Food Safety Legislation Research Articles

High-warranty traceability system in the poultry meat supply chain: A medium-sized enterprise case study

The concept of food traceability can be traced back 5000 years to Egyptian society. Over the last decade, traceability has become recognized as an essential food safety and food quality tool. Food safety legislation and voluntary standards have delineated different traceability frameworks, which can be assigned to two models: a generic, low-warranty traceability procedure or a specific, high-warranty traceability procedure. The latter is based on the documentation of the material and information collected from an organization and among parties in a supply chain. A risk-assessment based approach is needed to determine the best traceability procedure for each food product produced by a specific organization. This paper focuses on a medium-sized enterprise case-study operating in the poultry meat supply chain. The benefits and difficulties of implementation of a traceability system were discussed. This surveyed case-study provides a partial explanation as to why traceability in this sector is mainly being driven by food safety regulations, even if it also has potential as a visible value-added marketing tool. The lack of process automation is the underlying reason for complex implementation of a specific high-warranty traceability tool. A perspective schematic of straightforward traceability implementation is finally illustrated.

Trust-based specification of sociotechnical systems

Current approaches in sociotechnical systems consider trust to be either cognitive—referring to actors' mental models of each other—or technical—referring to an actor's trust of a technical artifact. In this paper, we take a more expansive view of trust: in addition to the cognitive, we also consider trust in the architectural sense, which we term sociotechnical trust. Broadly, sociotechnical trust applies at the level of roles. Our principal claim is that sociotechnical systems are essentially specified in terms of sociotechnical trust. Whereas previous work has considered dependencies between actors as a fundamental social relation, we claim that no dependency can exist without the corresponding sociotechnical trust.Our contributions are threefold. One, we qualitatively show sociotechnical trust to be different from cognitive and technical trust and the prevalent notions of dependencies among actors. Two, we specify a conceptual model of systems based on sociotechnical trust. We introduce the novel idea of one trust relation supporting another, which enables us to compare sociotechnical systems for trustworthiness. Three, we specify a methodology for engineering trustworthy sociotechnical systems. We evaluate our approach by modeling some aspects of a European food safety legislation.

Transitions in Food Governance in Europe: From National Towards EU and Global Regulation and from Public Towards Hybrid and Private Forms of Governance

In my paper I discuss two important transitions in food governance in Europe. First, the increased role of private actors in global food safety regulation and the development of retail driven private food safety regulation from the 1990s onwards. Second, the increased role of the European Union. In response to food crisis such as BSE and dioxin, the European Union strengthened its food safety legislation and established the European Food Safety Authority.At the national level, several European countries have established new regulatory agencies or reformed existing agencies to oversee the national food control activities. Both transitions resulted in very complex regulatory arrangements with multiple partners at multiple levels. Governmental organizations have to deal with the new circumstances and new core values such as transparency and independence. How do governmental agencies react to private standard setting?

Significance of official food control in food safety: Food business operators' perceptions

Finnish food business operators' (FBOs) opinions of the food control inspections performed by local authorities were evaluated, using a questionnaire. The production types of FBOs included were slaughterhouses, meat, fish and milk plants, egg-packing plants and storage facilities dealing with foods of animal origin. Based on a total of 459 responses, we noted that the impacts of official controls were considered valuable for food safety, since 78.8% of the respondents saw that the actions taken based on inspections had enhanced the safety of the products. The results also highlighted the importance of inspectors being familiar with the production processes to increase the efficacy of food control. More frequent visits by official inspectors correlated positively with FBOs' conceptions of noncompliances being relevant for food safety. The FBOs saw local inspectors as the most important sources of new information concerning food safety legislation and 89.1% of the respondents confirmed that discussions with local inspectors had helped them understand the food safety risks within their processes. We also noted that the bigger the FBO, the more clearly they seem to perceive the risks associated with their processes (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient r = 0.127, P = 0.009).

ProSafeBeef and anthelmintic drug residues—a case study in collaborative application of multi-analyte mass spectrometry to enhance consumer safety

Collaboration is the bedrock of much of the research carried out by academia, industry, and government. Two heads being better than one is true in most areas of life, including science. Whilst working with collaborators often requires additional time, energy, and money (not to mention flexibility, diplomacy, and, occasionally, a thick skin), the benefits can be substantial, including access to otherwise unavailable expertise and equipment, sharing of ideas and workloads, greater scope to disseminate results, and, hopefully, establishment of fruitful networks and friendships which may lead to further funding, collaboration, and publications. Having had the pleasure of successful collaboration funded under the fourth, fifth, and sixth European Framework Programmes, we have seen the long-term benefits of such an approach in food safety; specifically the monitoring and control of veterinary drug residues in the food chain. Collaboration between European Union (EU) research partners in this field is a natural approach given that member states operate under common EU food safety legislation. In our experience, an appropriately sized research consortium funded under a European Framework Programme has proved to be an effective model for producing a meaningful impact on global food safety issues. What follows is an overview of the outputs of a recent Framework Programme collaboration and some personal thoughts on the operation of a diverse consortium of research partners to comprehensively address a veterinary drug residues issue.

Meat Safety: A Brief Review on Concerns Common to Science and Consumers

Meat safety is a multidimensional concept, and there are reasons to believe there is an information asymmetry between consumers, producers and safety authorities along the supply chain. Within this framework, this article puts together consumer concerns about meat safety, the current scientific evidence and the existing legal framework in the EU, trying to unveil possible fields for quality differentiating strategies. As such, this article does not add new data to the food safety or consumer issues fields. Rather, it allows a new perspective by associating two different research areas. Assessing the reported consumer concerns regarding meat, it is not possible to define one specific worry as more prevalent or frequent. Still, the presence of drug residues in meat is a concern often shared by consumers of several types of meat in many different European countries. Interestingly, it is also an open scientif- ic question. Research on the association between the presence of anti-bacterial residues in meat and microbial resistance is frequent. However, there is still no consensus on this subject. Still, even in the absence of such a consensus, it is a relevant issue for meat production, public health and consumer interest. Regarding the EU legal framework, the food safety legislation has accompanied scientific development, even acting preventively in questions without scientific consensus, as in the case of the use of anti-bacterials as a feed additive. Neverthe- less, even if the use of anti-bacterials in food animals is covered by several legal documents, it is still a concern for consumers. This suggests that some consumers may be interested in meat products that relieve their distrust. Therefore, there may be grounds for the development of a differention strategy, aiming at seg- ments willing to pay premiums for meat with increased guarantee of anti-bacte- rial residue control.

Validation of a quantitative and confirmatory method for residue analysis of aminoglycoside antibiotics in poultry, bovine, equine and swine kidney through liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry

The use of aminoglycoside antibiotics in food animals is approved in Brazil. Accordingly, Brazilian food safety legislation sets maximum levels for these drugs in tissues from these animals in an effort to guarantee that food safety is not compromised. Aiming to monitor the levels of these drugs in tissues from food animals, the validation of a quantitative, confirmatory method for the detection of residues of 10 aminoglycosides antibiotics in poultry, swine, equine and bovine kidney, with extraction using a solid phase and detection and quantification by LC-MS/MS was performed. The procedure is an adaptation of the US Department of Agriculture, Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) qualitative method, with the inclusion of additional clean-up and quantification at lower levels, which proved more efficient. Extraction was performed using a phosphate buffer containing trifluoroacetic acid followed by neutralization, purification on a cationic exchange SPE cartridge, with elution with methanol/acetic acid, evaporation, and dilution in ion-pair solvent. The method was validated according to the criteria and requirements of the European Commission Decision 2002/657/EC, showing selectivity with no matrix interference. Linearity was established for all analytes using the method of weighted minimum squares. CCα and CCβ varied between 1036 and 12,293 µg kg−1, and between 1073 and 14,588 µg kg−1, respectively. The limits of quantification varied between 27 and 688 µg kg−1. The values of recovery for all analytes in poultry kidney, fortified in the range of 500–1500 µg kg−1, were higher than 90%, and the relative standard deviations were lower than 15%, except spectinomycin (21.8%). Uncertainty was estimated using a simplified methodology of ‘bottom-up’ and ‘top-down’ strategies. The results showed that this method is effective for the quantification and confirmation of aminoglycoside residues and could be used by the Brazilian programme of residue control.

Food Safety Law: Focus on Prevention, Boost to FDA Authority

President Obama early in January signed the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which Congress passed days earlier during a frenzied lame-duck session (Microbe, February 2011, p. 54). The new law, the biggest overhaul of federal food safety legislation in decades, emphasizes the importance of preventing foodborne illness and grants significant new authority to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Although many stakeholders—including food-safety experts, food producers and marketers, and consumer groups—welcome the new law, they already are voicing concerns that federal budget tightening and political maneuvering could undercut near-term efforts by FDA officials to implement some of its provisions.

REGULATIONS AND ORGANS IN THE FIELD OF FOOD AND FEED SAFETY IN REPUBLIC OF MACEDONIA

Food and feed safety is of vital meaning for the health of the population, as well as of domestic animals. Therefore, food and feed had to be safety along all their chains, beginning from the farm and stable to the table. For that purpose monitoring of food and feed is necassary. Republic of Macedonia is developing and advancing the system for the control of food and feed safety, therefore it is implementing the regulations and law measures which regulate the common conditions for food and feed safety. Among the regulations for food safety are the law for food safety and for products and materials which are in contact with food (Official Paper of the Republic of Macedonia, No. 54/02 and 84/07), as well as a few Regulations which are harmonized with the law of the European Union. The organ in the field of food safety in the republic of Macedonia, which is responsible for the control of food/feed safety and for the health protection of the consumers in the country, is the Food Department, which is a part of the Health Ministry.The Food Department is active in the field of food safety with the aim 1) on time to prevent all potential dangers with application of the scientific achivements in relation to the food safety and 2) international collaboration, which is of the interest for its function. Through its sectors and sections, the Food Departement realizes activities in the field of food safety legislation, as well as for harmonization of the national legislation with the legislation of the European Union. By introducing the quality standards the quality menagement in the Food Department is enabled.

The Carry-Over of Mycotoxins in Products of Animal Origin with Special Regard to Its Implications for the European Food Safety Legislation

At present, carry-over research in mycotoxins experiences a change in focus. We reviewed the state-of-art knowledge regarding carry-over in aflatoxins, ochratoxin A, Fusarium toxins, patulin, ergot and citrinin. The common cooccurrence of mycotoxins demands for employment of multi-toxin analysis and poses a new challenge in reliable health hazard assessment. Synergies in adverse mycotoxin effects call for a revision of various guidance levels in feed. We found a lack of risk assessment regarding carry-over of rare mycotoxins and metabolites usually considered negligible.

Fragile food supply chains: reacting to risks

Despite extensive food safety legislation, there have been significant food safety incidents in the recent past. The effects of food contamination and other food safety-related incidents permeate rapidly across the different entities of the supply chain as a result of particularly complex and multi-tiered supply chains in the food sector. There is a requirement for other reactive measures to contain the spread further across the supply chain once the issue has been identified. The research approach for the paper is based around the use of secondary data on major food safety-related incidents and the after effects. The research seeks to identify and understand the varied approaches, the contributing factors and the relevant legislation towards risk control as a reactionary measure in the food sector. It then proposes a conceptual model for risk mitigation from a reactionary standpoint which is retrospectively validated using selected case studies.

On-farm multi-contamination of pigs by food-borne bacterial zoonotic hazards: An exploratory study

Application of risk analysis to control pork-borne zoonoses on farms is a major aim of the current European food safety legislation. The prevalence, levels of contamination and variations in pig contaminations according to herds and batches must therefore be studied to define relevant methods for control of zoonoses. The aims of this exploratory study were to provide information on the prevalence and levels of infection of finisher/fattening pigs by Campylobacter spp., Clostridium perfringens, Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella enterica and Staphylococcus aureus, and to quantify the respective effects of batches and herds. One hundred and twenty-seven pooled fresh feces samples and 120 pooled cutaneous swab samples were tested from 37 batches in 14 farrowing-to-finishing farms. Campylobacter spp. was identified in all fecal samples on farms whereas L. monocytogenes was never found. C. perfringens was identified in 48% of samples, Salmonella in 2%, and S. aureus in 48%. The decomposition of variance of on-farm prevalence and levels of contamination and a general linear model showed a systematically significant effect of herd, and an effect of batch only for levels of contamination with Campylobacter and C. perfringens and for prevalence of S. aureus. The contamination status of pigs seems to be mainly explained by herd status linked to poor biosecurity measures. Further studies are needed to explain such correlations in order to define farm indicators for food-borne zoonotic hazards.

A Pilot Study of the Microbiological Quality of Culturally Diverse, Ready-to-Eat Foods from Selected Retail Establishments in Melbourne, Australia

In recent years, there has been an increasing number of foodborne outbreaks linked to the consumption of culturally diverse foods. This appears to be because of the increasing quantity of culturally diverse foods available and a preference to store these foods, some of which are considered potentially hazardous, at ambient temperature. This practice may contravene temperature requirements defined by the Food Standards Code. A lack of understanding of the hazardous nature of some culturally prepared foods also poses difficulties in applying the Australian food safety legislation by regulators. This pilot study examined the normal microbiota of four culturally diverse foods: nem chua, che dau trang, kueh talam, and bánh tét nhân man, which are traditionally stored and consumed at ambient temperature. Challenge testing was conducted to investigate the ability of these foods to support the growth of foodborne bacterial pathogens. Two of the products (kueh talam and che dau) were found to be microbiologically unsatisfactory because of the high standard plate counts. Challenge testing indicated that kueh talam, che dau, and bánh tét nhân man were able to support the growth of Bacillus cereus, Escherichia coli, Staphylococcus aureus, and Salmonella (1-2 log increases over 6 hours at 25 degrees C), suggesting that these foods may require temperature control during storage. However, nem chua was unable to support the growth of test bacteria, probably because of its acidic nature (pH 4.5), suggesting that ambient storage of this food may be safe. This study provided some preliminary evidence to support the need for further sampling and challenge testing of these products.

MAKING FOOD SAFER

THE PAST FEW YEARS have seen a host of food recalls in the U.S. due to food-borne pathogens: illness-causing strains of Escherichia coli in beef and cookie dough, for example, and Salmonella contamination of peanuts and jalapeno peppers. “Every year, millions of people in the United States suffer from food-borne illness, hundreds of thousands are hospitalized, and thousands die,” Food & Drug Administration Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg said last month at a Senate committee hearing on food safety legislation. “Food safety is a core public health issue.” According to data from the Census Bureau and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S. consumers eat 600 billion lb of food annually. Adding to food worries is the fact that an increasing amount of that food is being imported from sometimes exotic locales, where food standards might not be as strict as those in the U.S. Imported food has doubled in value to about $80 billion over the ...

Antibiotics in food: Legislation and validation of analytical methodologies

In this paper, European food safety legislation is presented, and special attention is devoted to monitoring residues of veterinary drugs in foodstuffs of animal origin. After a short review of the state of the art of analytical methodology for antibiotic residue analysis, the paper focuses on validation of analytical methods, with Decision 657/2002/EC as reference document. Finally, the main issues of the quality control of the analytical data, i.e. analysis of reference materials and participation in proficiency tests, are briefly addressed.

Trace elements in Canadian field peas: a grain safety assurance perspective

Canada is a significant exporter of field peas and, thus, issues of food safety are important in all grain and food products within the international marketplace. Environmental contaminants, such as trace elements, may be present in all foods and, as a result, international standards have been established for a number of toxic trace elements, such as cadmium, lead, mercury and arsenic, in raw food commodities and food products. The Canadian Grain Commission has undertaken a baseline study of various trace elements in Canadian peas to ensure compliance with international food safety legislation. Mean total cadmium content was found to be 0.023 mg kg−1; arsenic and lead mean values were below the method limit of quantification of 0.050 mg kg−1 and the total mean mercury level was below the quantification level of 0.002 mg kg−1. All measured values in the study were below the maximum residue levels (MRLs) established by the FAO and WHO in the Codex Alimentarius. The mean total selenium content was 0.331 mg kg−1, with 56% of the measured values exceeding the MRL established by the People's Republic of China (PRC) of 0.3 mg kg−1. No Codex MRL has been established for selenium as it is regarded as an essential trace element for human health and the PRC is currently reviewing its MRL for selenium in light of this fact. For those parts of the world where selenium-deficiency is of nutritional concern, the higher level of selenium in Canadian peas and their products may be of nutritional benefit.

Towards harmonized approaches for mycotoxin analyses: an assessment

Mycotoxins (the poisonous metabolites of certain filamentous fungi) are potential contaminants of staple food commodities and, if uncontrolled, may present a significant public health hazard. In many jurisdictions, questions relating to mycotoxin contamination are addressed at both generic and specific levels by food-safety legislation. Key to the successful management of the mycotoxin question, both in terms of verifying food-safety measures by the agri-food businesses and ensuring compliance with statutory limits by enforcement agencies, is the use of reliablesampling and analytical methodology. Evidence from European Union Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed data suggest that harmonization of methodologies used to determine the mycotoxin content of foods would contribute to improved compliance at both regulatory and commercial levels.

Managing food allergens in the food supply chain - viewed from different stakeholder perspectives

The management of food allergens involves several stakeholders including food manufacturers, consumers, enforcement authorities and analytical laboratories. The MoniQA Working Group and representatives of these stakeholder groups develop a synthesis of their needs and requirements, identify gaps and suggest ways forward to address these gaps. Analysis for food allergens is an essential adjunct to hazard and risk management procedures within the food industry. These analyses are important for enforcement authorities who require reliable methods in support of both the specific food labelling legislation and the more general food safety legislation. Furthermore, analytical methods are essential in the validation/verification of cleaning protocols, which help to reduce levels of potentially contaminating allergen to one that is no longer harmful for the majority of the allergic consumers. Nevertheless, there is a general lack of validated and robust analytical methodology for analysis of most food allergens. On the one hand, universally recognized reference materials are missing, on the other hand there is an urgent need to harmonise validation protocols at an international level. Currently, members of theMoniQAWG together with the AOAC Allergen Community are developing a validation protocol for allergen ELISA-based test kits helping to provide standardised methods with known acceptance criteria for the users as well as for the method developers. The Working Group will seek to develop the initiative required to address these issues, in collaboration with other organisations e. g. the EuroPrevall project, FARRP, AOAC and the CEN WG12 Food Allergens over the coming years.

On-farm Animal Welfare Assessments and Audits in the UK

Other than in a research context, the route through which welfare assessments and audits are implemented for production animals is farm assurance. Farm assurance can affect the welfare of animals through encouraging improvements in welfare by setting good standards of provision for animals, through excluding systems which are inherently bad for welfare from certification or through discouraging the very poorest farmers from continuing in business. However, as farm assurance originated in response to changes in UK food safety legislation, conflicts can exist between requirements of food safety measures, environmental protection and animal welfare. To date, the evidence that farm assurance is actively improving the welfare of animals within systems is not compelling, although the more extensive management practices required by the Soil Association organic farming scheme have recently been shown to result in less lameness and hock damage.

Determination of mycotoxins in human foods

This tutorial review deals with the analytical methods available for the determination of mycotoxins in food commodities. As the secondary metabolites of a range of fungal species, mycotoxins possess diverse chemical structures, presenting analytical chemists with a unique set of challenges in the microg kg(-1) (ppb) range. A number of analytical methods have been applied to mycotoxin analysis. These include widely applicable HPLC methods with UV or fluorimetric detection, which are extensively used both in research and for legal enforcement of food safety legislation and for regulations in international agricultural trade. Other chromatographic methods, such as TLC and GC, are also employed for the determination of mycotoxins, whereas recent advances in analytical instrumentation have highlighted the potential of LC-MS methods, especially for multi-toxin determination and for confirmation purposes. Conventional chromatographic methods are generally time consuming and capital intensive, and hence a range of methods, mostly based on immunological principles, have been developed and commercialised for rapid analysis. These methods include, among others, enzyme-linked immunosorbent analysis (ELISA), direct fluorimetry, fluorescence polarization, and various biosensors and strip methods.