One key area of critical infrastructure protection, as outlined in Presidents Homeland Security Presidential Directive-9 (HSPD-9), is enhancing the protection of food and agriculture defense. Securing an increasingly global food supply-chain, however, has proven a daunting challenge as witnessed by the series of high-profile food-poisoning cases in the past five years involving bagged spinach, lettuce, tomatoes, wheat flour from China, hot peppers from Mexico and last winter a salmonella outbreak apparently related to peanut products blamed for killing several people, sickening hundreds more and leading to the recall of more than 1,500 peanut-related products.
To address the task of better ensuring the supply-chain The Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) last week released a report from the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), which recommends clear objectives be set for all users of a simpler, globally accepted food supply chain.
The report, titled Product Tracing in Food Systems, was commissioned as part of the agency’s ongoing examination of food product tracing practices.
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