How can the system of audits and marginal inspections be improved to make fresh produce safer?

With 29 dead and 139 from listeria in cantaloupe, the question has taken on new urgency, although that cycles – many in the farm-to-fork food safety system have exceedingly poor memories once product is flowing again, with prevention soon relegated to nostalgia. Remember the outbreak of 1996? 2006? 2011? (insert date and commodity here).

Roy Costa writes in his Food Safety & Environmental Health Blog that third party audits are best implemented when there are regulatory controls over the audited operations, thus underpinning  them.

Costa concludes the best alternatives to improve produce safety and the third party audit process may include:

• buyer financing and coordination of the audit;
• unannounced audits;
• Food and Drug Administration involvement in the third party audit process including training and oversight;
• risk-based frequencies of regulatory compliance inspections, 2nd and 3rd party audits, and reassessments based on severity;
• transparency of all audit and inspection findings by all concerned;
• validated microbial standards; and,
• expanded use of 1st and 2nd party audits.

The complete article is available here.