The United States is in the midst of its biggest overhaul of food safety
regulations in 70 years, but probably has 10 years to go before complete
implementation.
The new rules will impact Canadian food processors that export products to the U.S. and probably will also impact Canadian farmers who ship cattle, hogs or sheep to U.S. packing plants.
The impact on farmers will likely flow from new traceability requirements. Congress is awaiting a report from a pilot program for raw and processed foods and most observers expect that report will recommend a traceability standard that stretches back to the origin of raw products - i.e. to farms.
“HACCP (Hazard Analysis
Critical Control Points) is a good start,” said Mike Robach, vice president of
corporate food safety and regulatory affairs for Cargill, speaking recently at a national conference.
The law requires facilities to assess risk and identify “known or
reasonably foreseeable “ hazards; develop a written analysis of the hazard;
identify and implement preventive controls; monitor the effectiveness of
preventive controls; develop necessary corrective actions; verify that
effectiveness; and maintain records for two years with a reanalysis every three
years.
“These controls should be outcome-based, not prescriptive,” Robach
added. “That way the industry can continue to innovate … to improve overall
safety.”
Traceability and recordkeeping are also part of the new rules, said Hank
Lambert, general manager of Underwriters Laboratories’ Global Food and Water
Businesses, which has developed a standard – UL 2757 – that sets out minimum
requirements for data set transfer between trading partners to establish
product traceability.
“The intent is not to impose new technologies but rather to take
existing solutions and make them interoperable,” Lambert added.
