Friend of the blog Michéle Samarya-Timm, with the Somerset County Department of Health (Jersey, represent) has written a new paper that will get food safety types excited, because food protection programs involve not only the safety of the food processing facilities in the food supply chain, but also the development and use of effective defense measures against intentional contamination.

Michéle writes in Defending the Food Supply: The Basic Recipe that “the term food defense can be a perplexing concept, especially since it represents protecting the food supply from intentional, criminal, and/or malicious contamination. In practice, food safety and food defense overlap in certain respects, but still can be used in a synergistic fashion to build on existing food protection programs.

“For food defense efforts to be effective, though, some common myths must be dispelled and certain resources shared to lay the groundwork for a culture of overarching food protection at local as well as state and federal levels. Among the most important aspects of an effective food defense strategy are the steps taken to: (a) involve the local level; (b) determine vulnerabilities; (c) integrate federal requirements; (d) locate and/or develop essential resources and training plans; and (e) fund the preceding and other initiatives that might be taken.”

The complete paper is available at http://www.domesticpreparedness.com/Medical_Response/Health_Systems/Defending_the_Food_Supply%3a_The_Basic_Recipe/

In Michéle’s words, “All too often, media reports on stupid, strange or wacky things that are found in food, or showcase idiotic things that employees have done to food. If nothing else, this serves to illustrate how easy it is to intentionally contaminate food products where they are being prepared. Local regulators need to become more actively engaged in integrating food defense into their inspections – especially at resource limited mom and pop type establishments —  and share easy to use and understand educational resources, such as the readily available FDA tools.”