Meat + Poultry - November 2010 - 20

Washington
BY BERNARD SHIRE
meatpoultry@sosland.com

Auditing implications
If you mention food safety to Americans, the thought that probably
crosses their minds in most cases is
government inspection. While the
average American may not know
a lot about how food is kept safe in
the United States, they at least have
a vague idea that food is inspected
by government inspectors, but they
might not know whether the inspectors work for USDA, FDA or states.
But if you told the average consumer out there that much "inspection"
is carried out by private companies,
they would likely be surprised, or have
no idea such "inspection" takes place.
Government inspection and private third-party, food-safety auditing
are two very different things. The recent egg recall, the largest in American
history, raised the specter of foodborne

"Why would a company
rehire an auditor if they're
given a bad review?"
illness outbreaks taking place despite
third-party, food-safety audits. A report in Congress about the recent
Wright County Eggs Co. egg recall in
Iowa showed one of the egg-processing
plants had recently earned a "superior"
rating from a food-safety auditing firm.
While it was clear that the firm's rating
was issued two months before Wright
was implicated as part of the egg recall, the distinction between auditing
and inspection was a source of confusion. Third-party firms make it clear
that "inspections" include a physical
review of a facility to assess operations
at a moment in time. Audits, on the
other hand, ensure compliance with
benchmarked standards, identify efficiencies, asess trends and are used
to achieve certification.

Protection or oversight?
Companies producing food Americans eat use third-party audits to
ensure their supplies contain no

pathogens and is safe to process. In
a sense, an independent third-party
auditor serves as a watchdog for the
processor and the retailer. It is the responsibility of the third-party auditor
to make sure, for example, the company it buys ingredients from has a
clean plant producing safe supplies.
But third-party audits are not the
food-safety silver bullet many people
might think. For example, according
to USA Today, the Peanut Corporation of America's Texas-based plant,
which was linked to peanut products
that made more than 600 people sick,
had recently received a "superior" rating from its third-party auditing firm,
but later was found to be producing
peanut paste containing Salmonella.
How could that happen? While
government inspection programs aim
to fi nd pathogens in food products,
third-party auditors are hired by a
company to ensure their supply chain
is delivering safe products produced
in sanitary environments. Ironically,
third-party auditors have sprung up
because many processors or retailers
don't believe the government inspection agencies are doing as good of a
job as they should.
Part of the problem is in the eyes
of the government - meat, poultry
and egg inspection and meat, poultry
and egg grading, for example, are two
very different activities. According to
USDA, inspection for wholesomeness
and safety is mandatory under US law,
and is paid for using US tax dollars.
Grading is quality focused and is voluntary and financed by meat, poultry
or egg producers or processors.

Focus on quality control
The other problem with auditing is it
tends to be more of a voluntary quality-control system, where auditors are
hired by food manufacturers. The
goal may be directed more to protecting business than food safety. What
results can be confl icts of interest in

20 * Meat&Poultry * November 2010 * www.MeatPoultry.com

independent inspections.
"For USDA-inspected foods, you
have two levels of inspection - foodsafety inspection by FSIS and quality
inspection by the Agricultural Marketing Service," says Caroline Smith
DeWaal, director of food safety for the
Center for Science in the Public Interest. "So, these [auditing] firms arose
for what the food industry felt was a
real need for better oversight.
"But un li ke USDA, wh ich
has both types of inspection carried out separately - food safety and
quality - you have FDA inspection
and then inspection carried out by
these third-party auditing companies."
The major problem with third-party
auditing is a built-in conflict of interest,
according to DeWaal. "These auditing
companies are often being paid by the
food company being inspected by the
auditor, not the food company receiving the food products. Of course, that
results in a built-in conflict of interest,
when you have the company being inspected paying for it. So economics
works against the system being effective," she says.
Pressure can mount for the audit
to come out a certain way, rather than
what is actually taking place at the
plant. She believes there needs to be
government oversight of the auditing
companies. And customers should be
paying for the audit, not the companies being audited or inspected. "Why
would a company rehire an auditor if
they're given a bad review?" she retorts. Meanwhile, federal legislation
designed to strengthen food inspection at FDA is scheduled to be considered by Congress during its upcoming
lame-duck session. ■
Bernard Shire is M&P's Washington correspondent, a contributing editor and a feature writer
based in Lancaster, Pa. Shire also works as a
food safety consultant and writer for Shire & Associates LLC.
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Meat + Poultry - November 2010

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