Contamination Control

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Scientists from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service (USDA's ARS) and North Dakota State University (NDSU) recently found that cattle fed with hempseed cake, an industrial hemp byproduct, retain very low, food-safe levels of cannabinoids in muscle, liver, kidney, and fat tissues.

Following a string of recalls in recent years caused by Ethylene Oxide, the European Commission (EC) has classified Ethylene Oxide as a pesticide and the chemical will be subject to mandatory testing.

Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis are developing a vaccine for human norovirus, which is the leading cause of foodborne illness worldwide.

The majority of food allergen recalls are caused by preventable labeling errors, according to a recent analysis of recall data for U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) –regulated products.

Foreign object control is more than just putting a metal detector at the end of the line. Foreign object hazards in foods pose significant public health risks, can lead to costly economic impact, and can directly affect food security and sustainability. Foreign object risk must be identified as part of a HACCP plan for every manufactured food to determine where the most effective control(s) should be implemented for every production run.  

A recent study has added to the growing amount of evidence regarding the global rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in foodborne pathogens, finding concerning levels of microbiological contamination and multidrug resistance (MDR) to critical antibiotics among pathogens isolated from pork and poultry meat samples purchased from leading retail outlets in Kenya. 

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has revised the guidance, titled, Labeling of Certain Beers Subject to the Labeling Jurisdiction of FDA, as well as two other guidances, to add “sesame” to the list of major food allergens for labeling purposes.

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) has announced its new roster of experts for the Joint FAO/World Health Organization (WHO) Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) for the 2023-2027 period.

Advocacy group Consumer Reports (CR) has compiled a list of the ten most high-risk foods, based on recall and foodborne illness outbreak data collected from federal food regulatory agencies.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service’s (USDA’s FSIS) has announced that is granting a pilot project to Pilgrim’s Pride in Mount Pleasant, Texas to examine the merits and logistics of excluding Salmonella poultry vaccine strains from the FSIS Salmonella performance categorization calculation.