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The Benefits of a National Traceback System

By Pritzker | Ruohonen

The Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak, which now has over 1200 confirmed cases, could have been much smaller if the technology was in place to effectively trace the source of foodborne outbreaks.
According to the Associated Press,

The salmonella outbreak has set off a scramble among industry, regulators and lawmakers to devise a system that would allow food to be traced quickly through a serpentine supply chain that spans nations and continents.

"We clearly have the technology to trace food from field to fork, but we don't have any national system to coordinate it," said Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo.

Canada already uses an electronic tracing system to track cattle. Cattle ranchers produce a report that shows farms, auction pens, and feed lots that their cattle stopped in from birth to slaughterhouse.  The same technology is now being adapted in the U.S. produce industry.

Dr. David Acheson, the Food and Drug Administration's food safety chief, says a better tracing system needs three key components: a unique identifier that follows each food item from field to consumer, electronic record keeping and a common framework for sharing information among all the players.

"It is unquestionable that we need to put more emphasis on the importance of traceability," said Acheson. "Tracing foods back can be really tough, or pretty straightforward, depending on the system."

Some retailers, such as Costco, already require a certain level of traceback. Costco annually audits its suppliers to make sure they are receiving safe products. FoodLogiQ, a North Carolina-based company that handles Canada’s cattle tracing uses radio frequency ID tags to trace cattle movement.  FoodLogiQ believes that a simple label on packages aren’t helpful enough and that the most effective way of tracking is to constantly track what places through which the product moves. FoodLogiQ’s system was used to traceback a case of mad cow disease in Canada in 2003.

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on July 26, 2008 (boomark / email).