TRACEABILITY UPDATE

The following article was in the Packer last week...... The headline states that the FDA is waiting on more input...and they refer to the IFT report as part of that input.... If you are wondering what direction to go on traceability for the food industry, FoodTRACE is the only complete package available at a reasonable price to meet all current and expected government criteria. We continue to communicate with the FDA and others and our confident that we are ready to announce and release our program very soon.

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FDA awaits more input on traceability solutions
Published on 09/21/2009 10:52am By Tom Karst

COLLEGE PARK, Md. — While praising the industry’s efforts on the Produce Traceability Initiative, Food and Drug Administration officials told the Washington Public Policy Conference that the agency continues to study the issue as it considers future guidance.

The FDA is trying to be more proactive in working with industry to determine distribution patterns of fresh produce items potentially linked to foodborne illnesses.

"We’ve had some real issues with traceback,” said Sherri McGarry, food safety official with the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. One specific challenge is trying to “connect the dots” of all the handlers throughout the distribution chain, she said. “Very often, growers will say when they know what we are receiving and what we send out, but we can’t link the
shipments up,” she said.

The FDA began talking with the industry in 2008 about product tracing technology. In addition, the FDA has contracted for studies on traceability, including one soon to be released report that examines industry practices regarding traceability.

That report will look at the costs and benefits of traceability, and McGarry said that study from the Institute of Food Technologists is expected to be issued sometime in September.
“Essentially, we really need to improve product tracing,” she said. McGarry also briefed attendees on the nature of produce outbreaks since 1996. From 1996 to 2008, she said that the FDA investigations have counted 77 foodborne illness outbreaks related to fresh produce and another 27 outbreaks attributed to fresh sprouts. Among other FDA-regulated food, that
compares with 207 outbreaks associated with eggs, 21 linked to dairy products, 37 tied to processed food and 114 connected with seafood.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture regulates meat and those statistics were not included in the FDA presentation. Meanwhile, McGarry said the FDA has estimated that fresh produce has resulted in the most confirmed illnesses during the 1996 to 2008 period. With 9,000 attributed illnesses, fresh produce compares with eggs (6,609), dairy (349) and processed foods (3,684) among FDA regulated foods.

Overall, fresh produce accounted for about 16% of foodborne illness outbreaks among FDA regulated products, but 39% of illnesses. Fresh produce accounted for 15 deaths from 1996 to 2008, she said. She said sprouts accounted for 5.7% of the outbreaks and 6.3% of the illnesses.
Among fresh produce commodities, she said leafy greens accounted for 34% of the outbreaks, tomatoes 17% and melons 16%.

For additional information regarding the FoodTRACE system...please email us at info@usfoodtrace.com.

DOLLARS and SENSE

There have been more questions than answers to this question and searching for an accurate answer is not easy but it is possible. There have been two publicly made statements regarding the cost of traceability with regard to the PTI.

One was made by the PMA in their submission to the FDA in early 2008. This refers to the cost to the industry as "hundreds of millions" of dollars and the submission indicated years to implement.

More recently on a webcast by Redline solutions, a major grower shipper representative indicated that the Redline solution would work and he estimated the cost of compliance to the PTI would be between $0.10 and $0.20 per carton.

That same company using the FoodTRACE system would pay LESS than 1/2 cent per carton for full compliance.

Although the PTI initiative won't be implementable for quite some time, FoodTRACE next week is running a live test for the purpose of final preparation of readiness for implementation. We will be tracing electronically product from Mexico, across the border into a U.S. facility, to a distribution center and on to stores.