The phrase, “FDA inspection” often sends a shiver down the spines of food manufacturers. But, a routine visit from the agency doesn’t have to be a scary thing. Here, Miriam Maxwell, senior principal regulatory scientist, corporate scientific and regulatory affairs at Ocean Spray, reviews how her company prepares for and executes FSMA inspections, as well as explains what the FDA looks for when it arrives at your door.
The phrase, “FDA inspection” often sends a shiver down the spines of food manufacturers. But, a routine visit from the agency doesn’t have to be a scary thing. Here, Miriam Maxwell, senior principal regulatory scientist, corporate scientific and regulatory affairs at Ocean Spray, reviews how her company prepares for and executes FSMA inspections, as well as explains what the FDA looks for when it arrives at your door.
Prevention of food contamination is a much more practical approach than testing every product in the supply chain. But, that doesn’t mean contamination testing technologies will ever be obsolete. Here, Vincent Paez, director of the Global Food Safety Forum (GFSF), answers my questions about current and emerging methods and technological advancements helping to keep the global food supply safe. Paez will be speaking at the Global Food Safety Forum’s event: Food Safety Training Summit on Monday, August 28, 2017 in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
What was most important to our readers in July? Take a look back at last month by reviewing the 10 most-popular articles that appeared on Food Online in July.
Earlier this year, Food Online Editorial Advisory Board (EAB) member Omar Oyarzabal, Ph.D., penned a column on Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) in the food industry, its benefits, and some of the challenges it’s presenting. In his column, Dr. Oyarzabal clearly offered his stance on WGS, backing it with both scientific and anecdotal evidence. Intrigued by Dr. Oyarzabal’s stance, I wondered what other food industry experts thought about WGS. I reached out to two members of Food Online’s EAB to learn more.
In this segment of Food For Thought: Establishing, Maintaining, And Improving Food Safety Culture, Lone Jespersen, former director of food safety & operations learning at Maple Leaf Foods; and Brian Bedard, executive director of GMA SEF discuss some of the common barriers manufacturers face in food safety culture and how to overcome them.
From time to time, we come across companies planning to incorporate a food microbiology lab for in-house testing. Many times, management foresees the benefit of “faster turn-around time,” thus allowing programs to be adjusted more rapidly. Industry has seen more and more “rapid tests” on the commercial market promoting closer scrutiny of laboratory testing programs. In most cases, companies have done an excellent job evaluating the basic finances of doing in-house testing versus outsourcing to third-party labs. But, sometimes companies don’t understand the complexity associated with starting an in-house microbiology testing laboratory. In many cases, they don’t want to call their facilities a “laboratory” and want a “place” to test only for indicator microorganisms. Yet, after a couple of years, they start testing for pathogens. Such a transition creates a completely different scenario. In this article, we summarize key questions companies should address to help determine if starting an in-house food microbiology laboratory is appropriate.
Supply Chain Management is a constant struggle for food and beverage companies. Consumers want more insights about where their food is coming from, and on top of meeting consumer demands, manufacturers have two additional concerns: first, turning around inventory quickly at competitive prices while maintaining stock and supplier relations. Then, manufacturers must keep a close eye on quality, ensuring all products in the supply chain meet industry and consumer specifications. Obviously, there’s a lot to track in the data-driven supply chain. That’s where Artificial Intelligence (AI) can provide F&B companies with new supply chain insights to stay ahead of the curve.
Preventing physical hazards in food continues to be challenging, and frequently, the reason for companies and/or regulatory agencies issuing recall notices. A brief review of the recalls viewable online at Recall.gov indicates that the number of recalls for physical hazards per month ranges from zero to eight involving USDA and FDA amenable products. This article will provide steps to help food companies keep physical contaminants out of food, as well detail the latest technologies helping to reduce physical contamination-related recalls.
For years, there has been a buzz about how genome sequencing is revolutionizing food safety. It is definitely an incredible tool giving an immediate understanding of the genetic composition of microbial pathogens, including bacteria and viruses. However, there are still gaps needing filled regarding how pathogens produce disease and survive in foods. Genome sequencing brings us more tools to further characterize pathogens, but do not expect any other parts of food safety to be forgotten soon because of WGS.
Considering total cost of ownership helps to better understand the costs over and above the purchase price and also – when suppliers have differing offers – to compare them and ultimately to substantiate the investment decision. What is critical here is that the method is oriented in each case to the circumstances of the industry and the company. This also applies to the field of product inspection equipment. This White Paper helps address several questions regarding the total cost of ownership of X-Ray inspection equipment.
This white paper looks at the most common food safety standards, their latest requirements, and explains how a product inspection program can help food manufacturers meet these requirements.
When considering a handling system of any type, always work from the end effector (gripper or vacuum) upwards. Firstly size the gripper, then any rotary actuator requirements. After this, size the vertical (Z axis) and then any horizontals (X and Y axis).
Implementing HACCP plans is an enormous undertaking with many obstacles. This article shows how technology and business software can help your company overcome its HACCP challenges.
Customers often call with concerns that their floor is out of level and what affect that will have on their weight readings. Scales are designed with the assumption that the load will be parallel to the direction of gravity and perpendicular to the weighing platform; meaning, there is only a vertical force.
Not only is portable tank weighing possible, but so is highly accurate portable tank weighing. In order for a portable tank system to have high system accuracy, it must have a rigid foundation that does not flex or bow, regardless of external influences. By, Steve Watson, Sartorius Intec
TOMRA Sorting has a solution for sorting blackberries. TOMRA sorters detect mold, stems, snails, unripe blackberries and foreign material in whole and broken IQF (individually quick frozen) blackberries.
TOMRA Sorting has a solution for sorting olives. TOMRA sorting machines remove discoloration, stems, pits and all types of foreign material.
TOMRA Sorting has a solution for sorting fresh, frozen and dried strawberries. TOMRA’s sorters detect and reject stems, leaves and snails, unripe, molded, rotten and discolored strawberries as well as foreign materials.
TOMRA Sorting has a solution for sorting fresh and frozen redberries. TOMRA’s redberry sorters are able to detect and remove stems, leaves and snails. The redberry sorters can also remove unripe, rotten and discolored fresh and frozen redberries as well as foreign materials.
TOMRA Sorting has a solution for sorting pears. TOMRA sorting machines are able to sort pear halves, dices or cocktail pears by size and shape differences, peels, pits, discolorations, defects, blemishes and all types of foreign material.
TOMRA Sorting has a solution for field run, raw receiving, pre and post peeling, diced and frozen tomatoes.
TOMRA’s tomato sorting machines detect and remove off-color, rot, mold, yellow shoulder, sunburn, breakers, under and oversize removal and all types of foreign material such as animal matter, cotton stalks, metal, plastic, stones, glass, wood etc.
TOMRA Sorting has a solution for sorting cherries. TOMRA's cherry sorting equipment detects pits inside cherries, stems and rotten pieces or other discolorations in fresh, frozen, sweet, tart and brine cherries.
TOMRA Sorting has a solution for sorting pineapples. TOMRA’s pineapple sorters detect and remove brown discoloration and skin pieces on fresh and frozen pineapples.
TOMRA Sorting has a range of solutions for sorting apples. TOMRA’s apple sorting equipment detects cores, red and green skin, oxidized/discolored/bruised apples and pits in fresh peeled and unpeeled, frozen and dried apple dices and slices.
TOMRA Sorting has a solution for sorting dried figs. TOMRA’s fig sorters detect and remove discoloration, aflatoxin and foreign materials.
BRC Global Standards recognize that the food standard is used as the basis for a quality management system. In reviewing and rewriting the standard we have tried to concentrate on a few major areas where the standard needed to be revised to reflect the changing food safety landscape. The vast majority of the requirements of the standard are unchanged or with slight edits to the wording to aid clarity.
In January 2017, Schreiber Processing Corp., a Maspeth, N.Y. company, recalled approximately 2,330 pounds of chicken tender products due to possible plastic contamination and misbranding.
How to incorporate a new process into an existing facility is a basic question that begins every project. The client usually has a preconceived idea of where a new process will go and how much space is available, but if we stop here and do what we are told, preconceived notions may drive us to a point where we find that project needs haven’t been met.
Food safety culture has been a popular phrase lately. Most would agree that it’s an important concept, but how do we actually build one and strengthen it? A company’s food safety culture is determined in large part by the strength of its food safety program – one can’t prosper without the other. The critical cog between these two are people – their ability to consistently perform the necessary behaviors to execute a successful food safety program. With a focus on frontline employees and their food safety roles, we’ve identified some common obstacles, several of which are discussed in detail in the 2016 Global Food Safety Training Survey1, that could slow the successful implementation of your food safety program on the plant floor and hurt any efforts to drive a strong food safety culture.
The majority of electro-mechanical axis utilise extruded aluminium profile in a range of sizes with a single guide rail and bearing arrangement driven by an electric motor through a belt or ball screw arrangement. There are physical limitations to the forces such a system can accurately and reliably guide. This paper explores some alternative design arrangements to cope with higher load applications and identifies design considerations observed during the development of a Festo high load, twin rail system.
Welcome to Food Online, the premiere Internet resource, helping build a community to advance the production of safe and healthy food and beverages. We provide best practices and solutions in food safety, food processing, automation, packaging and the supply chain.
The site is designed for plant engineers, production managers, manufacturing engineers, processing technicians, operations supervisors, and business managers, it provides daily news updates, reports, and solutions on business and technology trends vital to the industry. We provide plant managers, quality control/quality assurance technologists, and research and development experts with up-to-date information and industry solutions in the areas of food safety and regulatory issues, metal contamination, x-ray inspection, check weighing, and bacterial detection.
Both process and production engineers and technicians, along with marketing and business managers will find, case studies, white papers, and other technical solutions and product information on mixers, blenders, filling equipment, homogenizers, conveyors, sorters, graders, flow meters, pumps, tanks, valves, freezers, chillers, heat exchangers, moisture controls, pH meters, and sensors.
Food Online also covers quality control and quality assurance systems, information management systems, process control systems and equipment, as well as clean-in-place systems, measurement systems, sanitation systems, end-of-line packaging, packaging equipment, primary packaging, secondary packaging, and contract packaging. Transportation and logistics professionals will find valuable information concerning the supply chain, cold chain, traceability, and, sustainability.
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