This brief reports about safety protocols in the food producing industry. Hygiene, i.e., the prevention of contamination and microbial infections, is of greatest importance in the industry, as are disinfection techniques, to prevent or to fight microbial contaminations and infections, and practical emerging concerns are centered around these fundamental concerns. The first part focuses on the attempts and possibilities to prevent microbial spreading. Part II discusses disinfection techniques and their risks, advantages and disadvantages. Current industry trends, such as the attempts to substitute chlorine in disinfection, are critically reviewed. In all, this brief volume discusses decision procedures and strategies that are being applied to prevent, reduce and fight microbial spreading. In particular, material that comes into contact with the foods, has to fulfill strict requirements. This aspect is explained in detail, and how little details can have great effects. The brief deals with the important question: is disinfection more an ally or an enemy?

How safe is our food supply? Each year the media report what appears to be growing concern related to illness caused by the food consumed by Americans. These food borne illnesses are caused by pathogenic microorganisms, pesticide residues, and food additives. Recent actions taken at the federal, state, and local levels in response to the increase in reported incidences of food borne illnesses point to the need to evaluate the food safety system in the United States. This book assesses the effectiveness of the current food safety system and provides recommendations on changes needed to ensure an effective science-based food safety system. Ensuring Safe Food discusses such important issues as: What are the primary hazards associated with the food supply? What gaps exist in the current system for ensuring a safe food supply? What effects do trends in food consumption have on food safety? What is the impact of food preparation and handling practices in the home, in food services, or in production operations on the risk of food borne illnesses? What organizational changes in responsibility or oversight could be made to increase the effectiveness of the food safety system in the United States? Current concerns associated with microbiological, chemical, and physical hazards in the food supply are discussed. The book also considers how changes in technology and food processing might introduce new risks. Recommendations are made on steps for developing a coordinated, unified system for food safety. The book also highlights areas that need additional study. Ensuring Safe Food will be important for policymakers, food trade professionals, food producers, food processors, food researchers, public health professionals, and consumers.

Food Safety: Emerging Issues, Technologies and Systems offers a systems approach to learning how to understand and address some of the major complex issues that have emerged in the food industry. The book is broad in coverage and provides a foundation for a practical understanding in food safety initiatives and safety rules, how to deal with whole-chain traceability issues, handling complex computer systems and data, foodborne pathogen detection, production and processing compliance issues, safety education, and more. Recent scientific industry developments are written by experts in the field and explained in a manner to improve awareness, education and communication of these issues. - Examines effective control measures and molecular techniques for understanding specific pathogens - Presents GFSI implementation concepts and issues to aid in implementation - Demonstrates how operation processes can achieve a specific level of microbial reduction in food - Offers tools for validating microbial data collected during processing to reduce or eliminate microorganisms in foods

Recent outbreaks of illnesses traced to contaminated sprouts and lettuce illustrate the holes that exist in the system for monitoring problems and preventing foodborne diseases. Although it is not solely responsible for ensuring the safety of the nation's food supply, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversees monitoring and intervention for 80 percent of the food supply. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's abilities to discover potential threats to food safety and prevent outbreaks of foodborne illness are hampered by impediments to efficient use of its limited resources and a piecemeal approach to gathering and using information on risks. Enhancing Food Safety: The Role of the Food and Drug Administration, a new book from the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, responds to a congressional request for recommendations on how to close gaps in FDA's food safety systems. Enhancing Food Safety begins with a brief review of the Food Protection Plan (FPP), FDA's food safety philosophy developed in 2007. The lack of sufficient detail and specific strategies in the FPP renders it ineffectual. The book stresses the need for FPP to evolve and be supported by the type of strategic planning described in these pages. It also explores the development and implementation of a stronger, more effective food safety system built on a risk-based approach to food safety management. Conclusions and recommendations include adopting a risk-based decision-making approach to food safety; creating a data surveillance and research infrastructure; integrating federal, state, and local government food safety programs; enhancing efficiency of inspections; and more. Although food safety is the responsibility of everyone, from producers to consumers, the FDA and other regulatory agencies have an essential role. In many instances, the FDA must carry out this responsibility against a backdrop of multiple stakeholder interests, inadequate resources, and competing priorities. Of interest to the food production industry, consumer advocacy groups, health care professionals, and others, Enhancing Food Safety provides the FDA and Congress with a course of action that will enable the agency to become more efficient and effective in carrying out its food safety mission in a rapidly changing world.

Globalization of the food supply has created conditions favorable for the emergence, reemergence, and spread of food-borne pathogens-compounding the challenge of anticipating, detecting, and effectively responding to food-borne threats to health. In the United States, food-borne agents affect 1 out of 6 individuals and cause approximately 48 million illnesses, 128,000 hospitalizations, and 3,000 deaths each year. This figure likely represents just the tip of the iceberg, because it fails to account for the broad array of food-borne illnesses or for their wide-ranging repercussions for consumers, government, and the food industry-both domestically and internationally. A One Health approach to food safety may hold the promise of harnessing and integrating the expertise and resources from across the spectrum of multiple health domains including the human and veterinary medical and plant pathology communities with those of the wildlife and aquatic health and ecology communities. The IOM's Forum on Microbial Threats hosted a public workshop on December 13 and 14, 2011 that examined issues critical to the protection of the nation's food supply. The workshop explored existing knowledge and unanswered questions on the nature and extent of food-borne threats to health. Participants discussed the globalization of the U.S. food supply and the burden of illness associated with foodborne threats to health; considered the spectrum of food-borne threats as well as illustrative case studies; reviewed existing research, policies, and practices to prevent and mitigate foodborne threats; and, identified opportunities to reduce future threats to the nation's food supply through the use of a "One Health" approach to food safety. Improving Food Safety Through a One Health Approach: Workshop Summary covers the events of the workshop and explains the recommendations for future related workshops.

This Brief provides a general description of the European Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed (RASFF). It describes the RASFF approach on the legal level and with reference to notification procedures, including also new tools, which were launched in 2014: iRASFF and the RASFF Consumer Portal. In an introduction, the present status of the RASFF, which had originally been introduced in 1979, is briefly reviewed. It is described as the main basis of modern food policy in Europe, enabling member countries to take rapid corrective actions on the one hand, and to perform statistically reliable analyses of food-related hazards on the other hand. One chapter contains a statistical evaluation of RASFF notifications in general, and specifically with regard to chemical contaminants, including also allergens. In another chapter, reasons for rejections of food and feed at the European borders are analyzed in selected case studies. The Brief provides an easy description for the chemical dangers and contaminants it is referring to, outlining the names, properties, uses and importance in the food and feed industry, toxicological effects, and contamination sources. The last chapter offers an outlook on the future of the RASFF and possible expectations.

Food safety regulators face a daunting task: crafting food safety performance standards and systems that continue in the tradition of using the best available science to protect the health of the American public, while working within an increasingly antiquated and fragmented regulatory framework. Current food safety standards have been set over a period of years and under diverse circumstances, based on a host of scientific, legal, and practical constraints. Scientific Criteria to Ensure Safe Food lays the groundwork for creating new regulations that are consistent, reliable, and ensure the best protection for the health of American consumers. This book addresses the biggest concerns in food safetyâ€"including microbial disease surveillance plans, tools for establishing food safety criteria, and issues specific to meat, dairy, poultry, seafood, and produce. It provides a candid analysis of the problems with the current system, and outlines the major components of the task at hand: creating workable, streamlined food safety standards and practices.