New IFT Report Recommends Improvements to Traceability in Food Supply Chain
Last week, the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN) released a report from the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), which recommends clear objectives be set to improve the ability of government and industry to trace food products throughout all stages of the supply chain.
As I have posted about before (see here and here, for example), food can become contaminated at any of the many different steps in the supply chain. Improved tracing could help:
- identify products associated with contamination more quickly,
- improve the efficiency and speed of response time following the identification of a contaminated product,
- reduce the number of illnesses associated with foodborne illness outbreaks,
- and maintain consumer confidence following what the industry calls a “food safety triggering event.”
It’s obvious, then, that enhanced trace back helps mitigate risks for food manufacturers. What’s more, according to the IFT, improved traceability systems benefit food manufacturers in a variety of other ways, too, including:
- lower cost distribution systems,
- reduced recall expenses,
- and increased sales of products with attributes that are difficult to discern.
“In every case, the benefits of traceability translate into larger net revenues for the manufacturer,” the IFT says.
The IFT report findings and recommendations to the FDA are available here.
