Romaine lettuce is a staple in many home and restaurant kitchens, but shoppers found the crispy green vegetable difficult to locate in late 2018. As an outbreak of E. coli-tainted romaine began to make headlines, it was pulled from store shelves and restaurant delivery trucks all over the country. By the time the source of contamination was traced back to a California farm, and sales could be restarted, more than 60 people had been infected and dozens had been hospitalized.
This article provides insight into physical contaminant detection and explains why X-Ray technology is an excellent solution for eliminating physical contaminant concerns.
Advances in gene editing are disrupting agribusiness, but what are these advances? How are they regulated? And what’s to come for? In a regulatory landscape that is often overlapping and frequently subject to change, this article is designed to help navigate the complicated terrain.
Food fraud is a big topic at the moment and there are multiple challenges within any supply chain, especially these days where supply chains are global, have multiple players and where profits can be huge. In this column, I will detail some of the major obstacles in the organic food supply chain and show some practical applications which can reduce fraud within it.
Spring has arrived, and while that means warmer days are ahead, it also means the return of the risk of pests to food manufacturing facilities. Rodents, birds, and insects are risks to food and can be sources of contamination by transmitting pathogenic bacteria, such as E. coli and Salmonella, to your products.
One way or another, most of us are subject to the statutory and regulatory provisions of FSMA. While some of these provisions are merely codifications of good manufacturing practices (GMPs), others are new and different requirements. Here, I discuss allergen control plans, why you need one, and some of the things that should be included within one.
Food manufacturers are working to improve traceability programs and minimize the impact of food recalls, driven in part by FSMA, cost savings, and brand protection. Boosted by the capabilities of today’s technology, such as Blockchain, the industry is moving closer than ever before to swift and precise recalls.
In my previous column, I described the first step to convert a HACCP plan into a PC food safety plan. Once you have addressed cGMPs and other key requisite programs (SSOPs, etc.), you are ready to start creating and implementing a food safety plan. This article provides the broad brush strokes to create and implement a FSMA-compliant food safety plan.
In the food industry, the consumer’s voice is extremely important to keep in mind as new products and quality improvements are devised every day. We all strive for customer satisfaction, but the customer’s voice, documented through consumer surveys, complaint tracking, and social media, isn’t always satisfaction per se. To interpret the feedback and translate it into formulation changes and flavor concepts can be a skill in and of itself.
Food manufacturing is not a typical manufacturing operation; it faces unique dilemmas compared to conventional manufacturing. Because of this, the mindset of food manufacturers must also be unique. This article relates conventional manufacturing operations with food manufacturing, shows why the food industry needs a different mindset, and provides approaches to change the mentality of the industry.
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