Although some time has passed, last year’s SQF 2018 Conference in Atlanta, Georgia is still ringing in my mind. Like many of the attendees and exhibitors I left the conference with a rejuvenated sense of focus and intensity with regards to improving the state of food safety not just here in North America, but around […]
Another year, another leafy green recall. As Yogi Berra once said, it’s like Déjà vu all over again. If it seems like you’ve heard this news before it’s because you have. In fact, according to the team over at Barfblog, you’ve heard it more than 40 times over the past 20 years. Unfortunately for all, […]
The older that I get, the more that I realize I have started to become the person that I never wanted to be. One that tells stories that start with “When I was your age….”. All too often I find myself telling one of my children a story that begins with that phrase, only to […]
Bob didn’t even get a chance to have a sip of coffee before he noticed the blinking red light on his phone indicating that a voice message was waiting for him. As he moved papers around his desk he entered his password into his phone and started reviewing the messages from the weekend. The first […]
In the 90’s, the food industry was rocked by one food safety crisis after another, such as BSE, Dioxin, and Listeria. Consumer confidence was effectively in the tank, and food companies were becoming desperate for help. The world’s leading food safety experts from manufacturing, retail, and food service, as well as service providers from within […]
Donald Trump recently surprised not only the skeptics, but his ardent supporters (and quite possibly, even himself) by winning the recent US presidential election. While there is a significant amount of people concerned with what the future holds with Trump leading the nation, it’s no surprise that companies within the food industry are questioning what […]
By now it should be no surprise to U.S. based food manufacturing companies that calling FSMA a comprehensive piece of legislation is putting it lightly. We already had laws on the books, and HACCP-based food safety programs were widely used when GFSI hit our shores last decade the “food safety bar” was raised and companies […]
Over the past century there have been many legislative attempts at defining the best practices for food safety, food security, and finally food defense. The early 1900’s saw the introduction of the Federal Meat Inspection Act, followed by the FD&C Act, and a myriad of CFR’s including Good Manufacturing Practices. In 2002 the Homeland Security […]
Before I started to write the world’s best blog post on Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP), I made the prerequisite cup of coffee and spread out pages of handwritten notes, several printed articles and legal opinion papers on the subject. The first 4 or 5 rough drafts I created were quickly deleted as I was having […]
More than half of all American households have a pet dog or cat. With an estimated 71.6m dogs and 73.6m cats in the United States alone it is no surprise the pet food industry is booming. Over 8 million metric tons of food and treats are shifted nationally each year to the value of $21.4bn. […]
