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Part of Food Safety Magazine’s series with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), titled, “Evolution of a New Era: Advancing Strategies for Smarter Food Safety,” this episode of Food Safety Matters discusses the agency’s commodity-specific strategies to prevent foodborne illness outbreaks through FDA's Foodborne Outbreak Response Improvement Plan under the New Era of Smarter Food Safety initiative. We are joined by Stephen Hughes, Prevention Coordinator in the Office of Food Safety at FDA's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, and Dr. Jennifer McEntire, Chief Food Safety and Regulatory Officer at the International Fresh Produce Association (IFPA).

The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) recently published two reports—one on control measures for Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in meat and dairy products, and another reviewing Listeria monocytogenes attribution, characterization, and monitoring in ready-to-eat (RTE) foods.

Researchers have developed a novel, food-grade, edible sensor that can alert consumers to frozen products that have previously been thawed and refrozen.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA’s FSIS) has proposed a regulatory framework that would change food safety in the poultry industry, including new flock testing requirements, enhancing process control and verification, and implementing enforceable final product standards.

As part of the Closer to Zero Action Plan, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has asked the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to conduct an independent study to assess young children’s exposure to mercury from consuming seafood.

Many of the techniques used in creating a HACCP plan are shared with other types of plans, such as food quality and food defense plans. This article discusses regulatory changes in the dairy industry through the years, including the Grade "A" Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO), the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shippers Dairy HACCP Pilot Program, and the incorporation of the Food Safety Modernization Act Preventive Controls Rule within the PMO.

A continuous improvement approach may be useful for poultry operations aiming to reduce the presence of Salmonella in their flocks, in light of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s initiative that includes increased quantitative microbial monitoring of incoming flocks to processing plants.

A recent study has estimated that removing products with a concentration of Listeria monocytogenes higher than 1 CFU/g could greatly reduce food contamination and associated foodborne illness cases. The study also found ready-to-eat (RTE) foods to be of greatest concern.

A recent report by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization raises a concern with the limited existing data on seaweed food safety, and recommends several actions to close knowledge gaps and increase the safety of seaweed consumption.