By James Limbach
ConsumerAffairs.com
November 16, 2009
The Institute of Food Technologists (IFT) is recommending guidelines to establish a comprehensive product tracing system to track the movement of food products effectively from farm to point of sale or service.
The Food and Drug Administration's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) commissioned the IFT report in 2008 as part of its examination of food product tracing practices to improve the ability of government and industry to trace commercially distributed food products potentially of risk to U.S. consumers.
The study authors, including experts from academia, industry, and government, collected information from 58 food companies involved in produce, packaged consumer goods, processed ingredients, distribution, foodservice, retail, and animal feed.
Food can become contaminated at many different steps in the supply chain. Experience in conducting foodborne disease outbreak investigations suggests that improved product tracing abilities could help identify products associated with disease more quickly, get risky products off the market faster, and reduce the number of illnesses associated with foodborne illness outbreaks.
The analysis included a review of diverse product tracing methods, practices in non-food industries, and standards and regulations pertaining to traceability worldwide. In addition, IFT experts proposed changes in current systems and practices to help track the movement of food products from farm to table to ultimately protect public health.
Traceability of products is critical at all levels of the food system to protect public health by isolating products early to help contain a food incident. Additionally, product tracing can help contribute to the safety of the food system by identifying the cause of a problem, so that preventive controls can be put in place.
The recommendations from IFT and the expert panel include:
• Creation of a standard list of key data or information to be collected
• Standardization of formats for expressing the information
• Identification of the points along the supply chain, internally and between
partners, where information needs to be captured• Comprehensive record keeping that allows the linking of information both internally and with partners
• Use of electronic systems for data transfer
• Inclusion of traceability as a requirement within audits
• Required training and education on what compliance entails
The report concludes that setting clear objectives for those in the food supply chain is the most appropriate approach to effective product tracing. Principally the system should be simple, user friendly and globally accepted, as well as have the ability to leverage existing industry systems.
The safety of the food supply requires a comprehensive and coordinated effort among all stakeholders throughout the system from farm to fork including growers, farm workers, packers, shippers, transporters, importers, wholesalers, retailers, government agencies, as well as consumers, according to the panel's findings.
Through a concerted effort, product tracing can help protect the public health, boost consumer confidence, and manage costs faced by affected industries in the supply chain following a food safety incident, the panel concluded.
