Dairy Industrywide Food Safety Collaboration Aims to Protect the Public
As food manufacturers, we can have the best product, the most innovative marketing and extensive distribution networks, but we can’t sell a product without one essential element: consumer trust. Consumers rightly expect that they can trust the products we provide them are, at their core, safe.
In general, food companies and their hardworking, dedicated professionals do everything they can to produce high-quality, safe products. Over the years, the food industry has worked together to continuously improve and harness evolving science and updated insights. The dairy industry in particular has a long history of cooperation and setting standards through efforts like the 3-A and the Pasteurized Milk Ordinance. To raise the bar on food safety even higher, the dairy industry has been working together since 2010 through the Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy® (IC)[1] (see “Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy®”) to improve practices, maintain consumer trust here and abroad and protect the public. With the IC as the convener, experts from various dairy companies have aligned on food safety best practices, identified pathogen controls and built training courses. Along the way, participants have further improved their own practices and learned something equally important—the value of finding common ground among competitors and collaborating for the larger good.
In 2010, the Food Safety Committee of the IC was created to help the industry collectively improve practices and reduce risks in dairy foods. The objective of the committee is to strengthen manufacturing practices in all dairy processing facilities to diminish food safety risks that could compromise the reputation of the U.S. dairy industry. The actions of this group build on many years of previous efforts focused on quality and food safety to help ensure that the high confidence consumers already place in dairy foods will continue.
“I’m very proud of this program and the companies that have been dedicated to its success,” says Tom Hedge, vice president of technologies at Schreiber Foods and chairman of the IC Food Safety Committee. “Participating with this team of experts has provided an opportunity to do more for the industry. What we have found is that food safety is the ideal space for precompetitive collaboration. It’s a space where we can learn from each other without crossing competitive boundaries.”
The food safety program of the IC is committed to providing science-based tools that help companies ensure that food safety is deeply ingrained in their corporate culture as one of their highest priorities. Changing to a safety-first culture is a journey that requires commitment of the company CEO and a motivated staff.[2] Larry Jensen, president and CEO of Leprino Foods and chairman of the IC, says, “In a matter as significant as consumer confidence in the safety of dairy products, we can learn from other industry experiences. In many cases, we are only as good as our weakest link. This is not a competitive issue. It is important that we help float all boats.”
Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy®
The Innovation Center for U.S. Dairy (IC), formed in 2008, provides a forum for the dairy industry to work together precompetitively. Collectively, the IC represents over 500 dairy organizations and over 80 percent of the U.S. milk supply. One important IC initiative is the Food Safety Team, which helps ensure dairy products are safe by providing resources and training in all facets of dairy manufacturing. The IC Food Safety Team is very active, with over 60 experts from 28 organizations involved across six action platforms.