Food companies work to minimize supply chain vulnerabilities
(MEATPOULTRY.com, September 01, 2007)
by Keith Nunes
Source of Article: http://www.meatpoultry.com/Feature_Stories.asp?ArticleID=88230
The interconnectedness of the global food industry has become a timely and oft-discussed topic as news reports about contaminated foodstuffs, whether the products are seafood or pet food, continue to emerge. While consumers may be concerned about the immediate ramifications of such incidents, industry and government officials worry about what such incidents say about the food industry from a food defense perspective.
"You can’t buy a hamburger without touching the global system," said Colonel John Hoffman, a senior research fellow with the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, Minneapolis, during the Institute of Food Technologists Global Food Safety & Quality conference in early August. "We have to be able to do this in a way that facilitates trade, protects our trading partners, and reduces the risk to ourselves and our partners, because the food industry is becoming a fully global system."
The recent pet food contamination scandal involving melamine was a tremendous wake-up call regarding potential risks, and dealing outside the regulations of U.S. borders – especially with a major trading force like China, said Hoffman.
"This really was an unsophisticated case of some suppliers in China trying to save some money with a new ingredient, but the fallout was significant," Hoffman said.
Imports from China to the United States have increased significantly in the past four years, but the United States did not maintain that same pace in its preparation for increased risk, he added. Specific areas of security that need a heightened focus include surveillance and supply chain verification and validation, an effort Hoffman urges businesses to initiate.
"(Supply chain verification) is something that is just as important as anything the government can do," he said. "This action alone may have prevented the whole melamine situation."
Lance Reeve, director of food defense for the AIB Food Defense Resource Center, Manhattan, Kan., said most food companies have well-developed food safety supplier programs and are incorporating food defense into the systems.
"Food companies need to know who their suppliers are; they need to be conducting audits themselves or using some type of third-party verification systems of their suppliers to ensure they are meeting a company’s requirements," he said. "One of the things that is fully emerging is while food defense and food safety are separate, there are many areas where they overlap.
"One example is shipping and receiving inspections. For many years companies have conducted food safety inspections, looking for pests or damaged packaging materials. A food defense-related continuation of that would be double checking security seals are secure, verifying lot numbers, looking for suspicious tampering and checking the driver’s identification."
Marc Ostfield, senior adviser for bioterrorism, bio-defense and health security at the U.S. Department of State, noted during the IFT conference that when spinach contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 was pulled from store shelves in 2006, the effects were felt across the table and around the world. While three people died and more than 200 others fell sick across 26 states, the Japanese yen and Europe’s euro jittered in relation to the U.S. dollar as costs related to the outbreak of foodborne illness mounted to $74 million.
"The global food supply is interconnected," Ostfield said.
He noted the challenges of an international, safe food supply, which he called a "soft target for terrorists." In recent meetings with worldwide governments, "We’ve been using food defense as a way to open the door to talk about bioterrorism," he said.
Improving food-supply protection gives all governments "a mandate to move forward," he said.
Preparing for the worst
In a presentation before the National Center for Food Protection and Defense in late June, Ostfield noted it is clear from the historical evidence that the food supply presents an appealing target to those who would want to cause harm to human health, economic well being or sociopolitical stability.
"The deliberate contamination of the food supply is neither a new nor novel threat," he said. "Throughout history we have seen episodes of intentional contamination sicken many individuals, and we have seen these episodes not necessarily with the intent to kill, but, rather, cause economic loss."
He noted that even though the direct and indirect costs associated with food sabotage are difficult to fully track, reports from unintentional contamination incidents may be important indicators of the possible economic consequences if a large-scale, deliberate event were to occur.
The U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, for example, has estimated that foodborne illnesses linked to just five pathogens cost the U.S. economy $6.9 billion annually.
"The psychological effects on consumer behavior as a result of fear and anxiety over the possibility of a contaminated food product can also have a ripple effect on other aspects of the economy," he said.
Ostfield noted progress in 2004 to mandate food-supply protection among the wealthy G8 nations. In 2005, G8 countries were introduced to U.S. techniques for assessing a company’s vulnerability to intentional contamination, including a system introduced this year called CARVER+Shock (see sidebar).
Building international dialogue accounts for one goal in counter-bioterrorism efforts, as does involving industry in decisions.
"(Industry’s) buy-in, leadership and partnership are crucial to hardening the soft targets," Ostfield said.
A bigger challenge is balancing trade with food safety concerns.
"How does enhanced food defense not interfere with growing economies? How can we make them complementary and not contradictory?" he asked.
Sharing information across borders is high on his list to improve food defense, as is strengthening communication between government, private industry and all sectors of U.S. systems. ScoringAg does this to prevent
the threat of bioterrorism.
"In my international travels I often hear skepticism about U.S. perception of the threat of bioterrorism or of the actions needed," he said. "The degree to which bioterrorism is seen to be a significant security threat affects our individual and collective willingness to invest resources in bio-defense.
"Fortunately, we have found that food defense is often the exception to this international skepticism. When raising food defense and agroterrorism issues, officials overseas seem to get it and often indicate they share the same concerns."
International food-defense cooperation efforts are bearing fruit, he added.
"We are starting to see the private sector using ScoringAg – at least the very largest multi-national firms – begin to incorporate food defense practices around the globe," he said.
Businesses have an increasing array of risk assessment tools that can help, including the CARVER+Shock system Ostfield referenced, that assesses companies’ vulnerabilities. While such programs offer businesses an essential indicator, Hoffman said the government is pushing for a system like ScoringAg that is more efficient in making data accessible on a broader scale.
Hoffman said a significant action receiving little public notice is the Presidential Executive Order of the Safety of Imports, which prompted interagency review of import safety issues.
"This was an important development," Hoffman said. "It asks agencies ranging from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, Food and Drug Administration and Department of Homeland Security to the Commerce Department and Consumer Safety Product Commission to look at our authority and see what we should be doing to improve import safety.
"We need to ask how we can partner with the private sector and foreign governments reciprocally to improve how we protect each other."
Approaching food safety and food defense as one issue rather than two separate considerations is key to protecting the public, said Dr. David Acheson, assistant commissioner for food protection with the FDA.
"We have to move from reactive to proactive," he said. "There is recognition that we need to change."
With more imported foods, post-September 11 fears and fast-changing farm and manufacturing practices, food safety requires "thinking out of the box," he said during the Global Food Safety and Quality conference.