[News]

[QA On the Road]: 10th Annual Food Safety Summit Draws Record Attendance, Focuses on ‘Everyday Heroes’

WASHINGTON, D.C. — More than 1,700 food safety professionals attended the annual conference to discuss key issues facing the safety and security of the world’s food supply, focusing on the theme of “Everyday Heroes.” Session topics included global food safety initiatives, food defense, HACCP implementation and pathogen detection.

Rick Frazier, senior vice president of technical stewardship for the Coca-Cola Company, gave one of the summit’s keynote addresses, and said that, to remain successful, food companies must focus on quality and the impact they have across environmental and social sectors.

He said his company focuses on the 3 Rs — risk mitigation, revenue growth and maintaining its reputation — to remain successful and grow.

“The world’s expectations have evolved,” Frazier said. “The concept of a product being good has expanded to mean good for me, my community and the planet.”

Now, consumers, investors and business partners are interested in a company’s dedication to quality assurance, as well as the importance it places on social and environmental concerns.

“Perception plays a key role,” Frazier said. “The world wants products, not packages. Sustainability is a business. We’ve seen it time and time again — our economic success depends on the economic, environmental and social health of the communities and people we serve.”

Coca-Cola has 700,000 employees in 200 countries and a line of 2,600 products. The company has expanded into soy, dairy and juice markets, and 80 percent of its products are manufactured outside the U.S.

With such a big portfolio, company and supply chain, the company has to focus on basic concepts to remain successful, he said. He recommends food companies:

• Anticipate issues and opportunities;
• Be responsive to threats and problems;
• Be transparent with regulators, the public and employees; and
• Follow the GMPs.

In this way, the company can stay on top of trends. “Before an alarm goes off, we’re able to look at the buzz and make an early assessment.” — Chuck Bowen

Purdue University Technology Uses Live Cells to Quickly Detect Food-Borne Pathogens, Toxins

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Researchers have developed a new technology that can simultaneously screen thousands of samples of food or water for several dangerous food-borne pathogens in one to two hours.

The technique, which has potential food safety applications, also can estimate the amount of microbes present and whether they pose an active health risk. This could help neutralize potential threats and improve food processing techniques, said Arun Bhunia, a professor of food science at Purdue University.

“For food safety and biosecurity purposes, you need a quick test — a first line of defense — to be able to tell if there is something pathogenic in the food or water,” Bhunia said.

The technology utilizes live mammalian cells that release a measurable amount of a signaling chemical when harmed. Optical equipment and computer software then can analyze this quantity to estimate the amount of harmful microbes present, Bhunia said.

“This is very important,” he said. “With many toxins or pathogens, there is an effective dose or threshold you must pass before you have to worry. By providing information on quantity, this technology gives you a higher degree of confidence in the test and what steps must be taken to alleviate the problem.”

The technology can recognize very small amounts of Listeria monocytogenes, a bacterium that kills one in five infected and is the leading cause of food-borne illness. It also recognizes several species of Bacillus, a non-fatal but common cause of food-poisoning, said Pratik Banerjee, a Purdue researcher and first author of a study detailing the technology that is published in the February issue of the journal “Laboratory Investigation.”

The cells are suspended in collagen gel, a useful substance for capturing particles of a desired size, and put into small wells within multi-well plates. Each well can test one sample, so tests can be expanded to quickly analyze as many samples as desired.

By using live cells, called biosensors, this technology can identify actively harmful pathogens but ignore those that are inactive, or harmless. Some analogous tests lack this capability, making them prone to false alarms and entailing a relatively lengthy incubation period to grow out any living microbes, Banerjee said. The new technology’s discerning power also could help optimize processes to kill harmful microbes or deactivate toxins, he said. 

Another advantage to the technique is its mobility and versatility, Bhunia said. The multi-well plates and their contents of gel-suspended mammalian cells could be efficiently prepared in a central location. When desired, the plates could then be shipped to the test location, like a food processing plant, so that analysis could take place on-site, he said.

This technology tests for bacteria and toxins that attack cell membranes. For this reason, researchers employed cells with high amounts of alkaline phosphatase, the signaling chemical released upon damage to the cell membrane. Researchers could conceivably employ other types of cells within this framework to detect additional types of pathogens, Bhunia said.

Samples of food and water are added to biosensor wells before being incubated for one to two hours. To each well a chemical is added that reacts with the biosensor’s alkaline phosphatase, yielding a yellow product quantified by a special camera and a computer. A precise calculation may be unnecessary sometimes, however.

“When a large amount of pathogen is present, you can literally see the color change taking place before your eyes,” Banerjee said.

The suspension of live mammalian cells within a collagen gel is unique, according to the researchers.

“This is the first time that anybody has trapped these kinds of cells alive in a collagen framework,” Bhunia said.

Researchers are trying to get these cells to live within the gel beyond four to six days, a current limitation. But Bhunia said this time-span could be expanded to two weeks, the shelf-life he deems necessary for the technique to have commercial value.

The study was funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Purdue’s Center for Food Safety Engineering.

“This paper outlines two key accomplishments: One, we found a way to immobilize cells, which is a necessary and difficult prerequisite for further study. Two, we are able to simultaneously perform multiple tests on a large number of samples,” Bhunia said.

USDA Receives New Secretary, Under Secretary for Food Safety

WASHINGTON — Ed Schafer was sworn in as the 29th Secretary of the U.S. Department of Agriculture in January.

Born and raised in Bismarck, N.D., Schafer graduated from the University of North Dakota with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and earned an MBA from the University of Denver in 1970.

Schafer brings a record as an innovative two-term governor of North Dakota to USDA along with extensive private sector experience as both an entrepreneur and a business executive.

Shortly after his appointment, Shafter announced the appointment of H. Scott Hurd as Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the USDA agency which protects public health through food safety and defense by ensuring that the nation’s supply of meat, poultry and processed egg products are safe and wholesome.

QA Professionals on the Move

The Food Protection Alliance has hired Stephen Roy as national executive director.

Food Safety Net Services has promoted David Bosco to regional manager for the Western region of the U.S. Dr. Wendy Maduff also was recently named director of technical services. And Lori Ernst joined FSNS as an audit specialist.

Rotex Global has named Robert Dieckman to the position of chief financial officer.

bioMérieux Test Earns AOAC RI Approval

DURHAM, N.C. — bioMérieux received Performance Testing Method (PTM) approval for the food matrix extension for the VIDAS Listeria Species Xpress (LSX) test with Ottaviani Agosti Agar (OAA).

“The data from this evaluation demonstrated equivalent or better performance of the VIDAS LSX test with OAA Agar to the U.S. FDA and USDA reference methods,” said Dr. Sharon Brunelle, technical consultant, AOAC Research Institute. “The VIDAS LSX test now covers a broader food matrix claim to accommodate a variety of food companies.”

Originally, the VIDAS LSX test covered a select group of meats, dairy products and environmental surfaces. The recent AOAC approval expands this group by adding green beans, cauliflower, pasteurized crabmeat, frozen cod fillets, raw unpeeled shrimp, chicken franks and raw ground chicken.

Wal-Mart Becomes First Nationwide U.S. Grocer to Adopt Global Food Safety Initiative Standards

BENTONVILLE, Ark. — Wal-Mart Stores has become the first nationwide U.S. grocery chain to require suppliers of its private label and other food products such as produce, meat, fish, poultry and ready-to-eat foods to have their factories certified against one of the internationally recognized Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) standards.

Selected by the global food business network CIES to safeguard and ensure high quality in the international food supply chain, GFSI standards provide real-time details on where suppliers fall short in food safety on a plant-by-plant basis, and go beyond the current FDA or USDA required audit process.

Under the GFSI program, producers of Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club private label and other foods sold in the U.S. must be audited by independently trained, approved and licensed auditors who are experts in their industry.

“The requirement for suppliers to complete these certifications demonstrates our leadership in food safety and our commitment to global safety standards,” said J.P. Suarez, Wal-Mart’s senior vice president and chief compliance officer, and a board member of the Global Food Safety Initiative. “Food safety has always been a top priority at Wal-Mart. We are taking this additional step to ensure the integrity of our products throughout the entire food supply chain.”

The GFSI requires food suppliers to achieve factory audit certification against one of its recognized standards, which include Safe Quality Food (SQF), British Retail Consortium (BRC), International Food Standard (IFS) or an equivalent, such as Global-GAP. Wal-Mart has published a schedule to suppliers requiring completion of initial certification between July and December of 2008, with full certification required by July 2009. Audits will be completed by approved third party auditing companies.

Internationally, Wal-Mart stores in the United Kingdom (ASDA) and Japan (Seiyu) also require suppliers of food products to comply with GFSI standards.