Food Safety

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The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was created to ensure the safety of the U.S. food supply. FSMA shifts industry focus from responding to contamination, to preventing it, making food processors take a more proactive approach to eliminating and preventing foodborne contaminants from entering their plants.

Recalls occur on meat and poultry products for a variety of reasons — from positive tests for pathogens to allergen-labeling issues to foreign-material contamination. Any reason for a product recall is a serious one — and each should open the industry’s eyes to what it can do better to prevent these recalls from occurring.

Automation … I can almost hear you saying, “Ok, ok, enough already.

When a person walks into a grocery store and picks up a package of sliced deli meat, there would be two things that person would do: First, he or she would look at the expiration date, then that person would look at the overall appearance of the meat inside.

The meat industry has a very successful track record of controlling Listeria. In the U.S., the meat industry has not issued a Listeria recall due to illness from a federally inspected product since 2002.

Something as simple as improper care, cleaning and handling of uniforms and garments can lead to product contamination by introducing a microbial or foreign material risk to product. Not to be taken lightly, proper apparel care has become a part of many processors’ culture.