Food safety in the United States has improved dramatically over the last 40 years.

Leaps in the last 12 years have transformed the process of protecting human health to the point where in the event of an outbreak, in some cases, product is pulled out of circulation prior to it ever being placed on the shelf.

Many factors have influenced these changes. In 2007 outbreaks of illnesses due to contamination in spinach and peanut butter began the processes of legislative change. Allergens and labeling became a hot topic with the increase in sales of artisanal and small batch food products. In the same year with the advent of the social media explosion, recalls were changed forever. Suddenly processors had to contend with people sharing illnesses attributed to their products over the Internet to the general public. This all culminated into the development of the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) regulations.

In 2013 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) moved from swabbing and plating cultures to whole genome sequencing, resulting in over 50,000 pathogen fingerprints in its current database. For example, the Blue Bell Ice cream recall in 2015 caused three deaths. was initiated faster than any previous recall thanks to whole genome sequencing. Additionally, advances in epidemiology have increased the speed of recalls, while advances in communication have increased the ability to recall physical material while it is still in transit.

Fast ward forward to 2018. Per the FDA, 50% of all recalls are caused by bacterial contamination, 28% are allergen contamination (soy, tree nut, egg, milk proteins etc.), and the rest are foreign material and process deviations. Overall, recalls are down by 30% from 2007, because we now have the ability to test a group of affected people and narrow down the contamination to a common product, which leads to a specific manufacturer. This can now be further narrowed to an area of a specific plant, and we are almost at the point of being able to identify a specific piece of equipment that has caused the contamination. These advancements are all from whole genome testing and an increase in communication technologies.

Recalls are no long counted in weeks, but in days, if not hours.

This means that not only are we as an industry contributing to consumer protection on the front end with better general manufacturing practices, but we are also responding faster and more accurately on the back end. Soon a day will come where hopefully no one ever dies from eating contaminated processed food products.

By Brett Roeller
Director of National Accounts, QualiTru Sampling Systems
brett@qualitru.com   Follow Brett on LinkedIn