We are well aware of the “Farm to Fork” concept when talking about food safety. We are also well aware of the requirements for effective recall systems in food businesses.
However more and more frequently the farm is is one country, processing in another and consumers in a third, fourth or more countries. We are also seeing products being shipped raw to one country for processing and returned to the country of origin for packaging and domestic sale or export.
Investigation of issues become even more complicated if the contaminant is in an ingredient, such as occurred with New Zealand's Whey Protein Concentrate (Karicare) recall in 2013.
So what happens when things go wrong?
By exploring a few recent international food safety incidents, including our Whey Protein Concentrate (Karicare) recall I intend to show that simply knowing about an adverse event in your country is no longer enough. Food Safety Authorities must develop effective, efficient, robust and timely incident notification systems to inform implicated countries. Those notification systems also need to provide sufficient information to enable any Foreign Agencies with food safety responsibilities to act promptly, and I intend to identify what that information should be.
This presentation appears to offer insight into a timely real case incident and also quite relevant to activities associated with the USFDA Food Safety Moderization Act practices.
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