Ready-to-eat

RSS

The Infant Formula Safety Modernization Act includes provisions about expanded pathogen testing requirements and compulsory environmental monitoring for infant formula manufacturers, among other mandates.

Ready-to-eat (RTE) foods come with heightened food safety risks due to their lack of a final kill-step, leaving them susceptible to foodborne pathogens like Listeria monocytogenes. To help food firms control RTE food safety risks at all steps of the supply chain, this eBook provides solutions related to plant sanitation and hygiene, temperature abuse, culture, and more.

However, concerning levels of arsenic and lead were detected in some products, and Consumer Reports is therefore urging FDA to set limits for these metals in infant formula. PFAS were also found in more than a quarter of products.

FDA has declared the outbreak over with 48 confirmed and probable cases of illness. A root-cause investigation is still ongoing. FDA has also announced new “Operation Stork Speed” infant formula resources for families.

The STEC O26:H11 outbreak sickened 40 people and resulted in 19 cases of hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) in children. Dried fruit was the probable vehicle of illness. Researchers underlined the importance of a weight-of-evidence approach in the outbreak investigation.

Amid the ongoing global infant formula recall due to possible cereulide contamination, some countries have reported cases of mostly mild gastrointestinal illness in infants who had consumed infant formula, but confirming cereulide exposure is a challenge.

This episode of Food Safety Five discusses updated USDA-FSIS guidance on Listeria testing in RTE facilities, the latest on the Boar’s Head facility behind the fatal outbreak of 2024, and a real-world Listeria “Seek and Destroy” success story.

Affected products were sold under various brand names at numerous retailers. The products shared a single supplier of contaminated pasta, Nate’s Fine Foods Inc.

Citing reports of contamination and a lack of federal oversight, California Senator Steve Padilla introduced SB 1033, which would require manufacturers of protein products to test their products for heavy metals and publicly disclose their findings.

Following the ByHeart botulism outbreak, FDA intends to begin testing infant formula products and ingredients for Clostridium botulinum to help determine whether contamination by the pathogen is a “foreseeable hazard that companies could test for.”