How Sorting Technology Can Reduce Food-Safety Risk

By Ashley Hunter, head of TOMRA Sorting Solutions, Food

The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) says food production will need to increase by at least 70 percent by 2050 to meet the world’s demand. As a result, the food supply chain is continually-expanding its global reach it continues to face productivity, economic, efficiency, environmental, and safety pressures than ever before. This is where regulations, such as FSMA, come into play. The implementation of the Food Safety Modernization Act in the U.S. should certainly be food for thought for nations around the world. Taking a “prevention–is-better-than-the-cure” approach, the act makes food safety the responsibility of all links between field and fork and encourages a coordinated domestic and international strategy.

This year will mark another milestone in FSMA’s implementation. The FDA is under court-ordered deadlines to issue final, key rules later this year and in spring 2016, in preparation of the act being implemented domestically and for imports in late 2016 and 2017. U.S. food facilities are required to have a written preventative controls plan in place which incorporates a detailed hazard evaluation and the actions a facility will take to correct any problems that arise.

While the idea of prevention is not new, what’s new is the recognition that for all the strengths of the U.S. food supply chain, a breakdown between farm and fork can have a disastrous impact and cause significant economic loss to the food industry. It is the implementation of these rigorous regulations, strategic contingency planning, and strengthening of accountability that countries around the world should be addressing to create a truly safe global supply chain.

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