Posts from the "Latest News" category
Oversight in private food safety auditing: addressing auditor conflict of interest
Timothy D. Lytton and Lesley K. McAllister write in the 2014 Wisconsin Law Review 289, that private auditing is a significant component of food safety regulation. Typically, manufacturers, retail sellers, and food-service operators require their suppliers to obtain food safety certification from a private third-party auditor paid by the supplier. Auditors’ financial interest in acquiring accounts from suppliers who want the cheapest certification that they can obtain gives auditors incentive to reduce the rigor of audits. This constitutes a conflict of interest between the auditor’s private financial interest and its professional obligation to protect the public from food safety risks. Audit industry insiders and outside observers are well aware of this problem, and various institutional actors — both public and private — have developed oversight mechanisms to address it.
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Source: http://barfblog.com Written by Doug Powell.
Court Gavel by Jonathunder 2008 Some rights reserved (CC BY-SA 3.0)
Wal-Mart triples spending on food safety in China
Wal-Mart Stores Inc. said Tuesday it will triple its spending on food safety in China by the end of 2015 after criticism of its operating procedures and a reported mislabeling of donkey meat.
The world’s largest retailer said it will shell out $48.2 million on food safety between 2013 and 2015. That’s nearly three times the $16.1 million it had previously earmarked.
The extra spending will go toward food testing, permits, DNA testing of meat sold in China and supplier audits, said Paul Gallemore, Wal-Mart’s chief compliance officer in China.
Wal-Mart is also adding mobile testing labs to check products more frequently, and is investing in iPads and other technology to improve food safety training for employees.
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Source: http://www.latimes.com Written by Brianna Sacks
FDA Irvine Lab photo by Michael J Ermath 2009. Some rights reserved, United States goverment work
High-tech greenhouse pesticide system planned in Chile
Chile’s Foundation for Agricultural Innovation (FIA) will undertake a new project to implement a safer and more efficient method of applying pesticides in greenhouses.
The initiative will benefit more than 100 tomato producers in the central Maule region, and will be supported by local governmental body INIA Raihuén and construction firm SAE.
The main issue at the moment is that temperature and humidity are too high in the greenhouses for workers to be able to wear personal safety equipment that would normally protect them from pesticides, so they end up breathing in the dangerous chemicals.
The current system is also inefficient and ineffective, often distributing far more pesticide to the crops than necessary, impacting negatively on end consumers’ health.
The solution will use a hydraulic sprayer on the exterior of the greenhouse that has a piping system running inside featuring special nozzles that only spray the plants.
To read the full article, please click here.
Source: http://www.freshfruitportal.com
Tomato Greenhouses image by Elias Gayles 2012. Some rights reserved (CC BY 2.0)
Reading food safety advice on labels
Consumer understanding of food safety on labels advice is improving but there is still room for improvement.
There has been a lot of interest in recent years about how consumers understand and use the nutrition information on food labels to assist them in making healthier food choices. However, the food safety components on food labels, such as ‘use by’ and ‘best before’ dates, as well as cooking and storage instructions, have received less attention. This is despite the fact that this labelling, if followed correctly, plays an important role in reducing the risk of foodborne illness.
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Country-of-origin labelling laws under scrutiny
Breaches of country-of-origin food labelling laws “do not pose any food safety risks to consumers” and therefore enforcement is not “the primary objective” for the owners of Melbourne’s biggest fruit and vegetable market.
The statement was made the City of Melbourne, which controls Queen Victoria Market, one of Melbourne’s top tourist attractions.
A recent Weekly Times investigation found numerous stallholders at Melbourne’s major fruit and vegetable markets — Queen Victoria, South Melbourne and Prahran — and a number of smaller retail outlets continue to flout mandatory country of origin labelling laws eight years after they were introduced.
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Source: http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au Written by: James Wagstaff
China: Vice-premier calls for food-safety credit system
Vice-Premier Wang Yang urged food safety authorities to hasten the establishment of a credit system to better inform the public of both the good and bad producers.
He made the remarks on June 10 at a forum of the China Food Safety Publicity Week.
He also demanded strict monitoring of the entire process of food production, processing and sales to safeguard food safety and quality.
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Source: www.chinadaily.com.au
Norovirus is the leading cause of disease outbreaks from contaminated food in the U.S.
The food service industry can help prevent norovirus outbreaks
Most norovirus outbreaks from contaminated food occur in food service settings, according to a Vital Signs report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Infected food workers are frequently the source of these outbreaks, often by touching ready-to-eat foods served in restaurants with their bare hands. The food service industry can help prevent norovirus outbreaks by enforcing food safety practices, such as making sure workers always practice good hand hygiene on the job and stay home when they are sick.
To read the full article, please click here.
Source: http://www.cdc.gov
Norovirus image by GrahamColm. Some rights reserved, CC-BY-3.0.
Sick, vomit, diarrhoea: key words on the social media radar of food safety authorities
Australian health authorities are tracking a New York City initiative that uses social media and restaurant review websites to investigate cases of food poisoning.
A collaboration between the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Columbia University and popular review site Yelp resulted in the discovery of previously undocumented cases of food-borne illness originating in restaurants.
The project was initiated after an investigation by New York City authorities into an outbreak of gastrointestinal disease linked to one particular restaurant. It was discovered in that particular case customers had reported illness on Yelp but not to the department of health.
A spokesperson for the New South Wales Food Authority, said it will monitor the New York program and “any other jurisdictions that may have something similar”.
Users of Yelp’s Australian site have reviewed more than 6000 restaurants and cafes and hundreds of bars and other food outlets.
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Source: http://www.smh.com.au Written by Matthew Hall.
GS1: Traceability, food safety should be supply chain priorities
Traceability makes recalls more efficient and gets the correct information into consumers’ hands much more quickly, writes GS1 Australia’s Andrew Steele, and the lack of an effective traceability system is one of the main reasons for food recalls that escalate into crisis situations. A report released last year by an expert group in the European Commission made recommendations for improving traceability with global standards, bar codes and other tools, and programs to educate consumers. “Enhanced product traceability, faster recalls and improved consumer safety should be at the top of the agenda when an organisation is detailing its supply chain process,” Steele writes.
To read the full article, please click here.
Source: http://www.foodmag.com.au
Chemicals and Food Safety
Confused by the chemical jargon? Don’t understand the registration process?
Agricultural chemicals, whether they be for conventional production systems, organic production systems or both, must be registered by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) before they can be legally supplied, sold or used in Australia.
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