Food Safety Top Stories

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The National Association of State Departments of Agriculture (NASDA) Foundation has partnered with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approach implementing food safety regulation in a novel way. Through the spirit of "education before regulation," implementation of the groundbreaking Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) has been a success.

Cleaning program validation that primarily relies on adenosine triphosphate (ATP) monitoring can yield poor results if a few basic strategies are not incorporated into the sampling program to eliminate bias. These include probability sampling, uniformity of the sample, as well as understanding the limitation of the test instrument and the interpretation of results.

In a dynamic shipping environment, the need to anticipate and reduce food safety risks across the supply chain requires innovation, strategic leadership, and strong partnerships between food and transportation companies. This article will provide a brief history of food safety in transportation, a review of current trends, and insights into strategies and cultural expectations to prevent and control food safety risks in transportation.

A variety of actions, spanning from simply changing a nozzle to implementing AI technology, can contribute to making sanitizing procedures more sustainable. The authors dive into some of these actions and look at the effectiveness, implementation challenges, and consequences for the end products.

Cultivated meat (i.e., cell-cultured meat) has been promoted as an alternative to the livestock industry as a more sustainable, safer, and healthier means of food production. However, several regulatory and safety hurdles must be addressed for cultivated meat to reach the commercial market, as it has not yet been declared safe for consumption in the U.S. Safety considerations for cell-cultured meat include the components utilized (the raw ingredients, the source of cells, scaffolds, and bioreactors), the introduction of adventitious agents, and the presence of drug/chemical residues in the final food product. 

A special message from FAO: World Food Safety Day (WFSD) is an important recognition for the fundamental role of food safety in achieving food security, as well as its centrality in the agri-food system. Even though WFSD comes along once a year on June 7, food safety must be protected year-round to continue promoting good health and sufficient food for all.

Salmonella infection is one of the most commonly reported causes of foodborne illness, resulting in over 80 million cases of foodborne salmonellosis each year globally.

Blackhawk Technical College's Food Lab program is an example of why more flexible and accessible food safety training and education is crucial to developing the next generation of food safety professionals.

With the broad number of factors involved in conducting a successful and efficient food safety inspection, all food safety inspectors, regardless of experience, should take into consideration some key pointers before conducting an inspection.

Some will argue that more sensitive methods are needed to drive change. This is a reasonable argument, but it misses the underlying problem of defining the mission before implementing a sampling and testing program.