8 replies to this topic

[hSusan]

I've been watching news like this with interest for some time: http://www.foodprodu...ina-melamine-gm

I do buy a lot of ethnic groceries, and, working in food safety (and having access to food safety incident reports) had begun to wonder if there was reason to be concerned.

A couple of years ago, the New Zealand Food Safety Authority presented their findings from their assessment of food safety risk factors for NZ - concluding that their biggest potential risk source for food illness was from imported foods.

Not long after (last year) I noted some newspaper articles discussing food safety controls in various Asian countries which also cited recent food safety incidences (Eg. heavy metal contamination in fish - China).

And of course, this article continues in the same vein.

So firstly: Say you're a food safety manager in a company that uses imported foods. How do you take this discussion? Obviously no-one should go into a knee jerk reaction - so what's the realistic next step? And, would there be any likelihood of avoiding, say, Chinese ingredients until further notice?

Secondly, if you are a regular buyer of ethnic products (retail level), given the lack of direct access to food safety information, what is a reasonable approach? Stop buying? Buy based on marketing (eg. "HACCP certified" etc)? Buy based on trusted brands? And this doesn't necessarily apply only to products from ethnic groceries (by this I mean products manufactured under other countries' food regulatory systems). For instance, Australia's Greenseas' snack tuna products are (I believe) produced and packed in Thailand.

I can't wait to hear people's thoughts

[cazyncymru]

Secondly, if you are a regular buyer of ethnic products (retail level), given the lack of direct access to food safety information, what is a reasonable approach? Stop buying? Buy based on marketing (eg. "HACCP certified" etc)? Buy based on trusted brands? And this doesn't necessarily apply only to products from ethnic groceries (by this I mean products manufactured under other countries' food regulatory systems). For instance, Australia's Greenseas' snack tuna products are (I believe) produced and packed in Thailand.

I can't wait to hear people's thoughts

Interesting topic hSusan, and like you say ther have been plenty of scares regading food safety, and not with ethnic products either. (Sudan 1, Chinese muchrooms etc)

As for trusted brands well i'd have thought Cadbury's was deemed a "trusted brand"!!!

Although obviously not an ethnic product, but it doesn't stop the big boys from flouting the law.


oops Simon, i said the "C" word!!

Edited by cazyncymru, 11 July 2007 - 09:38 AM.

[Charles.C]

Dear Susan,

Topical if perhaps provocative post.

A couple of years ago, the New Zealand Food Safety Authority presented their findings from their assessment of food safety risk factors for NZ - concluding that their biggest potential risk source for food illness was from imported foods.

Surprising conclusion ? Would be interested to see some raw data. I guess NZ biggest trading partners are Australia and ?

I’m not exactly sure what ethnic groceries covers and where you currently source however if I may present some hard general data, here is a nice annual summary (2005) of (alerts / new problems) into the EU sub-divided into products, problems, geographical areas, countries of origin (approx. 120 ) etc etc. (An analysis by volume of trade would also have been useful).
 alert_report_2005.pdf   1.88MB   55 downloads
The report particularly lacks one feature which is a relative assessment of safety risk for individual items / categories. I think Australia includes such evaluations in their equivalent reports but these are not publicly available? I personally found the purely numerical entries on Pg32 often rather surprising and some of the trend lines on Pg34 disturbing (although again not volume weighted.)

The general technical route is of course based on supplier approval which I’m sure you are doing already ?
My recommendation would be a mixture of paper requirements such as you mention plus an audit of the producer as a primary protection, either by yourself or an acceptable 3rd party. Independent auditors of course make a very large business from this aspect, may not be cheap but may save you a fortune. (Not an auditor myself!). It is also possible to insure for certain parameters though again it’s usually expensive.
Unfortunately even systems such as HACCP cannot foresee all possibilities whether inadvertent or otherwise. Caveat emptor!

Rgds / Charles.C

[hSusan]

Hi Charles,
Fabulous document! I do agree some of the trends are disturbing, and even more, that the picture needs to be matched with volume weighting.

I'm not sure who Australia's main trading partners are with respect to food.. going back to my own purchasing habits, my main interest would be in Chinese, Vietnamese, Malaysian, Singaporean, Indian, Sri Lankan, Thai, Indonesian & Taiwanese foods - generally ingredients & staples (noodles, rice, spices, stock bases) but also prepared foods including snacks (canned foods, preserved fruits, savoury snacks).

Certainly the big supermarket chains here do not spend much time assessing the fitness of such suppliers. But then they don't stock most of this stuff - so I go back to the local Asian grocery shops - who are even less likely to question their suppliers. As a retail consumer therefore there is little concrete assurance that the products I see are safe to buy.

Food manufacturers have more control of course - using supplier assurance mechanisms such as you've outlined. But how many could say they are as confident in their programs as they need to be (given all their competing priorities)?

When I see reports like those on the Chinese issues, I really wonder how a retail consumer should respond.

[Charles.C]

Dear Susan,

When I see reports like those on the Chinese issues, I really wonder how a retail consumer should respond.

Yes, and not only the consumer.

Certainly the big supermarket chains here do not spend much time assessing the fitness of such suppliers. But then they don't stock most of this stuff - so I go back to the local Asian grocery shops - who are even less likely to question their suppliers. As a retail consumer therefore there is little concrete assurance that the products I see are safe to buy.

This is surprising to me. The activity of EU supermarkets tends to be the exact opposite IMEX. I guess this is particularly driven by the legal "due diligence” set-up, perhaps the system is different where you are?

I think your present post may be interpretable as - how to trust the official external (E) / internal (I) control systems involved based on current events.?

HACCP of course rightly promulgates control at source ( promoted by systems like competent authority[EU] and MOUs [ USA / Canada?], Australia ??). Otherwise, the use of import control systems immediately (unfortunately) involves cost-effectiveness, eg how much / type of “error” can you tolerate? (I am guessing that many of yr product types are not in the main focus of yr existing import control systems also?)
How well do these systems work ? in the case of EU, some cumulative idea of their findings is available on their website and alert documents but I have never seen any comparative system evaluations.? In the case of melamine / toothpaste, seems to be agreed that I / E both "failed" but then again, what is generally acceptable ?

I realise this is not a particularly comforting comment for the specific type of scenario you queried, hopefully someone else will have a more encouraging view.

Rgds / Charles.C

[Esther]

Hello hSusan

From my experience, I just can say that it is really difficult for a retail consumer to carry out food safety controls on the products bought.

First, the retail consumer has no the means & resources to control its suppliers normally

Second, even reading the labelling, you may not get the information you want or that information can be missed out because there are mechanisms to do it.
Imagine you import a meat from China to a european country. If you are a manufacter, and that meat is combined with others ingredients to produce a meat preparation, on the label will be no mention to the origin of that meat.

Regarding inspections on borders, well, I do know what to say, sometimes I think that it is based only in paperwork which is not very effective; on the other hand I understand that it may be complicated to control the huge among of containers unloading in a big port.

This is just a piece of my opinion regarding the issue of imports.

Sincerely

Esther

[Chac]

Hi at all

I´ve just heard bad about bad news from Germany concerning this topic:
Scientist from a czech laboratory discovered that in guar flour the dioxinconcentration is 150 times higher than it should be. It is also said that this concerns guar flour made out of plants coming from India, using to much of a dioxin containing fungicide.
The guar flour was used in yoghurt. The producer recalled all his products and so did a lot of other producers.
My company works with guar flour products too and now they have to find out whether the guar comes from India or not.

Here is the article for those who understand german:
http://www.focus.de/..._aid_68454.html

Greetings Chac

[Charles.C]

Dear Chac,

....whether the guar comes from India or not

Have no experience guar but I appreciate that when buying items like breading all kinds of flour blends are involved with unknown origins (to the user anyway). I wonder if manufacturer's typically request origin details for things like this (and if so, receive them, particularly where intermediate suppliers are involved). My guess is that a supplier's general guarantee is more usual. Could consider this a non-trivial HACCP type error, particularly in the event of cases such as you refer.

added -

BTW, Newsgirl seems to have just seen the English version of yr link -
http://www.ifsqn.com...?showtopic=7696


@ Esther

Regarding inspections on borders, well, I do know what to say, sometimes I think that it is based only in paperwork which is not very effective; on the other hand I understand that it may be complicated to control the huge among of containers unloading in a big port.

This is the exact dilemma that the USFDA are facing now (not for the first time ). The EU seem to have opted for the "Competent Authority" system at this time but I think US are fundamentally reluctant to delegate such external authority.

Rgds / Charles.C

[Simon]

This is surprising to me. The activity of EU supermarkets tends to be the exact opposite IMEX. I guess this is particularly driven by the legal "due diligence” set-up, perhaps the system is different where you are?

Yes and hence the introduction of the BRC Standards. Job done and push the cost on to the supplier.