While the fatal poisoning of more than 100 people with sulfanilamide sweetened with diethylene glycol occurred nearly 85 years ago, the herculean mobilization of federal, state, and local inspectors to retrieve product and prevent more deaths is as vital a lesson today as it was then.
Foreign bodies are a large risk to the food and drink industry with authorities recalling products due to foreign-body contamination. Learn how a strong food safety culture can help a company implement best practices in avoiding such events.
Considerations for how ingredients will be sourced, inspected, segregated, and processed may impact the quality and safety of the finished product. It is important for food product developers to consult not only their procurement partners but also their food safety and quality partners to use ingredients from reliable and trustworthy suppliers from the beginning.
The harmonization of food legislation helps ensure the availability of safe and quality food using widely accepted standards that facilitate the movement of food between countries without arbitrary legal constraints or unjustifiably inequities.
The Food Safety Insights column began in 2017, and for the past 5 years, it has been providing insights on changes and developments in the food safety marketplace. How has the market changed and what are the key drivers and trends that continue to drive food safety markets?
Industry officials in food safety who have been there commonly warn "you don’t want to be exchanging business cards with your regulators at the beginning of a food safety event." Whether an outbreak, recall, natural disaster, or other event, knowing your regulators in advance of the event results in a much more effective relationship during challenging times.
Corrective actions in food safety require quality assurance tools to inform written procedures for identifying and correcting problems, reducing the likelihood of reoccurrence, and preventing affected food from entering commerce.
By transforming maintenance into a preventive control, its effectiveness is enhanced by helping prevent food safety issues from occurring and increasing the company's confidence in its quality and food safety programs.
The meat and poultry industry faced unprecedented disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic, as employees worked in tight quarters on production lines, making it especially vulnerable. What is the current state of knowledge of the risk factors for such workers?