Food Protection Trends - April 2010 - 218

TABLE 5. Overall risk indices for the fifteen food safety hazards by food product sector Food Product Sector Bulk liquids (dedicated tanker) Bulk raw ingredients Eggs and egg products Frozen foods Fresh produce Meat & poultry (raw) Other nonperishables Packaging materials Refrigerated raw & RTE Soft-packed nonperishables Seafood (raw) Truck 94.9 (8) 95.2 (7) 103.6 (6) 104.6 (5) 105.4 (4) 107.1 (2) 92.1 (10) 89.3 (11) 105.5 (3) 92.8 (9) 109.0 (1) Rail 95.3 (8) 95.4 (7) 102.1 (6) 104.0 (5) 106.0 (4) 110.1 (2) 90.3 (10) 86.7 (11) 107.3 (3) 90.5 (9) 111.9 (1) Water 96.5 (7) 95.9 (8) 102.1 (5) 101.8 (6) 103.7 (4) 108.6 (2) 92.8 (10) 90.1 (11) 107.4 (3) 92.6 (9) 108.7 (1) Air 95.1 (10) 95.9 (8) 101.6 (4) 100.7 (6) 101.1 (5) 108.1 (2) 95.7 (9) 91.1 (11) 104.3 (3) 96.3 (7) 109.7 (1) Intermodal 94.3 (8) 96.1 (7) 101.4 (6) 102.7 (5) 102.8 (4) 109.9 (2) 92.1 (9) 89.5 (11) 106.6 (3) 92.0 (10) 111.9 (1) Storage 94.4 (8) 96.6 (7) 99.8 (6) 103.0 (5) 105.2 (4) 109.1 (2) 92.0 (10) 89.4 (11) 107.9 (3) 91.9 (9) 111.3 (1)

Note: Obtained by factor analysis as described in the Materials and Methods Section. Each index (read by the column only) has a mean of 100 and standard deviation of 10 and provides an indication of the relative risk of the food product sectors for each mode of transportation. A value that exceeds 100 indicates that overall risk in the relevant sector is greater than average risk. Numbers in parentheses represent the rankings of food product sectors by overall risk index.

The high-risk food groups for each mode of transportation, as well as storage/warehousing of food products, can be discerned from Table 5. Across all modes of transit, the food sectors with the highest overall risk, in descending order, are raw seafood, raw meat and poultry, and refrigerated raw and ready-to-eat foods. Other food product sectors with overall greater-than-average risk for all modes of transport are eggs and egg products, frozen foods, and fresh produce. Packaging materials and both categories of non-perishables present less-than-average overall risk. The rankings of food product sectors by overall risk are the same for truck and rail transportation and warehouse/storage, however, they vary slightly for water, air, and intermodal transport (Table 5). The rankings by food product sector for food transportation by air are most different from rankings for the other modes of transportation. We also performed exploratory factor analysis to consider food safety hazards across truck, rail, air, water and intermodal means of transportation (excluding storage). The results suggest that two underlying factors help to explain the risk score data for these modes of

transport: “in-transit risk” and “organizational risk” (Table 6). The names of these factors are subjective and are derived from the food safety hazards that contribute most to each factor. For example, the “in-transit risk” factor gets its name from the fact that the food safety hazards that contribute most to it are “improper refrigeration,” “improper loading,” “improper unloading,” and “improper holding practices for products awaiting shipment or inspection.” Likewise, the food safety hazards that contribute most to the “organizational risk” factor are “lack of driver/employee training,” “inadequate preventive maintenance,” and “lack of traceability.” The same high-risk food products (as indicated by each factor risk index) show above-average risk for both the “intransit risk” factor and the “organizational risk” factor (Table 6). However, the risk rankings by food product sector are not identical for the two risk factors. The food product sectors with the highest index value for the “in-transit risk” factor are raw seafood, raw meat and poultry, and fresh produce. The food product sectors with the highest index value for the

“organizational risk” factor are raw meat and poultry; refrigerated raw and readyto-eat foods, and raw seafood. Because some 80	 percent	 of	 food	 products are transported domestically by truck, we also conducted an analysis to consider the food safety hazards in truck transportation alone. Our analysis shows that truck transportation risks are best described by four underlying factors. 	 	 	 	 •	 •	 •	 •	 In-transit	product	risk,	 Equipment-related	risk,	 In-transit	process	risk,	and	 Organizational	or	policy-related	 risk.

Table 7 shows that the rankings of risk by food product sector are not identical for each truck transportation risk factor. In some cases, certain sectors appear higher in the rankings than one might expect. For instance, soft-packed non-perishables are ranked sixth overall for the “equipment-related risk” factor. However, this sector has, on average, lower equipment-related risk, with an index of 99.1 compared to the mean for the equipment-related risk index of 100 (Table 7). This ranking, however, may reflect the potential for damage to soft-

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