It is nearly impossible to get Demo­crats and Republicans to agree that grass is green or the sky is blue, much less see eye-to-eye on high-level personnel ap­­pointments. Thus the swift approval of Dr. Margaret Hamburg as the Food and Drug Admin­istration’s new commissioner comes as a welcome sign that legislators are on the same page when protecting the nation’s food supply. 

Along with the appointment of Dr. Hamburg, the FDA has requested a 19% budget increase, of which $260 million is to be dedicated to protecting America’s food supply from the farm to the supermarket. Past budget cuts have hampered FDA efforts, depleting the staff of inspectors and part of the funding is intended to go towards rebuilding those ranks. In addition to the increased budget, the FDA also proposes to collect nearly $95 million in new user fees to register food facilities and in­crease food inspections, issue food and feed export certifications and re-inspect food facilities that fail to meet FDA safety standards.

While observers expect increased funding and new leadership to go a long way toward improving food safety, they also say it is imperative for all partners in the supply chain to do their part to protect the food supply. Glenda Lewis, leader of the FDA’s retail food protection team that develops the FDA food code, says that includes farmers, manufacturers, transporters and retailers.

“Retailers need to take their own steps to make sure food is safe,” says Lewis.

She suggests that retailers can start by making a commitment to food safety at the management level. She says that retailers need to make sure their food comes from safe, approved suppliers and should develop buyer specifications to more accurately track food at all points in the supply chain. The commitment goes beyond tracking and tracing food to include monitoring employees on tasks such as using correct cooking temperatures and hand washing.

“In a retail environment you are working with many aspects that can jeopardize safety,” says Lewis. “Controls need to be in place to minimize the likelihood that food is going to be rendered unsafe to eat.”
John Hanlin, vice president, food safety for Eden Prairie, Minn.-based Supervalu, agrees with Lewis’ contention that the FDA cannot—and should not—be solely responsible for protecting the food supply. “As an industry we need to modernize our food safety inspection and enforcement system,” he says.

For a retailer such as Supervalu, that means going above and beyond compliance with local, state and federal food safety regulations. The retailer employs a comprehensive food safety and quality assurance structure to help ensure the safety and protection of its customers. One of the initiatives includes the enterprise-wide expanded use of the Sterilox Food Safety System, a natural, food safe sanitizer used to rinse and mist fresh produce.

According to Tom Daniel, senior vice president, general manager of Malvern, Pa.-based Sterilox Food Safety, a division of PuriCore, the Sterilox system is a natural food sanitizer made with table salt, water and electricity, designed to quickly kill infectious pathogens. “Our focus has been on protecting retailers from cross contamination during their reconditioning programs,” says Daniel. “One head of lettuce infected with E.coli can quickly spread during the crisping process. Many retailers, including top national chains, like Supervalu and Safeway, have recognized the food safety risk and have implemented the Sterilox Food Safety System to ensure quality and safety of their leafy greens.”

Other elements of Supervalu’s food safety system include training programs, directives on store cleanliness and third-party audits. Hanlin says Supervalu’s full service stores are audited six times a year to ensure that standards are being upheld. Supervalu also works closely with the FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to further ensure its food is safe.

“Unfortunately food safety issues occur and it is critical that we use the best available science to identify and remove contaminated food from the supply chain quickly and effectively,” says Hanlin. “To that end, we support the development of a national standard for conducting epidemiological investigations on outbreaks of food-borne disease, as well as mandatory recall authority for FDA and USDA.”

For its store brands, Supervalu’s strict food safety requirements begin with its suppliers. The retailer subscribes to the principles of the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) to ensure that a consistent set of quality standards are met. Many of Supervalu’s suppliers are certified by Safe Quality Foods (SQF), while the rest must pass an audit conducted by the Supervalu quality assurance team.

Ensuring the safety of store brands is one of the priorities for Global Food Technologies. The Hanford, Calif.-based company works with large food manufacturers, primarily seafood manufacturers in Asia that produce store brand product, to ensure that the food retailers receive is safe. The company’s new iPura food safety program features built-in controls that are designed to combat food-borne hazards and prevent contaminants from entering the food supply.

“Initially we are targeting private label brands,” says Keith Meeks, CEO of Global Food Technologies. “[For retailers], it is really about protecting their brands and they have an obligation to consumers to do their due diligence and make sure their suppliers are taking every precaution to make the food clean and safe.”

One of the company’s goals, says Meeks, is to establish the iPura seal as a mark of excellence recognized by consumers. In May, iPura began a $50 million national radio and newspaper campaign targeting consumers.
Global Food Technologies is currently talking with a number of large supermarket chains interested in sourcing the iPura label for their private brands. However, Meeks is quick to point out that the iPura seal is not intended to supplant the brand, but rather support and protect it.  

“We are a point of differentiation and we believe that iPura suppliers will be known as the best of the best,” says Meeks. “We are starting with new facilities, with committed management and independent certification. With the efficacy of our program we believe this will be the only product that has unique insurance throughout the distribution chain.”

There is more to protecting the food supply then just protecting the food. Retailers are also charged with ensuring the cleanliness and sanitization of areas within the store. As retailers continue to move into the food preparation arena, new sets of food safety requirements must not only be learned, but also taught to employees.

“We have been able to take technologies that have been developed for food processing, where arguably a lot of the requirements are very specialized and are monitored daily, if not hourly, as the food is being processed, and bring them into the food retail segment,” says Blaine Morton, director of marketing and business development-food, for Atlanta-based  Zep, Inc.

Zep manufactures such items as detergents and rinse aides for larger bakery operations, pots and pans detergent sanitizers and has developed separate cleaners and sanitizers for meat and vegetable areas, which are color-coded and available to retailers in individual dispensers.  Morton says each platform is supported by operator-oriented wall charts, which he says help retailers better train employees.

Insiders agree that the safety within the food chain is effective, yet only as strong as its weakest link. In order to successfully protect the food supply the same level of commitment retailers dedicate must come from all others. It seems many manufacturers have answered the bell.

For example, while food safety audit certification is currently not regulated or mandatory by the government for the fresh produce industry, Helen Aquino, marketing manager for Village Farms, an Eatontown, N.J.-based grower and marketer of hydroponic produce, says the company promotes the results of third-party audits to its customers.

“We strive to promote clean and safe products grown in an environmentally responsible manner,” says Aquino. “We have built our reputation on that. Today many retailers, because of the recent issues with food safety, are asking that their producers provide third-party audit scores.  During our most recent audit at our facility in Texas, we received 100% across the board in all categories and that’s something we are extremely proud of.” 

On a wider ranging scale, the Washington, D.C.-based Grocery Manufacturers Assoc­iation (GMA) provides members with food safety training to facilitate a universal understanding of the guidelines. While Robert Brackett, GMA’s chief science officer, agrees that legislation is necessary, he adds that  legislation and regulations don’t always address specific scenarios.

“We have a role to educate and promote practices that will minimize dangerous situations,” says Brackett. “It is also important for the manufacturing and retail sectors to collaborate well, making sure there is as seamless a distribution of safe foods as is possible.”

To that extent the GMA has thrown its support behind the Arlington, Va.-based Food Marketing Institute’s (FMI) Product Recall Portal and accredited third-party certification audits such as those conducted by FMI’s Safe Quality Food Institute. According to FMI officials, the portal addresses the accuracy in product removal through reliable standardized communications between trading partners.

“Our nation’s retailers and wholesalers believe consumers have the right to expect that the food they purchase is safe, affordable and meets the highest quality standards,” says FMI president and CEO Leslie Sarasin. “The fact is all of us in the industry hold the same expectation as every customer, that the food we bring home to our families is safe.”   

While those associated with the food safety industry claim that the U.S. boasts the safest food supply chain in world, there is still room for improvement. It is estimated that every year 76 million Americans, one in four, are afflicted with food-borne illness, 325,000 are hospitalized and 5,000 die. While those numbers haven’t increased much in recent years, they haven’t decreased either.

Since the early ‘90s, outbreaks and recalls have more than tripled to nearly 350 a year. Since 2008 alone, insiders estimate that there have been around 80 recalls, alerts or withdrawal warnings about unsafe or mislabeled foods.

Each scare has created heightened consumer awareness and concern over the safety of the foods available in the nation’s supermarkets. According to a February 2009 survey conducted by Chicago-based Information Resources (IRI) and FMI, 81% of consumers have noticed an increase in food safety media coverage and 73% believe they are more knowledgeable about food safety today versus five years ago. The survey further states that 28% of shoppers think food is less safe than it was five years ago while 37% think food is as safe or safer.

“The fact is, we have a very safe food supply when you consider the enormous amount of food we consume in this country every day,” says Jill Hollingsworth, FMI group vice president, food safety programs. “The challenge is to identify how we can make it safer and what will it take to bring that about.”

According to FMI’s U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2009 report, which has tracked consumer confidence in food safety for many years, it can be difficult to get a true gauge on the level of confidence. If data is collected during quiet times, overall confidence usually stands around 80%. However, widely publicized breaches can quickly cause confidence to wane. For example, confidence levels dropped to 66% in 2007 following several large recalls and confidence was at 74% in February 2008 following the meat recall.

Observers note the confidence typically bounces back fairly quickly after an incident, a pattern they attribute to consumers’ faith in their primary supermarkets.

“It’s important that a retailer have a relationship with their customers,” says Matt Botos, a Chicago-based food safety consultant. “Hon­esty is always important. [They should have] proper signage; perhaps an email list saying that a particular product has been contaminated, basically send the message that ‘[our] products are safe because we have these measures in place.’ If a retailer doesn’t have food practices in place that they can share with consumers it lessens the ability to raise that consumer confidence back up.”    

In addition to winning back consumer confidence, insiders say that food safety and food quality issues present retailers with opportunities for competitive differentiation. Desmond Martin, managing partner of the Johns Creek, Ga.-based Actionable Intelligence Group and food safety expert, says that by taking measures that focus on food safety, retailers can increase their relevance to consumers, particularly at a time when, for economic reasons, consumers are turning more towards eat-at-home meals.

“There is a strong need to improve the food chain in terms of what level of quality goes into it,” says Martin. “There is also a great opportunity to intercept and surgically prevent many of the consequences of the food supply affecting the consumer, while at the same time improving the consumers perceived sense of value they get from the food chain by making it easier and more convenient to understand exactly what is in the products they are buying.”

Martin believes that all partners in the supply chain can boost consumer confidence by improving traceability protocols through the use of fresh item management technology. He adds that some of the biggest challenges facing fresh item management include redesigning and redefining the in-store processes so employees are able to follow them more easily. At the same time, retailers gain more control and accuracy over fresh food processes, he explains.

One company trying to take a leadership position in the traceability of fresh item management is Tampa, Fla.-based ADC. Jan Dragotta, vice president of sales and marketing, says it is important that ADC be proactive in helping grocers understand the issues relative to in-store fresh production based food safety. He says ADC offers several solutions, all designed to help retailers with many aspects of fresh food traceability. 

GMA gathers experts

As part of its ongoing effort to improve the safety and security of the nation’s food chain, the Washington D.C.-based Grocery Manufacturers Association (GMA) recently gathered more than 200 of the industry’s top scientists and quality assurance experts to assess current food safety practices and develop a comprehensive plan for preventing food-borne illness.

According to a survey taken by attendees prior to the forum, nearly 100% of the respondents agreed that food and beverage manufacturers are responsible for producing safe products and that the industry must be committed to modernizing, strengthening and improving the nation’s food safety system. 

“While strong government oversight is important, the primary responsibility for product safety rests squarely on the shoulders of those companies that make consumer packaged goods,” says Pamela Bailey, GMA president and CEO. “As part of our long standing focus on product safety, GMA has convened top experts from the food and beverage industry, academia and government to discuss and assess recent events and to make recommendations for improving our nation’s food safety net.”

Points within the association’s proposal include:

Food importers should document the food safety measures employed by their suppliers.

FDA should require every food manufacturer to have a food safety plan in place that identifies and mitigates the risk of contamination.

Congress should give the FDA the power to establish federal safety standards for certain fruits and vegetables.

The FDA should have mandatory recall authority when companies fail to voluntarily recall products.

FDA funding should be increased to hire more food safety experts and improve its laboratory and information technology capabilities.