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Canadian legend Leslie Neilson offers his take on food safety
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Category Archives: Food Safety Policy
Food safety requires discipline
Takin care of biz
About 1997 or so, I gave a talk in New Zealand for food safety types.
Except I was in a technical office at the University of Guelph about 3 a.m., because computers hadn’t come out yet with video recorders.
This was the music they used to introduce me.
I’ve asked Terry to adopt his piece on GE foods in Canada, for my upcoming book, tentatively titled Food Safety Fairytales.
Schaffner has also agreed, I didn’t ask Margaret, but had a good chat with her today, so now i’m formally asking.
The book will be peer reviewed, so everyone will get credit. It is made to be sold at airports. I was gonna write it myself, but figured out I needed a little help from my friends, and that it’s OK to ask for help.
That’s Katija and Ben, back in the day, when we would go golfing at 6:30 a.m.
Risk communication sucks, everyone needs innovative food safety stories
Consumers in most developed countries have greater access to safer food than ever before, yet the issue of consumer perception on the safety of the food supply, the control infrastructure and existing and new process technologies is often not positive.
A series of high profile food incidents, which have been ineffectively managed by both the regulators and the industry, and where there has been a failure to be open and transparent, have sensitised a proportion of consumers to scary stories about the food supply. There has been concomitant damage to consumer confidence in (i) the safety of food, (ii) the food industry’s commitment to producing safe food and (iii) the authorities’ ability to oversee the food chain.
Threats to consumers’ health and their genuine concerns have to be addressed with effective risk management and the protection of public health has to be paramount.
Dealing with incorrect fears and misperceptions of risk has also to be addressed but achieving this is very difficult. The competencies of social scientists are needed to assist in gaining insights into consumer perceptions of risk, consumer behaviour and the determinants of trust.
Conventional risk communication will not succeed on its own and more innovative and creative communication strategies are needed to engage with consumers using all available media channels in an open and transparent way. The digital media affords the opportunity to revolutionise engagement with consumers on food safety and nutrition-related issues.
Moving from risk communication to food information communication and consumer engagement
Wall, P. G., & Chen, J. (2018). Moving from risk communication to food information communication and consumer engagement. Npj Science of Food, 2(1). doi:10.1038/s41538-018-0031-7
Why so many outbreaks in 2018? I’m not sure there were, but math is hard
Don and I recorded a podcast today and one of the potential show titles was math is hard.
I’m writing from experience, I had to take calculus in high school twice to get it. Explaining probability and risk is even tougher.
Some of the math of food safety illness burden comes down to this for me: There are billions of meals every year in the U.S. that don’t lead to foodborne illness.
That’s good.
There are millions of meals every year in the U.S. that do lead to foodborne illness.
That’s bad.
There was some buzz in the food and health media after a CNN article stated that CDC had investigated more multistate outbreaks in 2018, 21 in total, than any previous year.
That’s sorta true, but sorta not, depends on how it’s counted.
Rachel Rettner of Live Science talked to me about this last week and I shared the National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS) dashboard with her. This is a super cool tool that CDC has where they track all the reported outbreaks in the U.S. and the number isn’t 21. It’s probably closer to 4000. At least that’s around what has been reported into NORS annually since 2009 when reporting got better.
I’m throwing out the multistate part in my calculations, because the microbes don’t care about state lines or borders.
From the Live Science article:
Experts say that, although we heard a lot about foodborne disease in 2018, it doesn’t mean that we had any more outbreaks than usual. Indeed, it’s likely that the U.S. always has about the same number of outbreaks every year, said Benjamin Chapman, an associate professor and food safety specialist at North Carolina State University. But critically, health officials are getting better at detecting these outbreaks, Chapman said, leading to an increase in reported outbreaks in recent years.
“The science is getting better, and the public health resources are getting better, and we’re just getting better at finding things,” Chapman told Live Science
And although these outbreaks made headlines, there are hundreds more outbreaks that we don’t necessarily hear about that get investigated and reported every year. (An outbreak refers to an instance when two or more people get the same illness from the same contaminated food or ingredient, according to the CDC.)
Indeed, according to the CDC’s National Outbreak Reporting System, which summarizes data on U.S. reports of foodborne illness, there were about 4,000 foodborne illness outbreaks each year from 2012 to 2016, (the most recent years for which data is available). That’s up from only about 1,000 reported outbreaks in 2008.
That “looks like this big jump” in outbreaks, Chapman said. But the increase is really due to health officials getting better at “connecting the dots” to find more foodborne illness outbreaks, he said. In other words, the outbreaks were happening, but health officials just weren’t as good as detecting them.
Unfortunately, better detection of outbreaks means that the total number of reported outbreaks likely won’t be going down anytime soon.
“As we get better at reducing risk [of foodborne illness], we also get better at finding things we didn’t know were there,” Chapman said. “I don’t expect that we would have any less or any more outbreaks in 2019.”
Missouri farmer charged in $140M organic grain fraud scheme
Ryan J. Foley of The Washington Post writes a Missouri farmer and businessman ripped off consumers nationwide by falsely marketing more than $140 million worth of corn, soybeans and wheat as certified organic grains, federal prosecutors said Wednesday.
The long-running fraud scheme outlined in court documents by prosecutors in Iowa is one of the largest uncovered in the fast-growing organic farming industry. The victims included food companies and their customers who paid higher prices because they thought they were buying grains that had been grown using environmentally sustainable practices.
The alleged leader of the scheme was identified as Randy Constant of Chillicothe, Missouri, who was charged with one count of wire fraud. He is expected to plead guilty during a hearing that is scheduled at the federal courthouse in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on Thursday.
The charging document calls on Constant to forfeit $128 million to the government along with his interest in 70 pieces of farm machinery and equipment. His attorney, Mark Weinhardt, didn’t immediately return a phone message seeking comment.
Three Nebraska farmers who sold their crops to Constant pleaded guilty in October to their roles in the scheme and are awaiting sentencing. One of their attorneys has said that Constant recruited them and that they turned a blind eye to his false marketing practices because they reaped higher profits by passing their grains off as organic.
I avoid potlucks and food trucks
The rise of food trucks as an eating out option requires knowledge of this sector. Balancing the reality of the food truck sector with access to safe food should guide actions and public policies to cater to its peculiarities. Therefore, this study aimed to characterize the Brazilian food truck vendors’ profile regarding their socioeconomic status and compliance with food safety rules.
From the 118 food truck vendors registered in the Brazilian Federal District, 30% (n = 35) participated in the study. We conducted structured interviews from December 2017 to April 2018. We ranked compliance levels according to a five-point Likert scale based on calculated compliance scores. The interviews revealed that food truck vendors were mostly married males, who had completed at least a tertiary education level, and wanted to start up their own businesses. The compliance levels depict good compliance with food safety rules (overall compliance (OC)-score = 0.69, on a 0 to 1 scale).
The food trucks assessed in this study distinguished themselves from the street food and food retail sectors due to their operational structure and the complexity of food production processes. Those particular features should be considered to ensure adequate and effective sanitary control and inspections, as well as to reduce the probability of microbial growth and food contamination and the consequent risk of foodborne illnesses.
Who is serving us? Food safety rules compliance among Brazilian food truck vendors
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Ligia Isonia Auad, Veronica Cortez Ginani, Eliana dos Santos Leandro, et al
Food Safety Confessional: Connie still thaws meat in the sink (so do I)
Connie, someone I’ve never met but she’s a food safety professional from Guelph (that’s in Ontario, Canada, and it’s a small community) writes:
I’ve been a food safety professional for going on 20 years, I still thaw meat in the sink (sometimes in hot water if I’m really rushed) and in my house, we wash hands after we eat.
I’m a firm advocate of not killing our immune systems by trying to sterilize our homes; according to my research, the illness and deaths that occur now are more frequent, widespread and worse in the effects than ever in the past (Peanut Corporation of America excluded for obvious reasons).
I don’t take any chances at work, I never would, but at home, sigh, we’re all still alive.
If you’re ever looking for inspiration for a blog post look no further than the website IFSQN. It’s a great forum for discussion and assistance from experienced FSP but wow, there are some things posted that are positively frightening.
I am currently advocating with the Canadian government to:
• change our national job description so people realize we are gd professionals and not place holders; and,
• institute a national standard for both auditors and CB (CFIA has accreditation standards, but I don’t think anyone is checking in on auditors).
I personally believe that GFSI is the downfall of safe food, with people focused on being audit-ready and not on producing safe food.
Our church is the arena, our religion is hockey, so we don’t educate, we inform
Consumers in most developed countries have greater access to safer food than ever before, yet the issue of consumer perception on the safety of the food supply, the control infrastructure and existing and new process technologies is often not positive.
A series of high profile food incidents, which have been ineffectively managed by both the regulators and the industry, and where there has been a failure to be open and transparent, have sensitised a proportion of consumers to scary stories about the food supply. There has been concomitant damage to consumer confidence in (i) the safety of food, (ii) the food industry’s commitment to producing safe food and (iii) the authorities’ ability to oversee the food chain.
Threats to consumers’ health and their genuine concerns have to be addressed with effective risk management and the protection of public health has to be paramount. Dealing with incorrect fears and misperceptions of risk has also to be addressed but achieving this is very difficult. The competencies of social scientists are needed to assist in gaining insights into consumer perceptions of risk, consumer behaviour and the determinants of trust.
Conventional risk communication will not succeed on its own and more innovative and creative communication strategies are needed to engage with consumers using all available media channels in an open and transparent way. The digital media affords the opportunity to revolutionise engagement with consumers on food safety and nutrition-related issues.
Moving from risk communication to food information communication and consumer engagement
Npj Science of Food 2
Patrick Wall and Junshi Chen