Since the FDA banned using "medically important" antibiotics in livestock for healthy animals or food animals to speed growth, the livestock industry — and the food companies they supply livestock products to — has been challenged to create great-tasting and high-quality products at low costs. This column offers five antibiotic-free alternatives for rearing food animals.
For the first time, a set of guidelines has been defined for safe agricultural practices, with rules in motion for farming, harvesting, packing, and storing fruits and vegetables. This article outlines FSMA’s Produce Safety Rule, showing the specifics of each part of the rule, and will help guide you toward compliance.
Everyone knows hand washing is a basic requirement that leads to significant reductions in food safety risk. But, this basic action is often overlooked and left out of internal audits and inspections. This article describes what proper hand washing is, how to design a hand washing station, and offers advice on establishing a culture of hand washing.
Most food companies concentrate on the intentional substitution or addition of a substance in a product with verification activities, including testing, organoleptic or other on receipt testing. But, the real challenge is identifying the misrepresentation of products. What can you do to decrease your risks and boost the chances of receiving genuine, certified products?
With the emergence of new FSMA rules and a bioengineering labeling rule in the works, the industry is going to have even more headaches to deal with. Environmental monitoring, the threat of intentional contamination of the food supply, and yet another labeling change are emerging and could be another reason for food manufacturers to reach for Tylenol.
Back in 1997, a Veterinarian, Leslie Huck, showed me a checklist he was developing. It focused on intentional contamination and it made me think about how the military is always a target for acts of violence. This article illustrates the evolution of Food Defense and provides insight into what food manufacturers can do to build and improve their Food Defense plans.
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 HPP by many companies demonstrates it as an effective food safety measure that can mitigate risk for a variety of foods. HPP validation and verification are also major requirements of FSMA. According to the law, validation of HPP as a kill-step is required to make sure the HPP treatment is at a level of effectiveness to ensure food safety objectives.
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.
Believing your food safety processes are of the highest standard isn't enough. Can you be certain every employee made the best food safety decisions every time they faced one? Can you support this with data? If not, ask another question: “Do you want to sit in front of a jury relying on a belief your company produced food at the highest possible standards?”
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