Rounding out the education sessions on Wednesday of the 2022 Food Safety Summit, Session 9 examined how to improve food recalls. Speakers included Steve Mandernach, J.D., Executive Director of the Association of Food and Drug Officials (AFDO); Lisa Hainstock, Food Safety Specialist with the Michigan Department of Agricultural and Rural Development (MDARD); Jennifer Pierquet, Project Manager at AFDO; Mitzi Baum, CEO of STOP Foodborne Illness; and Erik Mettler, Assistant Commissioner for Partnerships and Policy within the Office of Regulatory Affairs (ORA) in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Ensuring food safety is a fundamental duty of regulatory agencies, including federal, state, and local government agencies. However, these agencies have not always been successful at working collaboratively to achieve success. FDA’s New Era of Smarter Food Safety ties together steps for innovation and more efficient approach for change, and FDA’s Blueprint for the Future is a focal point for recalls. AFDO recently released a whitepaper calling for modernization in the recall process to take unsafe food off of store shelves faster and reduce the number of consumers who become ill from contaminated food.