Posts from the "Latest News" category
Australian Food Safety Week,11 – 17th November 2013
It is the second week of November and the Food Safety Information Council (FSIC) is holding its annual Australian Food Safety Week!
The Food Safety Information Council provides information to consumers, aiming to reduce the incidence of food poisoning, and to protect people from what is often a nasty experience involving diarrhoea, vomiting, cramps and fever.
This years theme is Shopping Food Safety focusing on ‘Clean, Choose, Chill and Separate‘ when selecting food and transporting it home safely. A national Newspoll Survey, commissioned by the Food Safety Information Council for Australian Food Safety Week, shows that too few Australian consumers are taking notice of vital food safety advice on food labels and are taking risks by not using insulated bags or coolers to transport refrigerated food.
Strict food safety standards apply to food retailers in Australia to ensure that the food you buy is safe. But there are some signs you can look for to ensure you buy a safe product. Once you buy the food, it’s up to you to make sure that it stays safe including not leaving shopping in a hot car. To read more about this topic, click here.
Resources available from over the years in various topics concerning consumer food safety. To view them, click here.
Source: Food Safety Information Council [13.11.2013]
While the food safety tips apply to all agricultural produce, fresh produce features as a significant risk to consumers due to the raw eaten nature of the product. Education on food safety is vital to ensure the integrity of fruit and vegetables to be healthy, nutritious and safe.
Seventh FPSANZ monthly newsletter out now!
The seventh edition of the Fresh Produce Safety Australia & New Zealand newsletter has just been released!
In this edition:
Institute of Food Technologists Launches Global Food Traceability Center
Emerging Pathogens: E. Coli O104:H4
Number of severe E. coli strains grows
Changes to the MRLS for Blueberries and Raspberries – FSANZ
…and more!
Click here to check out the newsletter.
Stay up to date with what’s happening in the Fresh Produce Safety community by signing up for the monthly newsletter.
New Research in Food safety at the 13th ASEAN Food Conference, Singapore 2013
The biennial ASEAN Food Conference is the leading forum for the food industry and research community in the region. The theme of the 13th ASEAN Food Conference held on the 9th-11th September 2013 in Singapore was “Meeting Future Food Demands: Security and Sustainability”.
Issues of malnutrition, undernutrition, and sustainable production were certainly important topics. However the themes were interpreted quite broadly to encompass, for example, how improvement in nutritional quality and food safety could benefit consumer health and community livelihoods, and help to address the alarming worldwide escalation in diet-related and lifestyle diseases. Sustainability was discussed less in terms of environmental impact, and more in terms of innovations in food processing, quality and safety to sustain long-term food industries.
The program included sessions on: managing innovation, nutrition & health, food chemistry & biochemistry, sensory science & consumer studies, food microbiology, food engineering, food processing, food product development, protein and weight management, food safety, food science and technology education, functional foods, nanotechnology of food, food analysis and quality assurance, and management of allergens in the food chain. The full program is available online, click here.
The conference was about food generally, but some interesting topics relevant to produce safety included:
Development of a fermentation process to produce a natural preservative called phenyllactic acid (PLA) from Lactobacillus plantarum bacteria. The PLA was shown to have antimicrobial activity against a variety of pathogens and extended the shelf-life of fresh-cut pineapple and bottled pineapple juice (Bui Kim Thuy, Nguyen Duy Lam, and Nguyen Thi Hoai Tram).
Development of a Surface Plasmon Resonance biosensor and sensor chips with antibodies specific to Escherichia coli O157:H7, Salmonella Enteritidis, and Listeria monocytogenes. The biosensor is an experimental format that, if successful, would allow convenient simultaneous detection of target bacteria (Zhang Xiaoguang, Sachiko Tsuji, Ken-ichi Honjoh, and Takahisa Miyamoto).
Direct irradiation with LED has bactericidal effects on E. coli O157:H7, S. Typhimurium, and L. monocytogenes dependent on the pH of the medium and LED wavelength – blue is better than green! (Vinayak Ghate, Leong Ai Ling, and Yuk Hyun-Gyun).
Chitosan is a natural antimicrobial and antilisterial agent. Electron microscopy suggested that chitosan kills the bacteria by interfering with cell membrane permeability and causing leakage of cell contents (Juthamas Tantala, Titima Sukmark, Masubon Thongngam, Kanjana Thumanu, Pornchai Rachtanapun, Chitsiri Rachtanapun).
Establishment of a microbial risk assessment and food safety system for the Singapore retail sector by the National Environment Agency (NEA). The NEA is a government agency that has brought together regulatory activity and research to develop and deliver a risk-based inspection and education service. A unique feature of this relates to the cultural popularity of ready-to-eat food bought from stalls, which have special hygiene challenges (Ramona A Gutierrez and Ng Lee Ching).
Site visit to the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore, which is the national food safety agency. Singapore imports 90% of its food from all over the world and has extremely well-resourced labs to test for chemical contaminants, additives and preservatives, drug residues, pesticide residues, food pathogens, foodborne parasites, physical quality, GMO, and other toxins. It also provides export certification, accreditation of food businesses, and food safety education; implements labelling and advertisement regulations and food recalls; and has a variety of roles relating to the animals and pet sector.
Check out who has pledged support for the Fresh Produce Safety Centre?
Thank you to the fresh fruit and vegetable industry for the great response and support for the establishment of the Fresh Produce Safety Centre. The FPSC in gaining momentum with over $125,000 in pledged funds!
These funds will be leveraged to apply for matched funding from the Australian government to develop the strategic plan of the Centre, the Constitution, the legal framework, the Board of Directors, and the R&D priorities as communicated to us by the fresh produce industry. The Centre will administer the following activities in food safety that will benefit the entire fresh produce industry:
securing and managing research funds,
leveraging research funding,
managing the industry-driven research projects,
maintaining the website,
providing education, communication and information
Institute of Food Technologists Launches Global Food Traceability Center
The Global Food Traceability Center will serve all aspects of the food system by generating knowledge that addresses research gaps, and delivering applied research, objective advice, and practical expertise about food product traceability and data collaboration for private benefit and public good.
Through its work, the Center will provide the means to accelerate the adoption and implementation of practical traceability solutions across the global food system. It will also deliver support services that help to increase understanding of food traceability across the following business platforms:
Research
Protocols and Standards
Education and Training
Technology Transfer
To find out more, click here.
Read Article →
Changes to the MRLS for Blueberries and Raspberries – FSANZ
The Australian Food and Grocery Council has submitted an application to request consideration of maximum residue limits (MRLs) for agricultural chemicals concerned with individually quick frozen (IQF) blueberries and raspberries imported from Chile.
The request is made to address a need for sourcing competitively priced ingredients in a convenient format for consumers wishing to incorporate blueberries and raspberries into their diets.
The chemicals for which the MRLs are requested are Azoxystrobin (blueberry); Fenhexamid (blueberry); Fludioxonil (blueberry) and Bifenthrin (raspberry).
These chemicals are already permitted to be used in Australia for other commodities.
Read the executive summary here.
Read about the submission in more detail.
Number of severe E. coli strains grows
In addition to the better-known E. coli O157:H7, the group includes E. coli O26, O45, O111, O121, O130 and O145.
Officials with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that as much as one-third of infections are caused by these other strains.
These strains are known scientifically as Shiga toxin-producing E. coli because they have the traits of one or both Shiga toxins.
Although some outbreaks of these nasty strains have been linked to fruits and vegetables, they are nearly always traced to warm-blooded animals, including birds, that have passed over or through farms.
To read the full article from The Grower, click here.
Sixth FPSANZ monthly newsletter out now!
The sixth edition of the Fresh Produce Safety Australia & New Zealand newsletter has just been released!
In this edition:
Ten Lessons Learnt from the CPS Research Symposium 2013
Over $120,000 Pledged so far, it’s not too late to support the FPSC!
Summary Report of FPS A&NZ 2012/13
Know the bugs that cause foodborne illness
Congratulations Allan Dall – HACCP Award Winner!
…and more!
Click here to check out the newsletter.
Stay up to date with what’s happening in the Fresh Produce Safety community by signing up for the monthly newsletter.
Emerging Pathogens: E. Coli O104:H4
A strain of E. coli known as O104:H4, made worldwide headlines when an outbreak in Germany in May 2011, sickened approximately 4,000 people and killed 50.
This event, linked to fresh sprouts, quickly became the deadliest foodborne illness outbreak in history.
It had evolved from a type of E. coli known to be harmless enteroaggregative E. coli and had acquired the genes to produce Shiga toxin from more virulent strains known as enterohemorrhagic E. coli.
Microbiological research laboratories around the globe began pooling resources to coordinate the world’s first “open source” analysis of a microbial genome. In turn, this spurred an unprecedented level of focused study by international collaborators that is still going on two years later.
Like other enteroaggregative E. coli strains, O104:H4 groups together in defensive brick patterns within a host’s intestines, inducing mucus production that both shields and feeds it. Combine that with the ability to produce Shiga toxin, and O104: H4 possesses the right cocktail of genes to become especially harmful in an outbreak.
To read the full article on Food Safety News, click here.
FDA seeks new process to check imports
Food destined for the U.S. would be inspected abroad and importers would be held more accountable for ensuring its safety, under new rules proposed by the Food and Drug Administration.
The US government is seeking to outsource work to companies that already have food-sourcing operations overseas. Under the rules proposed in late July, food importers would need to ensure that their foreign suppliers comply with FDA safety rules or that local regulations meet U.S. requirements. The measures also outline accreditation procedures for third-party auditors who would inspect food suppliers.
The FDA portrays the changes as a more effective method of targeting the sources of contaminated foods rather than merely responding after people get sick.
“We will continue to check food at our borders,” Michael Taylor, the FDA’s deputy commissioner for foods and veterinary medicine, said in a statement on the agency’s website.
“However, rather than relying almost entirely on FDA’s investigators at the ports to detect and respond to food safety problems, importers would – for the first time – be held accountable for verifying, in a manner transparent to FDA, that the food they import is safe.”
At the same time, Americans continue to perceive domestically sourced foods as safer than imports, says Marianne Rowden, president and chief executive of the American Association of Exporters & Importers, a trade group that counts several large importers such as Target and Mondelez International as members. (That perception gap remains, Rowden notes, even after several illness outbreaks tied to U.S.-grown produce.)
What’s less clear, according to Rowden, is how smaller players without the infrastructure and supply-chain expertise of major food importers will comply with the law. She predicts “critiques around the edges of some technical aspects” but no major industry backlash against the regulations.
“The food companies are very conscious about their brands,” she says. “We look at this as brand protection, rather than just new regulation.”
To read the full article by Justin Bachman, click here.
To find out more about the Food Safety Modernisation Act (FSMA) and how it affects US importers, click here.