human handling.

“The presence of Salmonella remains a major cause of detention and rejection by the U.S. of shipments of Mexican fresh produce,” Dr. Chaidez elaborates. “A large multi-state Salmonella outbreak involving peppers and tomatoes sickened over 1,535 people in 2008. Salmonella Saintpaul was the causative agent of this outbreak, and it was isolated from Serrano and jalapeño peppers from two packinghouses in Tamaulipas, Mexico. Since then, the U.S. FDA has documented a number of different commodities in Mexico contaminated with Salmonella species, including cucumbers, jalapeño peppers, serrano peppers, papaya, spinach, mangoes, and coriander.”

Other important microbial issues are recently arising in Mexico, such as the presence of Cyclospora on cilantro, Dr. Chaidez notes.

Relative to quality issues, one of the biggest challenges Mexican produce growers face is weather extremes, especially frost, drought, and torrential rain damage, he says. “These extremes are expected to become ever more frequent and unpredictable in major production zones,” Dr. Chaidez purports. “Thus, pests and disease remain a major problem for Mexican growers.”

Covering more than 760,000 square miles, Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of some 125.5 million, it is the 11th most populous and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world, and the second most populous country in Latin America. Mexico is a federation comprising 31 states and a Federal District, its capital and largest city.

Regulatory System

According to Dr. Chaidez, who in addition to conducting research, serves as a consultant in Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) and Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) systems for the fresh produce and processed food industry, a key strength of the Mexican food system as it impacts the quality and safety of food produced in Mexico is national institutions such as the country’s National Service for Health, Food Safety and Agricultural Food Quality (Servicio Nacional de Sanidad, Inocuidad y Calidad Agroalimentaria, SENASICA).

Mexican government efforts are focused on implementing and applying GAP, GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices), and HACCP throughout the food chain, Dr. Chaidez relates.

“SENASICA is putting in place an initiative named Contamination Risk Reduction System from initial production through to the packing and transportation of fruits and vegetables,” he says. “This initiative is focused on reducing the risk of contamination during fruit and vegetable production and covers 16 elements, including company registration, business history, water use, hygienic practices, traceability, fertilization, and damage to wildlife, among others.”

Dr. Chaidez mentions that the “Mexico Calidad Suprema” (“Mexico Supreme Quality”) program is an official brand identification that guarantees quality and safety of the Mexican products under this brand. “This label seeks the identification of products that comply with several regulations,” he explains, “namely Mexican Official Norms (NOM), Mexican Norms (NMX), and international rules, all in a confident and transparent system for the benefit of producers, packers, distributors, and consumers.”

Other official efforts are the ones established by federal (SENASICA) and state authorities (Government of Baja California), Dr. Chaidez says. “Both agencies enforced the implementation of the green onion protocol based on FDA guidelines,” he mentions.

Industry Initiative

A big plus in the world of Mexican produce is that growers are organized, Dr. Chaidez says. “The industry effort to maintain the safety and credibility of their brands took them to develop and implement food safety programs on their own,” he points out. “A major example is Eleven Rivers, an initiative of Sinaloa growers to meet the responsibility of offering consumers fresh, healthy, safe, and sustainable products.”

Established in 2009, Eleven Rivers seeks to change the perception of the consumer and ensure accountability and security of Mexican horticultural products, Dr. Chaidez says.

“Eleven Rivers is open to all producers affiliated with the Confederación de Asociaciones Agrícolas de Sinaloa, so that they participate and obtain the benefits of the program,” he relates. “The program is designed to implement, verify, and apply a certification scheme in food safety through a periodic review by independent bodies, oriented towards ensuring consumer health; but also promoting the systematization of safe food production processes in the food chain, with social and environmental responsibility.”

Eleven Rivers strives to achieve a differentiated produce supply in the market, based on the highest standards demanded by consumers, buyers, and authorities. To that end, Dr. Chaidez says Eleven Rivers is focused on becoming an important label and a food safety reference in Mexico and worldwide, as reflected in a market and consumer preference for the certified product.

“In the Eleven Rivers regulatory scheme, companies certify their modules of agriculture production, packing, and shelter facilities,” he explains. “This scheme is not only focused on food safety, but it also seeks to comply with the best industry practices, including process quality, traceability and corporate responsibility. Participating growers agree to be subject to a seasonal certification, and weekly compliance verification, conducted by independent certification, and verification organizations.”

FSMA will have an impact on the fresh produce industry, Dr. Chaidez adds. “One of the biggest destinations for Mexican fresh produce is the U.S. market, and if growers do not meet the FSMA requirements, they’ll just lose that opportunity,” he emphasizes.

As FSMA functions as a mandatory food safety risk reduction system, Mexican produce growers need to include in their operations the following items, Dr. Chaidez says.

• Designing public policies to correct or minimize risks.
• Tracing the origin and causes of microbial contamination.
• Determining the genetic fingerprint, to know whether is endemic or external.
• Characterizing pathogens and times of the year in which they occur.
• Regulations for mandatory food safety practices.
• Science.

Science-Based Support, Por Favor

Dr. Chaidez is quick to point out that some aspects of the Mexican produce industry definitely need improvement.

“Comparison of foodborne pathogens isolated from fresh produce and the environment, and from produce-associated human infections, infers that pathogens may differ markedly in their potential to infect humans,” he begins. “The acquisition of further data on this aspect would inform potential future quantitative risk assessments and also inform hygiene controls and pathogens standards for fresh produce.”

The current dose response curves are determined using a variety of other foods, Dr. Chaidez continues. “Studies on dose response using fresh produce as the matrix using environmental isolates from foods and dose response information from outbreak data would be useful for quantitative risk assessments,” he believes. “Also, the application of more precise tools such as whole genome sequencing will help to identify the source of an outbreak far more quickly and prevent additional cases,” he says.

These advanced technologies will help growers to more quickly match bacteria from environmental samples with their database, he believes.

“The Mexican government and produce growers need to undertake more science-based studies to better understand microbial pathogens,” Dr. Chaidez advises. “The benefits of science-based support can definitely help our growers, ultimately by more productivity reaching better market niches.”

Stars and Stripes Status

As is the case with Mexico, produce safety issues are no small concern in the U.S.

The three main food safety issues impacting the U.S. today are produce, imported foods and bacterial contamination of high fat foods, according to Michael Doyle, PhD, the regents professor of food microbiology and director of the Center for Food Safety at the University Georgia, Griffin, GA.

“One-third of the outbreaks of foodborne illnesses in the U.S. during the past five years, according to the U.S. CDC, are linked to contaminated produce,” Dr. Doyle asserts.

On the “List of Selected Outbreak Investigations, by Year” posted on the CDC’s website, there are 54 outbreaks listed for 2011 through 2015 as of August 28, 2015, and of these, it appears some 19, or 35 percent, are attributed to fresh produce products.

Of these specific cases, the most notable is arguably the 2011 outbreak of listeriosis traced to cantaloupes from Colorado. Thirty-three people died, making it the second deadliest recorded U.S. foodborne disease outbreak since the CDC began tracking outbreaks in the 1970s. (Ranking number one is the 1985 California outbreak of listeriosis attributed to queso fresco, which accounted for a reported 52 deaths or perhaps even more.)

“Produce safety is a real challenge,” Dr. Doyle emphasizes. “As Dr. Chaidez says, we know the principal sources of contamination in the field are water, manure, wildlife, and harvesters (the people doing the harvesting), which are a challenge for producers.”

Compounding all this, Dr. Doyle predicts, with the drought in California, the U.S. will soon lose produce growers to other parts of the world. “FSMA will raise the bar on domestic produce safety, as long as its implemented and carried out,” he adds. “But a major concern is that FSMA will not have control of the safety of produce coming in from other countries, especially other countries not committed to food safety.”

Imported foods in general, especially ingredients like spices, are an ongoing food safety concern, Dr. Doyle continues.

“Lots of ingredients in processed foods can be contaminated with Salmonella but they are typically hard to pick up in foodborne illness outbreaks,” he says. “An FDA survey of spices between 2007 and 2009 showed that 6.6 percent of untreated spices were positive for Salmonella, and 3 percent of spices treated to kill Salmonella were still positive.”

Sadly, some of the most popular and widely consumed, albeit high fat, foods in the U.S. can be guilty of harboring pathogens and causing illness with ease, Dr. Doyle points out, citing lip smacking goodies like peanut butter, ice cream, and chocolate.

“The fat protects the bacteria from the acid in the stomach, and since they are protected, a smaller dose, as few as 10 to 100 cells, is required to cause illness,” Dr. Doyle explains.

The beautiful rainbow gracing the stormy skies of U.S. food safety issues, Dr. Doyle says, is the country’s advanced and exemplary foodborne disease outbreak surveillance capabilities.

“The United States, I believe, is far ahead of the rest of the world in foodborne disease outbreak surveillance,” he emphasizes. “Even if others fault us for so many foodborne illness outbreaks, because we have a state-of-the-art surveillance system, we are head and shoulders above the rest of the world.”

PulseNet

Driving these surveillance capabilities, Dr. Doyle says, is the CDC’s PulseNet USA system.

Established in 1996, PulseNet is a national laboratory network comprised of 87 public health and regulatory (FDA and USDA) laboratories, at least one in each state. PulseNet connects foodborne illness cases together to detect and define outbreaks using DNA “fingerprinting” of the bacteria making people sick using pulsed-field gel electrophoresis and multiple locus variable number tandem repeat analysis.

PulseNet tracks what is being reported to CDC today compared to what was reported in the past to look for changes. As a result, PulseNet keeps a cumulative database representing nearly half a million isolates of bacteria from food, the environment, and human foodborne illness.

Detection capabilities of PulseNet include subtypes of E. coli O157 and other Shiga toxin-producing E. coli, Clostridium botulinum, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella, Shigella, Vibrio cholerae, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Cronobacter. (Note: Clostridium botulinum is considered a select agent and, as such, follows different handling procedures than other pathogens covered by PulseNet.)

Since the creation of PulseNet in 1996, more than one-half billion pounds of contaminated food have been recalled due, in part, to PulseNet activities.

Dr. Doyle is quick to point out that PulseNet has revolutionized the detection and investigation of foodborne disease outbreaks, especially in multiple sites across the country which, before PulseNet, often went undetected or were detected only after they grew very large.

“PulseNet, in collaboration with FDA’s GenomeTrakr, is rapidly adopting whole genome sequencing as its next generation fingerprinting method,” Dr. Doyle says. “This will enable more rapid detection of outbreaks, as well as increasing CDC’s ability to identify outbreaks having only a few cases, and enabling FDA to better track outbreaks back to their source.”

What’s more, the success of PulseNet USA inspired the formation of its collaborator, PulseNet International, which now spans some 82 member countries in Canada, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, Asia Pacific, the Middle East, and Africa; and includes some 126 laboratories.

Whole Genome Sequencing

Dr. Doyle greatly appreciates all the benefits the landmark tool whole genome sequencing offers for solving foodborne illness puzzles and mysteries.

“Sequencing allows scientists to trace pathogens right to the source,” he says. “One recent example is the Salmonella contamination of frozen raw scraped ground tuna that infected 425 people in 28 states in 2012 and was traced to India. The genome sequencing led to this discovery.”

Whole genome sequencing reveals the complete DNA makeup of an organism, enabling scientists to better understand variations both within and between species. This in turn facilitates the differentiation between organisms with a precision that other technologies do not allow.

Having utilized whole genome sequencing since 2008, FDA says on its website that it is using this technology to perform basic foodborne pathogen identification during foodborne illness outbreaks and applying it in novel ways that have the potential to help reduce foodborne illnesses and deaths over the long term, both in the U.S and abroad.

With its ever-decreasing cost and continually increasing speed, genome sequencing is used to identify pathogens isolated from food or environmental samples. Dr. Doyle concurs that these can then be compared to clinical isolates from patients. According to FDA, if the pathogens found in the food or food production environment match the pathogens from the sick patients, a reliable link between the two can be made, which helps define the scope of a foodborne illness outbreak.

This type of testing has traditionally been done using methods such as pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE), but there are some strains of Salmonella spp. that PFGE is unable to differentiate. FDA explains that whole genome sequencing performs the same function as PFGE but has the power to differentiate virtually all strains of foodborne pathogens, no matter what the species. Its ability to differentiate between even closely related organisms thus allows outbreaks to be detected with fewer clinical cases and provides the opportunity to stop outbreaks sooner and avoid additional illnesses.

However, FDA asserts the most promising and far-reaching public health benefit may come from pairing a foodborne pathogen’s genomic information with its geographic location and applying the principles of evolutionary biology to determine the relatedness of the pathogens. That’s because, FDA explains, the genomic information of a species of foodborne pathogen found in one geographic area is different than the genomic information of the same species of pathogen found in another area.

Knowing the geographic areas that pathogens are typically associated with can be a powerful tool in tracking down the root source of contamination for a food product, especially multi-ingredient food products whose ingredients come from different states or countries, FDA notes.

Obviously, as FDA points out, the faster public health officials can identify the source of contamination, the faster the harmful ingredient can be removed from the food supply and the more illnesses and deaths that can be averted.

To realize this goal, FDA is spearheading an international effort to build a network of laboratories that can sequence the genomes of foodborne pathogens and then upload the genomic sequence of the pathogen and the geographic location from which the pathogen was gathered into a publicly accessible database. As the size of the database grows, it’s anticipated that so will its strength as a tool to help focus and speed investigations into the root cause of illnesses.

“The power of our surveillance system will be even better in next few years,” Dr. Doyle predicts. “With continued advances in whole genome sequencing, including more organisms from food processing facilities and products in the database, the system will become even more sensitive and robust, enabling the FDA and USDA to be able to do more detailed trace back to any field or plant that is the source of contamination.

“If any stakeholders have not picked up on what our surveillance system can do, they are in for a rude awakening in the future,” Dr. Doyle continues. “New surveillance technologies will be a real challenge for these companies. Any companies that are slack with their food safety standards should be aware that if they have a contamination problem, they are likely to get caught. They need to realize that you either pay now or you pay later if you are not on top of food safety.”

Recalls

Food recalls are one of the biggest food safety issues in the U.S. right now, says Pam Coleman, MBA, vice president of research services for Mérieux NutriSciences, Chicago, Ill. “We still have huge, devastating recalls and they always seem to be a surprise, even though some of these contamination issues seem to have gone on for years,” she relates. “For as much effort as we’ve put into food safety in the United States, some serious blemishes remain. We’re a developed country, yet we have these black marks on our resume.”

There were 25 recalls in the U.S. between August 5, 2015 and August 31, 2015 alone, as per http://www.recalls.gov/food.html.

Touting itself as the biggest food micro testing operation in the U.S., and third largest relative to analysis of nutrition, chemical contaminants, heavy metals, and pesticides, Mérieux NutriSciences operates 80 labs in some 20 countries, including 14 labs in the U.S., three in Canada and three in Mexico.

Armed with extensive academic and hands-on career bench work credentials in both biology and chemistry, Coleman currently oversees the company’s research services team, a group she explains is focused on helping clients answer their food related research questions encompassing food safety, food quality, sensory, and clinical research functions.

“We test raw ingredients, dairy, some produce, meat, poultry, FDA regulated products, grocery, mixes, canned, and frozen foods,” she mentions. “We serve thousands of companies of all sizes, including large ones with multiple facilities and small family start-ups. Our research projects are designed to enable new products to enter the market place with more safety and quality built in.”

Coleman believes a major strength of the U.S. food chain is the scrutiny of its meat and poultry, both raw and processed. “USDA has done a fantastic job of driving continued improvement in the reduction of Listeria in processed meats,” she says. “They have also developed increasingly more data driven micro baseline levels for the raw meat plants, holding plants accountable for the contamination levels of their products over the past 20 years.”

The USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) collects samples of meat and poultry products to estimate the national prevalence and levels of bacteria of public health concern. Each report is a compilation of data obtained for a particular species or type of animal.

For example, FSIS conducted the first Raw Chicken Parts Baseline Survey (RCPBS) from January to August 2012.

The RCPBS was designed to determine the presence and the levels of selected bacteria on raw chicken parts produced in federally inspected plants. In addition, FSIS wanted to determine the national prevalence of Salmonella and Campylobacter on raw chicken parts.

Additional goals for this survey were determining if there was a significant difference between production shifts as they related to bacterial levels, and comparing the bacterial presence and levels on raw parts with skin-on versus parts with skin-off.

Relative to qualitative microbiological results, the Salmonella percent positive rate for chicken parts was 26.3 percent and 21.4 percent for Campylobacter.

Using data from this study, FSIS calculated national prevalence estimates for Salmonella and Campylobacter; specifically they calculated the prevalence or weighted average of Salmonella and Campylobacter for all chicken parts. (These national prevalence estimates are different from the percent positives because they are weighted in relation to production volume.)

The estimated national prevalence of Salmonella in chicken parts is 24.02 percent with a 95 percent confidence interval between 19.24 percent and 28.79 percent. The estimated national prevalence of Campylobacter in chicken parts is 21.70 percent with a 95 percent confidence interval between 18.70 percent and 24.69 percent.

“Having a known baseline level is step one to improvement in any process,” Coleman points out. “Now the challenge is clear and industry is responding with ways to reduce levels over time.”

Environmental Monitoring

When environmental monitoring came in vogue, it was viewed as a tool to help reduce the prevalent risks that are an issue in nearly every type of food plant, Coleman mentions. “But after years of running these programs, there is a tendency to react less and less to a few isolated positive results,” she says. “So while many companies have embraced environmental monitoring over the past 15 years or so, which is evidenced by the number of environmental swabs we receive to test daily in our laboratories, as an industry we need to figure out better ways to extract actionable information from the sporadic positives that many plants experience.”

“To that end, we are working along with other industry stakeholders to elevate environmental monitoring to the next level through progressive solutions, such as EnviroMap, helping to track and map specific organisms,” Coleman relates.

Will metagenomics techniques impact environmental testing in the future? “Environmental testing will likely be improved by the application of metagenomics techniques,” Coleman predicts, “but I think we have a ways to go to get a good practical application.”

Metagenomics is the study of genetic material recovered directly from environmental samples. The broad field may also be referred to as environmental genomics, ecogenomics, or community genomics.

There is more work to be done on tracking and investigating foodborne contamination with a focus on prevention of contamination and subsequent recalls, Coleman believes. “We recommend that companies use all of the available tools to uncover issues before a recall becomes necessary,” she notes. “If sporadic pathogen positives are found via an environmental monitoring plan, conducting selective finished product testing before shipping might be a good idea to verify the effectiveness of a specific remediation effort.”

What else will help any such efforts? “We need a way to look at all microorganisms in a sample and then use the information to track them,” Coleman says. “We need to be able to tell if this is the same system we saw last week or a new one. We need to determine how to get to the molecular level with bacterial diagnostics.”

It will take a proactive approach on the part of all food industry stakeholders to be more effective with bacterial monitoring, expansion of routine testing, and control, Coleman asserts.

“Companies offering laboratory services need to expand services to help food manufacturers, retailers, and restaurants get results in a more efficient, state-of-the art, user-friendly manner,” she advises. “Phone apps for iPhone and Android that allow busy food industry professionals a way to track lab testing results is something we’ve invested in. Adapting new analytical methods to food safety while also catering to smartphone communications preferences are two ways this company is striving to serve their clients.”

FSMA Impacts

Robert Buchanan, PhD, director of the Center for Food Safety and Security Systems at the University of Maryland, College Park, Md., emphasizes that FSMA’s impact does not stop at the U.S. border since all the countries and companies that export to the U.S. will have to meet the requirements of the regulations.

That’s a noteworthy point, because another issue in the U.S., Dr. Buchanan says, is that more and more foods and ingredients are coming in from underdeveloped or developing countries.

“It’s good if these countries have an infrastructure that can handle food safety and food fraud issues, but we can’t count on that,” he relates. “If you think they are inspecting their products before they are shipped out, you need to think again. There definitely needs to be some way to manage these imports on our end. To that end, the new FSMA rules have multiple new requirements designed to improve our confidence in imported foods.”

Dr. Buchanan considers the U.S. taking the lead on new regulations a positive thing. “The regulations derived from FSMA seem to be paying a great deal of attention to ensuring that a level playing field does not favor certain segments of the food industry, such as small versus larger manufacturers, or domestic versus foreign manufacturers,” he says. “And fortunately, the drafters of the regulations also appear to be very careful about not hampering innovation. If we tamper with this ability, we reduce the potential for continuing improvement in our food supply.”

With FDA leading the way with new regulations, the USDA FSIS can be expected to follow at some point with regulatory reform, too, Dr. Buchanan predicts. “For example, as with FSMA, FSIS will likely have to deal with international trade issues to meet the U.S.’s obligations under the World Trade Organization Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures” he explains.

In terms of science having an effect on food safety, modern epidemiology has, in some instances, exceeded the ability to control pathogens in a number of foods, Dr. Buchanan asserts.

“With some of the recent diffuse outbreaks, the contamination rates exceeded the ability to detect the pathogen,” he points out. “It thus becomes a challenge to determine how much otherwise safe food we should throw away when pathogens are detected. As a result, one of the major challenges facing government, industry, and society in general is how do we reach a consensus of what is a tolerable level of risk before the next incremental increase in food safety becomes burdensome to society?”

It’s tough to get an agreement on a tolerable level of residual risk, Dr. Buchanan continues. “I’m all for risk assessments, but I’m not sure they are applied correctly,” he notes. “When developing new standards, they reflect the tolerable level of residual risk, whereas outbreaks typically involve a lack of compliance to a standard, a different risk based on reliability. In the debate over standards and performance, many of the participants do not fully understand the difference between compliance and residual risks.”

We still haven’t figured out what to do with dry products, Dr. Buchanan mentions, relative to risk assessment. “Consumers think dry products are sterile, but they are not,” he emphasizes. “So how do we get rid of Salmonella in flour, for example? Bread gets baked, but there are some uses for which flour doesn’t get baked. For instance, they often dust hot bread with raw flour.”

Fortunately, there are some new technologies coming out to help with that problem, Dr. Buchanan says, including macrowave treatments, and also new processing tools, such as improved thermal processing modeling.

Population Growth and Pathogens

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations estimates point to the need to increase global food production by 60 percent by 2050 to feed a population that will top the 9 billion mark. (With more than 320 million people, the U.S. is currently the world’s third most populous country.)

Population growth is an additional challenge that can be expected to impact food safety in the years ahead, Dr. Buchanan predicts.

“We will continue to find new pathogens that are creating themselves, and as the human population increases, we are likely to see the emergence and rapid spread of new foodborne pathogens,” he explains. “To minimize these risks, we need to get the population of the world to level off. Furthermore, food growing and processing is a huge drain on water and energy. If we continue to use energy to ship food all over the world, we will ultimately reach a point where this cannot be sustained economically. So we definitely need more sustainable foods.”

Dr. Buchanan is quick to credit the federal acts that established the foundation of the U.S. food system. Research and Cooperative Extension programs involve interaction between government, agriculture, and food industries, which in turn generate new food products and processes that solve food safety and security problems, while enhancing productivity, he points out.

“This investment has paid massive dividends to the U.S. citizenry,” he says. “And despite decreases in government funding, we have been able to maintain a good food chain infrastructure in the U.S.”

Our system is based on three legs, government, industry, and academia, Dr. Buchanan notes. “In any country, having all of these three legs offers a tremendous advantage,” he says. “In contrast, in many countries academia plays a minor role in solving food safety problems, and those countries’ food safety status suffers. It is very important to continue to invest in our public/private partnerships if we are going to improve the safety and quality of our foods.”

A really great characteristic that is unique to the U.S. food system, Dr. Buchanan says, is that a single person can have tremendous positive impact, especially with regards to regulations. “If you have the scientific knowledge and the ability to communicate this effectively to the policy makers in the U.S., you can make a huge difference,” he emphasizes.

“We have an open process in the U.S. that allows citizens to provide their input into new or changing regulations, something that is not common in many parts of the world,” Dr. Buchanan says. “If you take advantage of the way regulations are developed, then you have the potential for influencing how we are governed. This is where the members of the academic community can play an increasing and important role in explaining the science underlying continuous improvement in food safety. ”

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Consumers were willing to spend more money for genetically modified potato products when they received educational material about the health benefits of the modification, according to a study conducted at Iowa State University.

For the study, researchers examined the participants’ willingness to pay more for genetically modified potato products (5-pound bag of potatoes, potato chips, and frozen French fries) when informed that the genetically modified versions reduce the formation of acrylamide.

Acrylamide has been linked with formation of cancer in animals and is a possible carcinogen in humans. The chemical occurs naturally in starchy foods that are cooked or fried at high temperatures, such as potatoes, roasted nuts and coffee beans, and bread crusts. French fries and potato chips are the biggest source of acrylamide consumption in the U.S.

About 300 consumers were recruited from metropolitan areas to participate in the research. Three perspectives about acrylamide and the biotechnology used to reduce its formation in potato products were prepared for the study: the scientific perspective on health risks of acrylamide exposure, an environmental group’s negative perspective on genetically modified ingredients, and a potato industry perspective on using biotechnology to significantly reduce acrylamide formation in its processed potato products.

The researchers then created “information treatments” that consisted of any one of the three perspectives and also any two of them. Those treatments were randomly distributed to participants to gauge the effects of the different types of information.
Researcher and economist Wallace Huffman, PhD, the Charles F. Curtiss distinguished professor in agriculture and life sciences in the department of economics at Iowa State, says that all types of information had “significant effects on consumers’ willingness to pay for experimental potatoes and potato products.”

According to Dr. Huffman, the scientific information was the most influential single perspective, but a combination of that perspective and the industry perspective had the largest effect on the participants’ willingness to pay more for the product. Participants were less willing to pay more when the environmental group’s perspective was combined with either the industry or the scientific perspective, he says.

The FDA issued draft guidance for industry in 2013 about acrylamide, noting in the report that plant breeders are investigating the development of new potato varieties through conventional breeding and biotechnology that would be less likely to produce acrylamide. The report gave guidance on steps involved in handling, processing, and cooking potatoes that may help reduce the chemical.

Holliman is a veteran journalist with extensive experience covering a variety of industries. Reach her at kathy.holliman@gmail.com.

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McDonald’s is a brand currently ranked ninth in the world with a net worth of over $42 billion. It’s a household name built on convenience, affordability, and a family-friendly environment. To continue to meet the evolving needs of both adult and pint-size patrons, McDonald’s is always on the lookout for ways to keep its menu fresh and cost-effective.

With the continuously growing demand for more health conscious options on-the-go, McDonald’s expanded its menu to accommodate those consumer needs with salads, smoothies, and fresh fruit. Those at McDonald’s have answered market demands for more transparency into what their consumers are eating by adding nutritional information to the packaging of certain products. But before these trends took priority, there was one product that skyrocketed McDonald’s into the running for top global brands: coffee.

The introduction of McDonald’s premium roast coffee in 2006 initiated a somewhat unexpected challenge between itself and the existing leaders in the coffeehouse space. In fact, the year McDonald’s entered the coffee market, it was responsible for selling one in 10 coffees purchased outside of the home, and in 2007 Consumer Reports reported that McDonald’s java was actually preferred over the obvious candidates, Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts. But the fact remains: it’s still a hamburger joint whose primary product is not, in fact, coffee. Partnering smart, creating unified brand recognition, and escaping the lure of the fast fad attraction are three essential needs for long-lasting success.

Utilizing the Buddy System

With more than 70 percent of coffee consumption in the U.S. still taking place at home, McDonald’s has realized the growing need to offer McCafé products for retail purchase, expanding its customer reach to coffee pots and one-cup machines in homes across the nation. This type of expansion is normal for popular brands to avoid pigeonholing themselves into just one industry. Joining the likes of Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts, McDonald’s and Kraft Foods announced a partnership in 2014 to package the McCafé coffee varieties and flavors of the $11 billion U.S. retail coffee market.

A Give and Take

With its foot in a new door, McDonald’s is forced to consider an entirely new set of standards to sustain the success it has already built alongside its golden arches. While some challenges can be easily rectified by the power of two, for many partnerships, balancing the load of an entirely new endeavor can be difficult. Together, McDonald’s and Kraft share the weight of some important steps for a successful partnership and product launch.

Communicate internal requirements and share data without the convenience of shared IT resources—a major risk for communication breakdown. To avoid this, both McDonald’s and Kraft will be forced to become transparent with one another about all supply chain operations. Ensuring this visibility has proven difficult given that so many integral steps in the process take place outside the four-walls of a brand’s facilities. Most organizations that have had experience with this find automation to be essential. Paper-based processes are inefficient, prone to errors, and often make it difficult or impossible to identify issues and trends as early on in the process as possible. Software companies are beginning to leverage the cloud to connect the dots in the partner network to streamline data sharing and resolve issues and complaints proactively. It helps to create transparency across all supply chain partners—not just tier one suppliers—to protect the brand and to retain the customer base by delivering the best consumer experience possible. By implementing the cloud into these processes, a brand owner has the ability to share all complaints with every one of its suppliers to quickly and efficiently investigate the issue at hand, determine a root cause, and implement a corrective action to ensure the issue has been resolved. This technological advancement enables brand owners to not only increase collaboration with their suppliers and partners, but also reduce the significant costs associated with poor quality.

Manage global coffee suppliers, coffee roasters, and contract manufacturers and packagers to ensure safety, compliance, and brand reputation. There is typically little visibility into food safety management programs or quality processes at suppliers’ facilities. Many coffee roasters are sourcing their coffee from up to 40 different countries and are faced with the task of supplying tens of thousands of commercial customers with coffee products. The gaps that form within a supplier’s processes from communication breakdown or unresolved errors further increases the risk to a brand’s food quality and social compliance sourcing strategy.

Maintain individual brand values while encouraging customers to embrace a new product, with combined forces of both partners. In a world where a tweet can reach millions of people in a few seconds, organizations know the importance of keeping a close eye on their target demographics. By maintaining a unified voice around core values while encouraging customers to stand behind a fellow brand, McDonald’s and Kraft can better achieve the acceptance and market adoption they hope for.

Don’t be Fooled by Fads

Once at the pinnacle of the cupcake craze, Crumbs Bakeshop tried to branch out beyond baked sweets after the initial cupcake bubble had burst by offering lunch items such as sandwiches and salads, but had no such luck. Crumbs also entered the supermarket world in hopes of reclaiming some portion of its original popularity, only to file for bankruptcy and close its doors shortly afterwards in July 2014. Why? A combination of market saturation and not enough consumer demand contributed heavily to the demise of those sweet offerings. Also, the lunch offerings, while smart for brand expansion, weren’t reaching even a fraction of the association that the brand got for its cupcakes—presenting a major gap in brand recognition.

These implementations are, by no means, small feats to execute (as seen in the case of Crumbs Bakeshop). Together, McDonald’s and Kraft will need to meet (and in some cases, exceed) their own expectations for a successful rollout. This will take a great amount of patience and accuracy to get right for both McDonald’s and Kraft. All of which lie on top of their end goal to provide customers with a quality product that meets the expectations they have when visiting the store in-person. The best way to reach this is to maintain transparency in all operations, triage potential errors/challenges as a united force, and project a consistent brand image.

Kuchinski is VP of product marketing for Sparta Systems. Reach her at kelly.kuchinski@spartasystems.com.

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The ongoing recall of cumin and cumin-containing foods due to undeclared peanuts or almonds is almost certainly the result of purposeful economically motivated adulteration (EMA), food safety experts believe. Since late last year, food agencies in the U.S., Europe, and Canada have been tracking and reporting what the FDA calls the “largest recall of an allergen in spice.” About 700 different products have been recalled by more than 40 manufacturers and retailers in the U.S. alone since late last year.

“Although we don’t know who the bad guys are yet, it appears clear the motivation for the incident is economic gain, and that’s clearly food fraud,” says John Spink, PhD, director, Food Fraud Initiative, Michigan State University. David Acheson, MD, founder and CEO of The Acheson Group and a former FDA associate commissioner for foods, agrees. “I am 80 percent-plus confident that this is deliberate contamination. I can’t explain it otherwise,” he says.

One of the first companies to voluntarily recall products was Adams Flavors, Foods & Ingredients of Gonzales, Texas, which late last year declared it had been notified by a third-party supplier that one of its spice ingredients contained peanut proteins. Goya Foods subsequently recalled many of its black beans and black bean soup products while Whole Foods recalled more than 100 different products sold in its stores nationwide.

“This is likely to be one of the largest allergen recalls ever because spice mix becomes part of a sundry of products and the multiplier effect—the domino effect—is inevitable,” Craig W. Henry, PhD, vice president of business development for the Americas, Decernis LLC, tells Food Quality & Safety.

The geographic source of the adulteration is thus far unknown, but speculation centers on Turkey and India, the latter producing three-quarters of the world’s cumin supply. Higher-than-normal temperatures there have decimated the current cumin crop, with yields expected to be 40 percent to 50 percent less than those of past harvests. Prices have skyrocketed as a result. Dr. Acheson and others believe that suppliers there have added ground peanut shells and almond husks to “bulk up” ground cumin. “Adding just 1 percent peanut shells at zero cost is essentially a profit of $350 to $400 on a sale of 10 tons of ground cumin,” Dr. Acheson says. “Not a bad margin at zero cost for the grinder to put in their pocket.”

Recent laboratory testing of cumin samples has found a range of contamination. Tests performed by Neogen Corp. found contamination levels ranging from zero to 4.6 parts per million (ppm) total peanut to more than 5,000 ppm, or 0.5 percent, says Tony Lupo, director of technical services. Other labs have found even higher levels. “When they back calculate the peanut content in the cumin itself based on the inclusion rate in the recipe, it can be concluded that the cumin contained greater than 100,000 ppm or 10 percent,” Lupo tells Food Quality & Safety magazine. “Such levels, even when diluted in finished foods, are still well above published reference doses for many peanut allergic individuals.”

“Cumin is very commonly added to foods,” says Cary Sennett, MD, PhD, president and CEO of the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. There is no requirement that cumin or other spices be specifically identified on product labels. “Exposure to even a trace amount of peanut can be life-threatening to those who are allergic,” Sennett said in a statement.

The FDA has received eight reports from peanut-allergic consumers who reported mild to potentially severe symptoms after eating foods that contain the affected cumin, says agency spokesman Noah J. Bartolucci. But because the information is self-reported, FDA is unable to vouch for its accuracy or completeness. Nevertheless, “the current recall is the largest recall of an allergen in spice,” Bartolucci tells Food Quality & Safety magazine. FDA issued a consumer advisory in February cautioning people with peanut allergy to consider avoiding products containing ground cumin or cumin powder.

The U.K.’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) is also investigating peanut- and almond-tainted cumin. Chris Elliott, professor of food safety and director of the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University Belfast, who last year led the U.K.’s horsemeat scandal investigation, said it was too early to draw firm conclusions. But, he noted, “whenever there’s a crop failure you always have to look to see what is the potential fraud that is behind that,” Dr. Elliott told The Independent newspaper. “This time the crop failure is cumin and it does seem to be that there has been fraud going on.”

The contamination in Europe has expanded beyond cumin to also include paprika. FSA and food safety agencies in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway have issued warnings that a taco seasoning spice mix made by Santa Maria UK contains undeclared almond. Lab testing revealed that paprika in the spice mix is the most likely cause. The company issued a recall. Back in the U.S., the Giant Food Stores supermarket chain in late January removed Szeged Hungarian Paprika from its shelves due to possible peanut contamination. There is no indication that the cumin and paprika cases are linked.

Intentional adulteration of spices is far from uncommon. Saffron, the world’s most expensive spice, has been found adulterated with glycerin, sandalwood dust, the yellow dye tartrazine, barium sulfate, and borax, according to a January 2014 report by the Congressional Research Service. Ground black pepper has been contaminated with added starch, papaya seeds, buckwheat, flour, twigs, and millet. Vanilla extract, turmeric, star anise, and chili powder are also prone to fraud, the report says.

“My instincts are that this is a real EMA situation,” Dr. Acheson says. “My advice to all those using cumin—and other spices that could be part of this EMA thinking—is to start testing incoming ingredients for allergens.” He also recommends companies seek to trace back their spice supply chains as far as possible. But “the tracebacks that I have personal knowledge of go a certain distance back and every vendor says they don’t have peanuts or almonds in their facility. So we don’t know where they came from,” Dr. Acheson tells Food Quality & Safety.

Agres is a freelance writer based in Laurel, Md. Reach him at tedagres@yahoo.com.

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