Food Protection Trends - October 2009 - 643

MOnItORIng And EnFORCEMEnt Most companies have devised quality control programs to assess imported products and their manufacturers. These include examination of facilities, procedures, and supply chains at overseas plants; targeted testing of products for the most likely contaminants/ defects; testing for adequacy of packaging; and consideration of consumer complaints related to the products. Human resources, health and safety issues, and environmental practices of suppliers are also considered by some companies. Suppliers may be ranked, with some targeted for more frequent audits/ inspections than others, based on their track record. Ultimately, however, companies are responsible for their own products and cannot completely depend on foreign government inspectors or third party auditors to ensure authenticity and safety of imported materials. Effective and cost-efficient monitoring of imported goods requires intelligent sampling strategies to target shipments with the greatest risk as well as adequate analytical methods to detect contaminants and adulterants in complex food matrices. An automated targeting system is used by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) to indicate which shipments of cargo coming across the US/Mexican border should be inspected. To expedite efficient transport of food across the border, there are government-business programs which inspect and provide certification for shipments at packing and processing plants so that the cargo need not be inspected at the border. However, this system is not foolproof; there have been cases in which trucks with certified cargo have been diverted and drugs or people hidden amidst the cargo in the trucks. New analytical challenges are constantly arising. Melamine was not initially detected in pet food because it was not considered to be a likely contaminant. It is measured as protein in analyses that simply measure nitrogen content. More specific tests to detect melamine in foods were quickly developed in response to crises involving poisoning of animals and people. Future episodes of economic adulteration may involve virtually any compounds or materials that give a producer a cost advantage. tHE WAY FORWARd Prevention and detection of food adulteration and fraud are extremely multidisciplinary endeavors that require industry and governmental regulators to collaborate with scientists, economists, and the legal profession. Many speakers at the Wisconsin conference mentioned that effective responses to incidents of food fraud and contamination are complicated by policies that restrict flow of information among government agencies, the food industry and the public. Concern about potential lawsuits, proprietary information on ingredients and their sources, and protection of turf by different regulatory units sometimes impede collaboration for solving problems. Examples of successful sharing of information, such as some investigations of workplace accidents by OSHA and of medical errors by some hospitals, were discussed. Because of all the challenges discussed above, our current food regulatory system is grossly underfunded, fragmented, and not very effective at dealing with imports. Food law in the US is at a crossroads with rapidly increasing trade, more incidents of adulteration, unstable markets, and public outrage at contamination incidents. Several proposed changes in current law were discussed at the conference. Mismanagement of the BSE (mad cow disease) outbreak in the European Union triggered passage of the General Food Law in 2002 and an independent regulatory agency, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), was created. Transparency, the involvement of stakeholders, and reliance on independent scientific expertise are part of the new food protection strategy. The rapid response to high levels of dioxin detected in a routine sample of pig fat and then in pig feed in Ireland in 2008 illustrates the success of this system. The European Rapid Response System for Food and Feed coordinated a rapid investigation of this incident by quickly tracing the distribution of pigs from affected farms through slaughtering facilities and export to numerous other countries. Seventeen days after the initial positive test, the decision was made to recall all pork products produced in the previous three months. Although controversial, this rapid recall prevented serious health effects, and open communication with the public quickly restored confidence in Irish pork after this incident. However, rapidly developing countries often do not have a welldeveloped food safety monitoring system despite being major suppliers of some ingredients and certain raw and processed foods. For example, until the mid-1980s, there were no significant national food safety regulations or programs in China. Even today, food safety laws are not uniformly well-enforced there because of a lack of personnel and established procedures. Moreover, even when safety standards are established and enforced, small stakeholders may not comply with the new standards because they are too expensive to implement, as was the case with cantaloupes grown in Mexico. Public-private partnerships have been established in Mexico to help small farmers to reduce input costs, understand new regulations, and afford improvements in water treatment and packing facilities. A global Food Protection Organization under the auspices of the United Nations has been proposed as an institution parallel to WHO and FAO. This organization would be proactive and could, for example, require use of HACCP systems to prevent contamination and establish uniform audit procedures and traceability systems. This new global food safety organization could aid in production of safe food throughout the world and coordinate responses to food safety and security challenges such as population growth, climate change, shrinking resources (such as fresh water), diversion of crops to biofuels, and political instability and inaction. As the world food supply becomes more interconnected, interventions to address these challenges must identify potential new targets for economically motivated adulteration as well as supplying chain improvements such as verification programs, better risk assessment for specific commodities, and improved detection methods. OCTOBER 2009 | FOOD PROTECTION TRENDS

Food Protection Trends - October 2009

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