Milling & Baking News - June 16, 2009 - 30

Washington

Bakers seeks carefully crafted approach to food safety reform
Continued from Page 1

officer of the A.B.A., and Lee Sanders, senior vice-president
of government relations and public affairs for the A.B.A. It
was directed to Representative Henry Waxman of California,
chairman of the committee, and to Representative Joe Barton
of Texas, ranking minority member of the committee.
While wary of the funding sources under consideration,
the bakers said they strongly support increased F.D.A. funding to provide "the most immediate impact on food safety."
"F.D.A. is in need of additional funding
if they are to meet current food safety mandates, much less possible new requirements,"
the A.B.A. said.
Of concern, though, are provisions in the
Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 that
would attempt to address budget shortfalls
through new facility registration fees, taxes MacKie
that the A.B.A. said would "create a costly
burden on the domestic food industry for large and particularly small businesses."
Even more worrisome, the letter said, is wording that
could apply registration fees not only to manufacturing facilities but also to depots/distribution centers.
"Current estimates show that approximately 10% of bakery registered facilities are used to produce baked goods
while approximately 90% of all baking industry facilities registered with the F.D.A. merely store finished food

PES
T
T
hermal Peet Management

TREAT WITH HEAT
With over 15 years experience of providing a
100% clean, safe alternative for your pest control
concerns, Pest-Heat is your modern day solution
for insect eradication in food processing and
storage facility applications.
I
�rmrr . T....

Pest-Heat specializes in heat
treatments of an entire structure or
spot treatment while other sections of
the structure can continue to operate.
1 877 234 5630

www.pestheat.com
30 / June 16, 2009

Milling & Baking News

products for 24 hours or less," the A.B.A. said. "These proposed registration fees would disproportionately impact
the baking industry over other food producers."
Explaining its concerns about COOL, the A.B.A. questioned the need for such labeling. The complexity of baking ingredient sourcing would make COOL especially difficult.
"For example, wheat milled in New York may have been
grown in the United States, Canada, Australia, Russia, Argentina or many other countries that export
to the United States," the A.B.A. said. Such
an example may be made with any number
of baking ingredients, the bakers added.
"A.B.A. firmly believes that COOL would
prove to be unworkable, too complex to implement on processed foods, very expensive and
resource intensive for bakers while doing nothSanders
ing to improve public health," the bakers said.
Even stronger skepticism was expressed toward the potential implementation of pedigree standards for ingredients. While the A.B.A. supports the traceability approach
adopted in the Bioterrorism Act of 2002, the group described as "unachievable" various requirements aimed at
creating a food ingredient pedigree.
"Pedigree requirements are not feasible for complex baked
products that may contain upward of 50 different ingredients produced from all over the world," the letter said.
Additionally, the bakers said a comprehensive pedigree
would provide no public health or food safety benefit and
would create confusion, rather than precision, in the event
of a food contamination incident, erroneously implicating a
range of ingredient sources.
As an alternative to rash action, the A.B.A. noted the
baking industry is working with the Institute of Food Technologists and the F.D.A. to "better understand the impacts
of traceability practices and requirements on food producers." The A.B.A. said any congressional action should be
based upon similar study.
Proposals to increase F.D.A. access to food industry records also drew a wary response.
"F.D.A. should be required to take measures to ensure
that effective procedures are in place to prevent the unauthorized disclosure of any trade secrets or confidential information obtained through expanded records access," the
A.B.A. said.
Explaining its support of a good third-party certification
system, the A.B.A. said reliable certification would eliminate the need for "prescriptive food safety reforms" that
potentially are not a good fit for a particular food company
or commodity.
"A.B.A. supports a robust third-party certification program, acceptable throughout the U.S. chain of food distribution," the letter said.
Mr. MacKie and Ms. Sanders concluded the letter with
words of support for a risk-based approach to food safety
legislation.
"Food safety legislation should make clear that the requirements to establish food safety plans is grounded in
risk-based hazard analysis and preventive controls is limited to facilities that actually manufacture food," the A.B.A.
said. "Facilities that merely hold finished food products
in final packaged form are extremely low risk facilities for
the baking industry. Resources would be better focused on
high risk facilities." MBN
bakingbusiness.com / world-grain.com

http://www.pest http://www.bakingbusiness.com http://www.world-grain.com

Milling & Baking News - June 16, 2009

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Milling & Baking News - June 16, 2009