Marking Pivotal Anniversaries in Food Safety

By: Hilary Thesmar, PhD, RD, CFS, Chief Food and Product Safety Officer and Sr. Vice President, Food Safety Programs

A first anniversary is often referred to as the paper anniversary; the material symbolizes a newly cemented relationship or even the delicate nature of those first 365 days in a binding partnership. In the food safety community, this September marks the first anniversary of the first compliance date for several of the most visible regulations for the Food Safety Modernization Act, or FSMA.

We’re celebrating a paper anniversary of the compliance date of two of seven major rules that significantly impact the way our supply chain does business: the FSMA Preventive Controls Rule for Human and Animal Foods rules bolster the long-term investment in FSMA among our companies. The rules cover those who manufacture, process, pack or hold food, and each covered facility is required to prepare and implement a written food safety plan and current good manufacturing practices.

As with any good relationship, responsibilities and investments should be shared, which is why we have been encouraging our food retailers and wholesalers to ask the same questions they considered internally of their supplier partners. In all, we’re working to shift to a prevention-based model in order for the industry to effectively create future checks and balances. FMI continues to stress an enterprise-wide culture of food safety to not only comply with the FSMA rules, but also impart a greater sense of responsibility for food safety all along the supply chain. Indeed, smart partnerships help us better navigate the complexities of FSMA rules.

Proper recordkeeping is a key component of all seven rules, and our relationship with ReposiTrak® has helped FMI members monitor and follow-up on corrective actions. We’re approaching the four-year mark on our partnership with ReposiTrak®, which affords grocery warehouses, supermarkets, packaged goods manufacturers, food processing facilities, growers and logistics partners to manage compliance documents and to track and trace products throughout the global food chain. This demand for transparency is increasingly critical to FSMA compliance, and consumers want context beyond the package, per the FMI U.S. Grocery Shopper Trends 2017.

FMI has consistently maintained efforts to support greater clarity and communication in the supply chain. This commitment is most notable in our work to encourage the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to consider the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) as it prioritizes and implements FSMA programs. GFSI programs like ours, the Safe Quality Food Institute we acquired in 2003, reduce risk in the supply chain by receiving, storing, maintaining, sharing, and providing compliance reporting and proactive expiration alerting of audit, inspection and regulatory documentation required between supplier and food retailer.

Nothing is more important to our food retailer members than protecting their shoppers, and while FSMA ensures we are responsible for the food while it’s in our control, we need to support consumers once they take the products home to enjoy. Thus, over the last 20 years, we’ve supported the Partnership for Food Safety Education in its mission to empower the shopper and prevent food poisoning.

The biggest takeaway for all of us in the food safety community is that relationships are built on trust. Consumers want to experience a closer connection to their food, and we take pride in our Trends report that finds 95 percent of shoppers trust their grocery store to ensure that that food they purchase is safe. Still, like paper, trust is fallible.