Food Safety Top Stories

RSS

This article discusses the consumer and regulatory drivers of the current focus on heavy metals in foods for babies and young children, and also explores the congressional investigation and FDA's subsequent Closer to Zero effort. It also discusses the latest developments and what moves can be expected next from FDA. 

Packaging and labeling of cannabis-infused edibles are unregulated at the federal level due to Cannabis remaining a Schedule I drug, therefore industry must comply with individual state codes and use international standards for guidance. Cannabis-infused edibles are packaged and labeled with all the familiar requirements for a food and dietary supplement, and further requirements must be met.

Supply chain constraints are not a new challenge in the food industry. Food is a global market, and even the smallest food processor brings in food ingredients, packaging, and equipment from around the world. Included in this article are tips and tricks for managing inventory, supplier, and warehouse challenges for food manufacturing facilities.

Leveraging digital supply chain technologies—like blockchain, AI, and other solutions—can help importers comply with FDA's Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) more efficiently and effectively, while also improving supply chain transparency and reducing the risk of food safety incidents.

Implementing an effective Listeria environmental monitoring program enables knowledge of where Listeria can enter, harbor, and move through a facility, which is the first step toward keeping the pathogen on the run and not allowing it to impact production surfaces or finished product.

Advances in next-generation sequencing have allowed for an understanding of the microbial inhabitants that make up the microbiome in ways that culture-based techniques are limited. This article provides a broad overview of two genomic techniques and potential applications for their use by meat and poultry processors.

Risk culture is a construct in which the organization's values, beliefs, and behaviors influence actions relative to how it responds to risks. By reducing complexity across the organization's functions and processes, the different types of risk can be assessed and managed by a single, powerful approach so that the risk culture is more mature.

This article discusses the latest research elucidating the main reason why foodborne pathogens like Salmonella are more resistant to heat inactivation in low-moisture food (LMF) systems, including quantitative data relating thermal treatment temperature and water activity/relative humidity to the log-reduction rate of bacterial pathogens in different LMF. Case studies on pilot-scale thermal treatments for the control of Salmonella in LMF are also presented. 

A simple review of organizational structures shows that food safety teams report to different functions across food companies, but what structure provides the best opportunity for success of the food safety team, and what are the measures of success? Identifying the structure that sets up the food safety team to drive daily compliance and upgrade existing programs is key. This article examines current organizational structures and evaluates the pros and cons of each.

Research on plant defense responses against pathogens, specifically E. coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium, holds insights to preventing foodborne illnesses and improving food safety practices.