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Breaking Bad News author Jeff Hahn sits down with Food Safety Matters to share insights and tools for successfully navigating crisis communications. Also, Bob Ferguson of Strategic Consulting joins us to discuss his latest Food Safety Insights column, “How WGS Continues to Change Food Safety."

Food Safety Matters speaks to attorney Shawn Stevens, Founder, and Partner at Food Industry Counsel LLC, about the firm's Food Recall Reporter search tool and how the data can be used for predictive analysis. Mr. Stevens also speaks about upcoming changes to FDA’s enforcement policies.

Strong food safety cultures are often associated with maturity, but they are not developed overnight. Three steps can help develop food safety culture maturity at any organizational level and company size.

With the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, all industries that need to maintain microbiologically safe environments have shown a renewed interest in antimicrobial coatings and their application.

This article gives a comparison of food safety/quality needs with employee safety during production, using the chemical application of peracetic acid to control environmental biological contamination as the example. It also examines how to better encourage collaboration between food safety and employee safety, using the hierarchy of controls as the guide.

Class 1 recalls are defined as situations where there is a reasonable probability that the use of or exposure to a food product will cause serious adverse health consequences or death to humans. Residues of most of the so-called "Big 8" (and soon-to-be "Big 9," with the recent addition of sesame seeds) allergenic foods are considered as a basis for Class 1 recalls. While food allergen recalls are unwelcome, potentially valuable lessons can be learned from these unfortunate events. Good manufacturing practices (GMPs) have evolved from corrective actions taken to prevent allergen recalls.

This article explores how having respect for people and fully engaging employees can transform a company's culture of food safety.

The authors and collaborating food safety experts have identified four predominant features around food safety culture in European cultures. These features include mixed attitudes toward the adoption of new ideas as food safety management changes, active engagement in food safety and quality, consensual decision-making, and a prevailing dependence on internal drive (as opposed to regulatory dictation) in fostering food safety culture.

This column will expand on the findings of the FDA study of the economic evaluation of the GenomeTrakr whole genome sequencing (WGS) program, adding data on the use of sequencing and how it will continue to change food safety practices and markets. It will also discuss what FDA is doing with GenomeTrackr to uncover previously unseen outbreaks and how this is keeping pressure on processors to expand environmental monitoring and controls.

The COVID-19 pandemic dramatically disrupted the food supply. This article seeks to explain the transcendent lessons of this national emergency, with the hope that being aware of them will help national decision-makers better prepare for next time. Our food systems, like the larger supply chain, will be challenged in the future with new kinds of disruptions, making it essential that mistakes are not repeated and that proactive, correct solutions are discovered and preparations made now.