SafetyChain Blog

As we head into summer, a primary focus for large food and beverage companies is the FSMA Food Defense Plan, which must be written by July 26, 2019. Find a high-level overview of what you need to know about Food Defense Plans and the IA Rule below.

Nowadays, dietary products with hemp and CBD oil seem to be ubiquitous. These ingredients, derived from the cannabis plant, are being infused in food, beverages, and supplements sold in many convenience stores and online. Although these products aren’t difficult for consumers to find, from an industry perspective, questions surrounding their legality raise some concerns.

The FSMA Intentional Adulteration (IA) rule establishes requirements for preventing or significantly minimizing acts intended to cause wide-scale public health harm. It uses a HACCP-type approach, but includes important differences from the Preventive Controls for Human Food Rule. For companies with 500 or more full-time employees, the compliance date for the rule is swiftly approaching, and is slotted for July 26, 2019.

Beyond providing a variety of safe and easily accessible food choices for people with Celiac disease, gluten-free foods are becoming a highly sought-after choice among many individuals across the world. Yet, making the shift towards becoming gluten-free requires putting a comprehensive management program in place first.

FSMA News

In the past month, the FDA made some noteworthy announcements, including the retirement of Stephen Ostroff, Deputy Commissioner for Foods and Veterinary Medicine. Walmart food safety executive Frank Yiannas will join the FDA to fill a similar role, but his title will be Deputy Commissioner for Food Policy and Response.

Oftentimes the supply chain is perceived as a linear relationship among suppliers and customers. In reality, however, it is more like a web. Although there may be visibility into your tier 1 suppliers, visibility at tier 2 is often lacking. As you trace back and visibility decreases, you must identify which risks are most significant. Some risks may have a small potential impact on your company’s food safety, for instance, while the impact of others could be massive. Certain ingredients may only affect a few products, while others may affect many.

To some extent, the effectiveness of your supply chain management lies in your ability to collaborate seamlessly with suppliers. You must also ensure that teamwork is achieved within your own facility. Here, we explore some best practices your company can follow to support collaborative food supplier management.

At every level of the supply chain, food and beverage companies face increasing complexity. While the key drivers for this added complexity vary, many companies share a demand for innovation, including new flavors, new products, and exciting ingredients. There are also new threats to food, including the appearance of new microbes and instances of bacteria such as E. coli emerging in previously unsuspected products and ingredients. These complexities are in part what led the FDA to recognize the supply chain as a major risk, and the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was developed as a result.

Building a foundation for any effective supplier compliance system lies in your company’s ability to identify its supply chain risks. Yet, in the food and beverage industry, not all suppliers present equal risks. How, then, should you differentiate among these risks? You should be dedicating your resources to the areas of greatest risk, but in order to do that, you must first determine which are most significant.

 To protect the food supply, and ultimately the population, food companies must develop a goal-based food defense. A goal-based food defense is effective for two key reasons: it satisfies FSMA requirements, and it keeps people, products, assets, and brands protected against any potential threats.