In 1997, I was a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army Vet Corp responsible for the Central Mediterranean Branch in Italy. A bright Veterinarian, Leslie Huck, took me aside and showed me a checklist he was developing. The checklist was focused on intentional contamination and it made me think about how the military is always a target for acts of violence — as long as there have been armies, intentionally adulterating food has been a way to hurt them. “We are trying to protect the military’s food chain, of course this is important,” I thought.
The FDA and food manufacturers are both on the same mission: make food safer. But, increased scrutiny during FDA inspections has left many food industry professionals with increased anxiety. Here, food industry attorney Shawn Stevens answers my questions about the FDA’s process of microbiological sampling, how the agency is incorporating Whole Genome Sequencing into its sampling processes, and what food companies can do to alleviate regulatory worries. Stevens will be speaking at the 2017 Annual AAFP Conference held September 19 to 21 in Springdale, AR.
What was most important to our readers in the last full month of summer? Take a look back at last month by reviewing the 10 most-popular articles that appeared on Food Online in August.
In the unfortunate event of a foodborne illness outbreak, public health and regulatory officials must act quickly to collect data, determine a cause, and prevent further illnesses. Here, Matthew Wise, of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), answers my questions about the role the CDC, and other agencies, play in foodborne illness investigations.
It’s no secret; FSMA compliance is challenging. And for facilities under both FDA and USDA jurisdiction, there are plenty of grey areas needing addressed. Here, Craig Henry, founder of Intro Inc., answers my questions about the challenges and grey areas of FSMA implementation, some of the differences between USDA and FDA regulations, and how uniformity between the agencies could address some of the ambiguity of compliance.
The Foreign Supplier Verification Program (FSVP) has meandering requirements and exemptions leaving some in the food industry befuddled regarding compliance. Here, Dr. Janie Dubois, director of the laboratory program at JIFSAN, answers my questions on FSVP requirements, misconceptions of FSVP, as well as its role in laboratory testing.
In 1997, I was a Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Army Vet Corp responsible for the Central Mediterranean Branch in Italy. A bright Veterinarian, Leslie Huck, took me aside and showed me a checklist he was developing. The checklist was focused on intentional contamination and it made me think about how the military is always a target for acts of violence — as long as there have been armies, intentionally adulterating food has been a way to hurt them. “We are trying to protect the military’s food chain, of course this is important,” I thought.
Though progressing cavity pumps are not the most-common pumps used for conveyance in food and beverage production, certain applications, such as those requiring high-pressure or conveying highly-viscous media, require this pump type. Progressing cavity pumps can be well-suited to food and beverage applications’ needs regarding contamination avoidance, but require an additional pump be included in the system for effective Clean-In-Place (CIP) procedures. With the right system design, progressing cavity pumps can reduce cost, lower maintenance needs, and achieve better results in complex conveying applications within food and beverage production.
The success of high pressure process (HPP) implementation by a large number of companies demonstrates HPP is an effective food safety measure that can be applied to mitigate risk for a variety of foods.
Flash back to 2007 — two 20-somethings stop at a burger joint. They order and eat thinking only of taste and price. Imagine that scenario today, but with assistance from smartphones offering data on the establishment’s source of beef and other data. This column will explore how consumer demand for transparency is critical to remaining competitive.
At the heart of transforming raw ingredients into food for human consumption is the mixing operation. Its main task, which other food processing steps also share, is to establish consistency. Whether a food product requires small-scale mixing by hand or high volume blending of multiple ingredients, at-home cooks and food process engineers alike know the importance of proper mixing. By Charles Ross and Son Company
Unlike the traditional and manual ‘three metal pass/fail’ system auditing, this new technology can detect potential problems before there is a failure during a manual audit, thus limiting expensive downtime and repair costs. It can also decrease or even eliminate the time and energy spent manually auditing and recording the food metal detector’s results — thus improving overall production efficiency. Moreover, it can help food manufacturers achieve the highest food safety standards. This paper explains how the performance verification system option works and why it can augment or replace manual auditing.
The safety of food has always been important, but food scandals, such as the 2013 horsemeat scandal, the 2011 EHEC outbreak in Europe, and the 2008 Chinese milk scandal involving melamine, along with well-publicized product recalls, have heightened public scrutiny of food manufacturers and awareness of product safety.
Many of the advantages of mixing, blending and drying under vacuum have been recognized for years. But until recently, vacuum has also been widely misunderstood. Many processors have considered vacuum essential — and cost-effective — only for the most demanding applications.
Carbopol resins are a family of water-soluble acrylic acid polymers and are available in dry, white powder form. Carbopol is used in many cosmetics applications to thicken, producing a wide range of viscosities to suspend insoluble ingredients and to stabilize emulsions.
Designed with ease of operation, low maintenance and cost of ownership in mind.
Recognizing the short-and-long-term requirements of today’s processors and manufacturers, our engineers designed the XR75 x-ray inspection / Advanced Long Life Technology to provide heightened sensitivity at reduced energy levels. Because of this, cost of ownership is significantly lowered and life cycles are extended.
The E-Scan 635 is a revolutionary online micro leak test instrument that utilizes a new class of HVLD technology for 100% online inspection of cups and pouches for container closure integrity. The E-Scan 635 technology is a MicroCurrent conductivity voltage test method, HVLD , that is completely non-destructive to the container and product; exposing the package and product to lower voltage than other conductivity based solutions.
The Xtreme® rectangular aperture industrial metal detector raises the bar in terms of superior sensitivity, ease of use and reliability.
The Thermo Scientific™ Sentinel™ Multiscan Metal Detector utilizes an innovative new technology to overcome the limitation of fixed single or dual frequency metal detectors that can miss metal contaminants hidden in product signals.
Schneider Electric Software addresses compliance and cyber security challenges from analysis to implementation and management.
Technology, enabled by the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT), is empowering organizations to shift to a holistic and operations-centric view where proactive and predictive maintenance (PdM) enables front line personnel to act before costly failures occur.
Food Safety in the Ready to Eat Market has become more complex. Not only is it more important than ever to control the processing
environment, controlling the ingredient supply chain is paramount to ensuring your brand and more importantly ensuring your customers and brand are protected.
Roka offers accurate tests with the fast time to results on a single platform with a robust variety of validated matrices across the beef process chain. The Atlas E. coli O157:H7 EG2, STEC EG2 Combo, and Salmonella SEN Detection Assays offer unparalleled ease of use while maintaining accuracy and sensitivity. While other tests require tedious multistep preparation processes, the Atlas Assays have an easy 3-step process that generates accurate results faster.
A throughput of up to 300 packs per minute, a weighing range from 7 g to 7.5 kg and very high weighing accuracy positions the C33 PlusLine at the forefront of checkweighing and metal detection technology.
It happens all the time; during real organic growth, too often you don’t stop to plan for the future. When you find yourself in this position, don't despair. There's still an opportunity to impact two significant pillars of your business while you work on a long-term plan: your product (quality, consistency and safety) and your process (efficiency and throughput).
Accurate production planning and scheduling is critical for a company to reduce changeover time between production cycles, minimize wasted materials and run effective manufacturing practices.
Modern food processing and production equipment is more advanced than ever before—but while that means increased production capacity and yield, it also means more complications when something breaks down or goes wrong. Instituting a proper preventive maintenance strategy can help you ensure that your equipment keeps working effectively, mitigating the risk of a premature breakdown.
Almost one-third of all food produced worldwide is never eaten, leading to 1.3 billion tons of food waste each year. This includes around 45 percent of all fruit and vegetables and 20 percent of meat. Just one quarter of this wasted food could feed the 795 million chronically hungry people around the world.
This article explains how affordable and user-friendly simulation software is being used to design energy-efficient and cost-effective packaging processes.
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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