In this segment of Food For Thought: FSMA’s Produce Safety Rule, Jennifer McEntire, VP food safety & technology at United Fresh Produce Association, and Maile Gradison Hermida, partner with Hogan Lovells, discuss how the FDA will enforce FSMA’s Produce Rule, how FSVP intersects with the rule, and some of the rule’s sanitation requirements.
Green Valley Pecan Company has grown to encompass 10,000 acres with year-round processing facilities. The company was faced with the challenge of preventing the natural knowledge loss that occurs between trainings while simultaneously boosting knowledge retention without increasing training time. This case study details the solution, systems, and tools the company implemented to achieve its goals, as well as their corresponding improvement metrics.
A contract testing laboratory was experiencing rapid growth in pathogen testing volume. This case study shows how the lab was able to expand, with no additional resources, and provide higher quality results.
Bigelow Tea has been making specialty teas for over seventy years. The company grows, blends, and packages hundreds of varieties of tea for distribution across the nation. Today, the company boasts the only U.S.-based industrial tea plantation, as well as three packaging sites that employ hundreds of workers. Because of the company’s size, it needed a consistent training program across all its location. This case study examines how interactive classroom training, course customization, and multilingual content helped Bigelow Tea create a companywide, consistent training program.
Bonduelle’s 500 vegetable varieties are processed at 58 facilities by over 10,000 workers. Safety is top of mind for the company, and with so many facilities and employees, creating a companywide culture of food safety is essential. This case study shows how Bonduelle used front-line workforce training, verification training, and automated recordkeeping and reporting to achieve its desired food safety goals.
Kisko Products, Canada's largest producer of freeze pops, needed a way to ensure safe and productive operations to maintain customer satisfaction. This case study shows how the company implemented standardized training and real-time reporting to improve it production efficiency and maintain customer satisfaction.
This case study shows how WW Johnson Meat implemented consistent, multilingual content and automated recordkeeping to overcome barriers of learning.
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.
The UV-VIS spectrophotometer DR 6000 delivers top performance for both routine laboratory tasks and demanding photometry applications. This system is designed for the effective work in professional laboratories. Intelligent software supports the lab manager in the calibration routine, quality assurance and development of customized application.
Pet food manufacturers come in all shapes and sizes and may be impacted differently by the new FSMA rules. But many in the pet food industry have the same basic need: an accurate pathogen test that provides the fastest turnaround time possible. Pathogen testing methods that are best suited to the pet food industry are those that have demonstrated accurate, timely results in challenging matrices, such as environmental surfaces and dry kibble.
The Remel range of ready-to-use Agglutinating Sera for the presumptive identification of cultured bacteria is now available from Oxoid Limited. These simple tests rapidly detect specific bacterial antigens for the identification, grouping and/or typing of Salmonella and other food-borne micro-organisms
The ingredients and flavorings market represents a key link in the supply chain in ensuring safety in the final product. Recent recalls have highlighted the need for improved control to minimize this vast impact and a better understanding of the results behind a COA.
Hach BioTector TOC Analyzers provide maximum uptime and reliability due to a patented self-cleaning oxidation technology that easily handles difficult samples and significantly reduces maintenance. Unlike traditional TOC analyzers, the BioTector eliminates build up issues from salts, particulates, fats, oils and greases that lead to drift and high maintenance. With reliable, continuous monitoring and real-time process control, plant operators can optimize their processes to lower overall plant operating costs. The most advanced system in its class, BioTector products achieve precise results from the simplest to the most demanding applications.
A rapid, accurate, and reliable molecular test for E. coli O157:H7 detection from food samples.
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.
The Atlas® System is a fully automated instrument that enhances the accuracy, speed, and efficiency of food safety testing through detection of molecular pathogens, including Listeria, Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and other organisms commonly implicated in food contamination episodes.
In this web chat, Jennifer McEntire, VP food safety & technology at United Fresh Produce Association joins Kristen Spotz, senior manager of food safety & quality assurance at GMA to talk all things traceability related to the food industry. In addition to providing leading traceability practices, the 45-minute session focuses heavily on McEntire and Spotz answering questions from the web chat’s audience.
The Atlas System is a fully automated molecular instrument that enhances the accuracy, speed, and efficiency of food safety testing through detection of molecular pathogens, including Listeria, Salmonella, Escherichia coli, and other organisms commonly implicated in food contamination episodes.
Pathogen testing is often outsourced to third-party lab providers. When choosing the best lab for your company, it is important to ask the right questions to ensure the test method aligns with the quality goals of the organization. This video provides guidance and offers suggestions to help you determine the best lab for you company’s pathogen detection needs.
