Food Safety

DECEMBER 2016 | FUTUREOFBUSINESSANDTECH.COM

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An Independent Supplement by Mediaplanet to USA Today

Food Safety Food in America: Examining what it takes to bring food cleanly to you.

2 | FUTUREOFBUSINESSANDTECH.COM | IN THIS ISSUE

Do You Know What You’re Eating?

Every day thousands of food safety professionals working for food processors, retailers, food service operations, manufacturers, distributors, government agencies or in academia are committed to protecting the consumer, the customer and the brand.

THE LETHAL LIST

These are the 10 deadliest food- and waterborne outbreaks in the USA during the last century: 150 DEATHS

Typhoid fever, 1924­-25 82 DEATHS

TRY THIS AT HOME

GET INVOLVED

“For the past 18 years, food safety professionals gather at the Food Safety Summit to discuss ‘Solutions for Today and Planning for Tomorrow’,” says Gary Ades, Chairman of the Educational Advisory Board for The Food Safety Summit.

While contaminated vegetables can certainly be harmful, animal products pose a larger risk. Beef, poultry and even eggs can be teeming with deadly bacteria, unless cooked properly. Here are the minimum safe internal temperatures and rest times you’ll want to rembmber:

Do you want to play a role in furthering progress in the food safety space? What happens next “will depend on whether people get engaged politically,” says Patty Lovera of Food & Water Watch.

GROUND BEEF, PORK, VEAL & LAMB 160°

+ 0 MIN + 0 MIN

GROUND TURKEY & CHICKEN 165° STEAK, ROASTS & CHOPS 145°

+ 3 MIN + 0 MIN

POULTRY 165° FRESH PORK & HAM 145° PRECOOKED HAM (REHEAT) 140°

The goal is for all members of the industry to come together and make this a non-competitive issue where everyone works together to improve public health and food safety.

EGG DISHES 160°

WHEN May 8-11, 2017 WHERE Donald Stephens Convention Center, Rosemont, Illinois TICKETS www.foodsafetysummit.com

+ 3 MIN + 0 MIN + 0 MIN

Andrew Rosenberg of the Union of Concerned Scientists’ Center for Science and Democracy agrees, “This is a time when people will really need to speak up and be heard.”

FIND the phone numbers of your

members of congress here:

48 DEATHS

Streptococcus, 1911 36 DEATHS

Listeria, 2011 28 DEATHS

Listeria, 1985 22 DEATHS

Streptococcus, 1922 21 DEATHS

Listeria, 1998

www.usa.gov/elected-officials 19 DEATHS MAKE a habit of calling them and

Cooking SEAFOOD requires even more skill.

Visit us online to learn how you can tell when everything from clams to lobster is safe and ready to eat.

Botulism, 1919

about issues that matter to you.

9 DEATHS

YIKES!

What caused these outbreaks?

Read more online to find out at futureofbusinessandtech.com

Salmonella Typhimurium, 2008-09 8 DEATHS

Listeria, 2002

Publisher Alexandra Flecha-Hirsch Business Developer Shannon Pandaliano Managing Director Luciana Olson Content and Production Manager Chad Hensley Senior Designer Kathleen Edison Designer Morgan McMullen Copy Editor Adam Sass Production Coordinator Tiffany Kim Contributors Barry Carpenter, Dash Lunde, Jennifer McDermitt, Adam Sass, Charles D. Yuska All photos are credited to Getty Images unless otherwise credited. This section was created by Mediaplanet and did not involve USA Today.

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PLEASE RECYCLE AFTER READING

SOURCES: FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION; CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION

AN INDUSTRY UNITED

Typhoid fever, 1903

WHAT’S TRENDING | MEDIAPLANET | 3

Creating a Food Safety Culture and Responsibility As the restaurant industry moves to reduce the instance of foodborne illness, they must look internally at their food safety.

By Adam Sass

employee training. However, creating a new culture is obviously easier said than done.

Work attitudes and behaviors of cleanliness don’t come together in a vacuum. In order for this cultural shift to take place, senior leadership must have a vested interest in it —food safety culture is a philosophy that must be reinforced from the top to allow all employees to do the right thing If the rest of the team sees management making food safety a priority, they’re more likely to prioritize it themselves. Conversely, if employees notice management disregarding food safety, then that culture falls apart and that restaurant is vulnerable to an outbreak.

SPONSORED

F

oodborne illnesses like those caused by norovirus have affected the restaurant industry in a major way in the past year. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), roughly one in six Americans gets sick from a foodborne illness annually.

Preventing norovirus from spreading The CDC provides simple ways for restaurant workers to help prevent the spread of norovirus and other foodborne illnesses: 1. Stay home sick Avoid preparing food for others while you are sick and for at least 48 hours after symptoms stop. Food can be contaminated with norovirus when an infected person comes into contact with it with their hands (or through coughing). This one is vital because you’re most contagious when you are sick with norovirus illness or during the first few days while you recover.

2. Perform basic hygiene Wash your hands carefully and often with soap and water. Outbreaks occur because of how easily a person sick with norovirus illness can contaminate food and drink that passes to the one consuming them.

3. Inspect the food Rinse fruits and vegetables, especially leafy greens. Cook shellfish thoroughly. Foods can also be contaminated at the source, such as fruits and vegetables contaminated in the field or oysters harvested from contaminated water.

4. Keep it clean Clean and sanitize kitchen utensils, counters, and surfaces routinely. Outbreaks of norovirus illness happen most often where people eat food that’s been pre-

pared by others—restaurants, nursing homes, cruise ships—so safety preparation is key.

5. Do the wash Wash table linens, napkins and other laundry thoroughly. Keeping up good hygiene when preventing norovirus illness outbreaks extends beyond simple food prep.

What more can we do?

According to William Weichelt of the National Restaurant Association, there’s still discussion

within the food industry of who exactly is responsible for food safety. “What we believe it boils down to is that food safety is part and parcel of the daily operations of an organization,” Weichelt says.

“From the manager to the hourly paid employee, it’s something everybody does — not something just one department or the manager has to do.”

The National Restaurant Association reports that last year two in five restaurant operators said they plan to devote more resources to

Doing more than minimum “Over the past few years, we have seen companies have food safety embedded in their culture and we hope to see this trend continue,” says William Weichelt, who sees food safety becoming as integral to a restaurant’s identity as uniforms.

According to ServSafe, the most effective route to positively reinforcing food safety in the workplace is the cognitive management tool The ABC Model: “an individual or group needs a set of antecedents (A) to consistently achieve desired behaviors (B), which then bring consequences (C).”

Consistent consequences help create or curb behavior. Using consistent terminology (and in employees’ native languages where possible) helps back up what management intends for the restaurant.

So, when you set out to create your own food safety culture, ask yourself, “Is my current food safety management system effective?” n

4 | FUTUREOFBUSINESSANDTECH.COM | CHALLENGES

SAFETY INTERVENTIONS

5 Ways U.S. Meat and Poultry Is Excelling at Food Safety When it comes to U.S. meat and poultry inspection, more science means more safety. Here are 5 ways the industry is advancing their safety.

1. Food safety ‘interventions’ Meat companies use a series of intervention “hurdles,” each making it less likely a contaminant will cross the finish line and pose a risk. Common interventions include scrupulous employee hygiene, consistent knife sanitization, and the use of superheated steam to kill bacteria.

2. Technology Meat and poultry companies deploy new technologies such as mechanical hide pullers to prevent external contamination from meat, metal detectors to ensure no metal has accidentally made its way into a meat product and organic washes to kill harmful bacteria.

3. Inspection USDA inspectors are in meat plants every day ensuring proper food safety steps are being followed, checking livestock and poultry to ensure that they are healthy and fit for consumption and verifying industry-implemented food safety and plant sanitation programs.

4. Research and education In 2001, the meat industry declared food safety a non-competitive issue, freeing companies to share their best practices to benefit the industry as whole. During this period, the Foundation for Meat and Poultry Research and Education funded research to reduce and eliminate bacteria.

5. Building on success Harmful bacterial such as Listeria monocytogenes on ready-to-eat meat and poultry products has declined more than 80 percent since 2000 and hasn’t caused an illness-triggered recall in more than a decade.

As food safety science continues to evolve, companies will also evolve as they supply the safest meat and poultry possible to families across the country — including their own.

By Barry Carpenter, President and CEO, North American Meat Institute

MEDIAPLANET

It Takes a (Global) Village to Produce Safe Food With food sourced from countries around the world, cooperation is key to ensuring its safety.

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By Jennifer McDermitt

ood safety is a shared responsibility,” says Mike Robach, chairman of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI)’s board of directors. “We have to work with farmers and suppliers along with manufacturing operations; and then with distributors, retailers and service providers to make sure they’re all doing the appropriate things to assure food safety along the supply chain.”

The global focus of food safety Because the food supply chain spans the globe — with Americans eating apples grown in New Zealand, beef produced in Argentina, and oils sourced in Asia and South America, not to mention the vast amount of food produced in the United States and exported around the world — ensuring the safety of everything we eat is an incredibly complicated undertaking.

If a food processing plant has an outbreak of salmonella or e-coli, consumers around the world could become sick. The contaminated plant, as well as the other companies connected to it along the global supply chain, could also suffer the consequences of lost consumer trust, product recalls or government audits.

“Consumers assume that there’s consistency in food safety regulations around the world, but that’s simply not the case,” Robach says.

International standards for food safety and production do exist, including the Codex Alimentarius, which is recognized by United Nations, World Health Organization and World Trade Organization.

But individual governments don’t always incorporate these standards into their food safety laws.

“Consumers assume that there’s consistency in food safety regulations around the world, but that’s simply not the case.”

Industry steps up Many global food producers are voluntarily adopting food safety benchmarking requirements and auditing schemes developed by GFSI. Instead of individual companies developing their own food safety systems (which can be challenging for small producers, especially in developing countries) or responding to government regu-

lations that differ from country to country, they can all rely on methods that were developed with international standards and efficient operations in mind.

“We have taken the principles of Codex Alimentarius and put these into a framework that can be operationalized by companies,” Robach says. “It’s a roadmap for companies to go down through hazard analysis, risk assessment, identifying appropriate controls and monitoring.” To date, 77,000 factories and 150,000 farms have voluntarily participated in these auditing systems.

Education is key Robach also emphasizes the role of education in food safety, especially “delivering training to small and less sophisticated enterprises, so they have the tools to assess hazards and identify risks.” This is becoming more important as small farmers and food producers in the developing world join the global supply chain.

Consumers also need to be educated about their role in food safety.

“The idea of ‘clean, separate, cook and chill’ is a message we hope resonates with consumers, so we’re all doing our part.” Because food safety, as Robach says, “is everybody’s job.” n

The Food Safety Bar Must Continue to Rise Nestlé’s revamped quality center in Dublin, Ohio is our way of seeing the FDA’s new rigorous standards—and raising them

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TIPS FOR KEEPING FOOD SAFE AT HOME Nearly 4 in 5 Americans are concerned about food safety.* Here are easy steps you can take to help keep the food you and your family eat safe.

Paul Grimwood, Chairman & CEO of Nestlé USA

The esteemed American food writer Mary Frances Kennedy Fisher once wrote, “First we eat, then we do everything else.”

That simple notion resonates with us at Nestlé, the world’s largest food company. Every day, millions of people choose Nestlé products and brands. Families rely on us to provide the food that fuels them.

Our reputation for consistently delivering high-quality products should give them confidence in every sip or bite.

But a company does not celebrate its 150th birthday, as Nestlé is this year, by being complacent or satisfied—especially when it comes to food quality and safety. Americans today have become seasoned food critics, from assessing the nutritional value to understanding the sourcing of ingredients.

In a Harris Poll that we commissioned this summer, nearly 4 in 5 Americans said they are concerned about food safety.

Nestlé has put safety first since our earliest days and, today, we foster a culture of quality with a vision to develop, manufacture and sell safe, top-quality products that deliver on our nutrition, health and wellness promise to customers.

Food Tech in Dublin, Ohio To get a glimpse of this safety and quality mindset and really, a whiff of the future, you should set your sights on Dublin, Ohio. It’s now home to the Nestlé Quality Assurance Center (NQAC), which is the largest and most sophisticated testing facility in the Nestlé network and possibly the world. There, our guardians of food safety—more than 220 chemists, microbiologists, food scientists, and quality specialists—analyze Nestlé products and ingredients from throughout the Americas. We’ve invested $31 million to double the size of the original facility, adding 32,000 square feet of lab space.

All trademarks are owned by Société des Produits Nestlé S.A., Vevey, Switzerland. 45061

What happens in Dublin? Teams at this state of the art facility conduct about 1 million tests a year (about one test every 30 seconds)—seven days a week.

Ingredient, environment, and product samples are shipped to Dublin overnight in temperature-controlled conditions to verify that they are free of microbiological and chemical contaminants, while delivering the nutritional value that the labels promise.

Nestlé’s NQAC facilities operate independently of our company’s many brands and businesses, implementing a system of checks and balances.

We never stop monitoring and verifying that the products destined for your kitchen meet our stringent requirements. The Dublin facility was designed to provide tools, technologies, and expert resources to ensure that Nestlé not only meets federal requirements for food safety, but exceeds them.

Exceeding FDA Regulations Nestlé’s Dublin NQAC expansion is opening just as the FDA implements more rigorous food safety standards. Regulation plays an important role in our industry, but forward-thinking companies and those looking out for consumers must set a higher bar.

When it comes to food safety, doing just what is required will never be enough. The Dublin NQAC renovation is a sign of our deep commitment to safety and the highest food quality standards in the world.

With Nestlé products in 97% of U.S. households, people have a right to expect more from us—and we hold ourselves accountable for their safety. We also understand that consumers put “Big Food” companies like us—with more than 330,000 employees, hundreds of factories and sales that reach 189 countries—under the microscope. We welcome such scrutiny, which is why we invite you to see for yourself what’s going on in our NQAC labs.

Yes, we’re the world’s largest food company, and our size is matched by an equally large commitment to nutrition, health, wellness, and food safety.

Visit tiny.cc/nestlefoodsafety for more information.

1 SOURCE 2 SANITIZE 3 SEPARATE 4 SERVE 5 STORE 6 SELECT YOUR RECIPES THOUGHTFULLY

When cooking for others, select recipes that provide the right nutrients in the right quantities, being mindful of food allergies, special diets or other restrictions.

INGREDIENTS CAREFULLY

Make sure the foods being used are fresh and have not passed their expiration date.

Use clean water to wash fruit and vegetables properly.

WORK SURFACES, EQUIPMENT AND HANDS

Before handling food, wash hands and make sure surfaces and equipment are clean.

Disinfecting surfaces used to prepare raw food helps to avoid the spread of harmful microorganisms.

INGREDIENTS TO PREVENT CROSS CONTAMINATION

When handling food, keep raw meats, poultry and seafood separate from other ingredients and do not use the same knife or utensils to prepare them.

AT THE RIGHT TEMPERATURE FOR SAFE CONSUMPTION

It's important to cook food at the right temperature to kill dangerous microorganisms, but be careful not to overcook food, which can destroy nutrients and form harmful substances.

DANGER ZONE 140˚f

41˚f

FOOD SAFELY

When preparing food, keep ingredients out of the fridge for the shortest time possible and keep raw and ready-to-eat food apart.

Do not leave ready-to-eat food out at room temperature for too long.

When you're done eating, cool leftover food quickly, place in a sealed container in the fridge, and eat within two days.

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SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE ABOUT SAFE FOOD

Help to ensure safe food for everyone by sharing and applying these principles every day.

QUALITY MEANS MORE

6 | FUTUREOFBUSINESSANDTECH.COM | INDUSTRY PERSPECTIVE

Discussing Success in Food Safety with the Experts With so much at stake with food safety, some of the leading food-related organizations discuss the challenges and solutions for keeping us healthy.

What’s the most common misconception consumers have about food safety?

A Doug Sutton President, Steritech Group, Inc.

good score from the health department doesn’t mean much.

An inspector is only judging whether a restaurant meets minimum safety standards. Glaring violations often have minimal impact on score. Some of the biggest factors tied to food safety process, training and employee behavior.

I

think that some people assume food safety is automatic. In fact, many people work very hard to keep your food safe on its path to your plate.

Greg Pritchard Vice President of Quality Management, Nestlé U.S.A.

T

William Weichelt Director, ServSafe

he most common misconception is the complexity of it all, and the need for the industry to juggle all of the components. When a consumer goes to the store, they are buying one or two heads of lettuce. They can examine the product and are able to make a decision. With the industry, they are buying 1,000 heads of lettuce that are being sourced by many different locations.

Where have you found success in food safety?

What’s the biggest challenge the food industry faces today?

Rethinking the audit experience has been key. Most people hate being audited because they’re worried about getting in trouble. We treat audits as an opportunity to highlight the good, not just what needs work. Our audits are more accurate because employees don’t feel the need to hide mistakes anymore, freeing them up to actually grow.

One bad customer experience can devastate even the best brand. The advent of the smartphone now means one case of food poisoning, a rude employee or dirty bathroom can blanket social media in mere hours.

Working with a third-party who can help you proactively catch problems before they occur is now more important than ever.

It’s important for us to remember that food safety is never static. Expectations are always changing, regulations are changing and our scientific knowledge is changing.

That’s why we constantly improve our procedures and share our expertise on food safety with the rest of the food community, as well as our consumers.

Company efforts to keep food safe are only half the battle. As consumers, we should know how to handle food properly and cook it safely.

There are more conferences that are being held that cater to food safety for the food service industry. This is helping the industry to better align themselves with others to take their systems to that next level and leverage the knowledge and expertise from their colleagues.

The biggest challenge is to continue to adapt to changing conditions. From the regulators, there is more and more emphasis on making improvements to food safety to keep consumers safe. Many in the food service industry are chefs or entrepreneurs that have a passion to cook, but they don’t have the food safety background they will need to take on this role.

INSIGHT | MEDIAPLANET | 7

Why Processing and Packaging are Food Safety’s Last Line of Defense Within the food supply chain, processing and packaging provide safekeeping at the most vital step—the one linking production with the consumer.

Signed into law in 2011, the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA) was a direct response to high-profile outbreaks of foodborne illness. Considered the largest expansion and overhaul of U.S. food safety authorities since before World War II, the law shifts the focus of food safety from reacting to contamination incidents to prevention. The equipment that handles, processes and ultimately packages food offers a critical layer

of protection before it reaches the end of the supply chain.

While large food companies and processing and packaging machinery suppliers are well on their way towards compliance with FSMA, three food segments are still struggling to understand the law’s impact: smaller food companies and farms, which do not have the scale to absorb new overhead costs; the fresh produce industry, which previously had much less regulatory insight; and companies that source ingredients from foreign-based suppliers, due to the costs of ensuring these suppliers are FSMA compliant.

As more FSMA deadlines quickly approach, food companies are

leaning on the experience of processing and packaging machinery manufacturers to help guide them towards compliance. In fact, about 30 percent of businesses surveyed in the 2016 Food Safety Modernization Act Update Report from PMMI, The Association for Packaging and Processing Technologies, plan to use consultants to help figure out how FSMA applies to their operations.

Technology to increase safety There should be renewed focus on data mined from processing and packaging machinery. Analysis of lines in action via inspection equipment provides valuable information on the line in real time.

Technologies such as x-rays not only detect foreign objects but also examine product composition.

Additionally, lasers are pairing up with X-ray and other inspection solutions to look at the position, size and shape of food products.

Machine vision takes away the monotony that comes along with inspecting food as it moves through a line, checking hundreds or even thousands of products a minute.

Innovative examination and testing solutions provide packaging and processing lines with speed and accuracy to ensure products meet high quality and safety standards. One technology to identify environmental pathogens, for example, can provide results in as little as 15 hours, far outpacing current market alternatives.

Also, enhanced tests for allergens, which are responsible for nearly half of all recalls, are constantly under development.

modified atmosphere packaging extends shelf-life by changing the composition of the air surrounding the food in a package while high-pressure processing offers a similar guarantee using isostatic pressure after packaging. These following solutions not only help food manufacturers meet consumer preference for fresh foods but also verify products are safe to consume: smart packaging, which identifies what is going on within a package; and active packaging, which contributes toward the preservation of color and texture of food, are additional solutions that offer similar results.

Contamination hazards can also be reduced with sanitary equipment design. This proactive measure prevents food build-up on machine surfaces, easing cleaning and sanitizing machinery. This all contributes to food protection throughout the supply chain. n

Packaging with a purpose This helps food manufacturers ensure food safety. For example,

By Charles D. Yuska, President and CEO, PMMI, The Association for Processing and Packaging Technologies

3 Surprising Food Safety Practices That Could Actually Harm Your Brand

By Dash Lunde SPONSORED

These three food safety practices can seem like safe bets, but they might hurt more than they help.

An effective food safety program is essential, but not all tactics implemented in the interest of good food safety are as helpful as you’d think. Surprisingly, these common practices can harm your business in the long run:

1. Tying bonuses directly to scores When bonuses are on the line, don’t be surprised when employees game the system. From dumping sanitizer buckets (because staff aren’t sure they’re diluted properly), to throwing out perfectly good food (because no one knows if it’s the correct temperature), “gaming” behavior can waste your profit dollars and mask a location’s day-to-day food safety practices.

The better approach: Make the audit score one component of several within your bonus scheme.

Reward your team for how quick-

ly they fix critical issues, and/ or how well they respond to voice-of-customer scores. In the end, your staff will focus less on an audit score, and more on running a smooth operation.

2. Scoring only what’s wrong Audits are inherently intimidating for location employees. Staff often feel an auditor is out to get them, resulting in an “us versus them” culture that is neither healthy nor productive.

The better approach: Use the opportunity as a positive, teachable moment. Help staff under-

stand why standards are in place and how they can improve. You’ll not only build trust, you’ll also help your team learn and grow in their respective roles.

3. Relying on internal programs While an internal solution might seem cheaper or more effective, the opposite is often true. They command time, energy and dollars spent on recruiting, hiring, training and managing a team.

And as your brand grows, so will the effort required.

Even if run well, there are some things an internal program can never offer. You won’t know

how locations perform against competitors. And perhaps more importantly, you won’t benefit from the expertise that a thirdparty team naturally develops over years of work with brands other than your own.

The better approach: Consider an experienced, expert third-party assessment partner. They can scale up or down to suit your needs and do so faster and cost-effectively. They can administer the program at a higher-level of consistency and measure success against one all-important goal mitigating risk and driving growth for your brand. n

Because you care about CONSUMERS’ HEALTH

With the growing concerns around food safety, consumers are demanding transparency around food and nutrition processes throughout the entire supply chain.

Mérieux NutriSciences is a global food quality partner whose mission is to protect consumer health by providing food testing, auditing, certification, consulting, education, and research services to aid our clients in delivering the safest and highest quality products.

We are experts in: • • • • • • • • •

We have solutions for:

Food Testing and Quality Control GMO Testing Pet Food Testing Nutrition and Menu Labeling Regulatory Compliance Recall Prevention Shelf Life Best Practice Environmental Monitoring Food Quality Data Management

• • • • • • •

Dairy Pet Food Meat and Poultry Produce Seafood Confection Ingredients, Additives and Spices • Contaminants

• • • • • •

Gluten and Allergens Food Manufacturers Food Processors Restaurants Private Retailers Caterers

With close to 100 laboratories in 21 countries, Mérieux NutriSciences is likely to have a lab near you.

Contact us today at www.merieuxnutrisciences.com/info