FSMA Fridays: Sanitary Transportation Rule (Part Two Of Four)

View the entire webcast and read Part One of this series

In part one of FSMA Fridays: Sanitary Transportation Rule, SafetyChain Software’s VP of sale, Dave Detweiler, was joined by The Acheson Group’s (TAG) Founder and CEO Dr. David Acheson to share insight on FSMA's Sanitary Transportation Rule including waivers and what companies should be doing if they are not ready for the rule. Here, in part two, the duo continues the conversation.

Dave: So, the majority of the rule sounds like the focus will be on time and temperature, you said. Is there still a cleanliness aspect to each of those or does that kind of go away as well unless it's just time and temperature?

Dr. Acheson: Frankly, if I think the FDA saw even packaged goods being hauled around in trailers and rail cars that were filthy or holes then then they’d probably have something to say. But, the real purpose of is protecting the food. So, if the food is adequately protected, even if the truck isn't particularly clean, one could argue that they wouldn't focus on it. Because a transporter could say, “Well, my truck may be not in the greatest of shape.” But, the food within it is fine, it's safe and it's protected, because it's in a can, it's in cardboard or it's in its own pallets or whatever.

It's all a matter of, like all of these rules, when you try to define black and white; you wind up with lots of grey. Really the principle is if it can be with what you're doing to that food as you're moving it, if you can create a food safety risk then you better fix it. To your point, you could have even dry packaged goods, which with a trailer full of rodents and that would be a problem. So, I'm not sort of saying yeah you can do anything if it's dry packaged goods. You’ve got to obviously pay attention to good practices.