Baking&Snack - June 2012 - 109

FOOD SAFETY

Q &A

Joe Stout
Bakeries and snack manufacturing plants must ensure the foods they produce are safe for consumers. While much of that responsibility rests upon the sanitors who clean the equipment and manufacturing areas, the entire company has an obligation for food safety. With the Food and Drug Administration currently working on news rules and regulations as part of the Food Safety

Modernization Act (FSMA), which President Obama signed into law in January 2011, companies should already be considering the preventive controls to reduce potential contamination of foods. Joe Stout, founder and CEO of Commercial Food Sanitation LLC, Libertyville, IL, has more than 35 years of experience in quality and sanitation, including nearly 30 years at Kraft Foods, where he spend his final 10 years as global director of product protection, sanitation and hygienic design. Mr. Stout is committed to the improving quality, food safety and operational effectiveness by providing ongoing support and leadership in sanitation.

Developing a Food Safety Culture
Bakeries and snack manufacturers need people focused on following and documenting procedures to ensure safe foods.
Lucy Sutton: What are the most vital food safety challenges for the baking and snack industries in 2012 and why?
Joe Stout: Food safety challenges abound in the baking and snack sector. I would say several distinct areas of concern raise these to the challenge level. The first would be allergen management. This is a challenge from a few perspectives. First, being able to get the labels to match what is in the package. It sounds simple, but line speeds, formulation complexity and confusion in label generation — such as common appearance of labels for allergens and non-allergens, mixed labels coming from suppliers, and cross contamination from line to line — can all impact this challenge. Getting this right takes planning and perfect execution. During the past five quarters, the majority of the food industry’s recalls were because of allergens rather than a specific pathogen. We need to do a better job with this. www.bakingandsnack.com The second challenge is with pathogens. Just because a product tests negative for a pathogen doesn’t mean it would be considered acceptable. It also needs to be manufactured and stored in a sanitary environment — where pathogen presence is fully controlled — to be in regulatory compliance with Food Drug and Cosmetic Act 402 A. The act states, “A food shall be deemed to be adulterated if it has been prepared, packed or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health.” Finally, the third challenge I see is to generate the necessary documentation — hazard analysis and associated preventive controls — expected under FSMA. This could be a challenge for companies with less developed documentation. Significant documentation will be required to meet the anticipated FSMA regulations. Many companies have begun to prepare for this with hazard analysis, preventive plans and sanitation standard operating procedures (SSOPs) development. Some companies have formed teams at the corporate level to organize this work across their organization. However, few companies have addressed the culture issue. Documentation systems are important, but even more critical is to establish a culture of food safety at the corporate level and deep within the plant culture. A company needs to be assured all employees are trained and educated in food safety and troubleshooting the procedures they are using. We need an army of food industry employees who are dedicated and consistently focused on following procedures and documenting them as their work is completed. President Obama’s signature on FSMA does not automatically make this happen. It is up to all of us in the industry to get this right. Consumers are counting on us. June 2012 / Baking & Snack / 109

What sort of changes in culture do companies have to make to address the heightened awareness of food safety today?

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Baking&Snack - June 2012

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