Today’s post is by Ron Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing.

According to an article in the denverpost.com titled New meat labeling rules take effect in US! by By M.L. Johnson, Associated Press which was first posted on 5/24/2113, Shoppers in the U.S. will soon have more information about where their meat comes from after new federal labeling rules went into effect Thursday 5/30/2013.

These labels will be required to indicate where the meat came from or  its country of origin as well as where it has been processed which could be different. Although many organizations are not in favor of this legislation, it is not going to go away any time soon. The cost of insuring that the foods we buy and consume are safe is enormous and the loses associated with sick or down time related to food borne illness has been out of control for a long time.

There are however ways to mitigate your expense when deploying new programs.

If you’d like to learn more about how SafeSourcing vetts the safety standards of members of our SafeSourceIt™ Supplier Database or how you can source these labels and labeling equipment more economically, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

That line is from a previous post by this author in February of 2009 titled Change comes to Washington. Well, not so much it appears.

I guess that open to review does not necessarily mean change. We all review things all of the time, but unless we take action by making a decision, nothing changes. In this case inaction can lead to illness and death.

I was watching the news last night and caught some of FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg’s comments during testimony regarding the contaminated steroids shots from the New England Compounding Center that has made over 400 people sick and resulted in 32 deaths. This brings back bad memories from four and five years ago regarding salmonella outbreaks. Although it appears to me that this situation should be more controllable. During questioning, it was curious to me that the FDA wanted to deflect ownership of the problem to a State organization. This even though there have been inspections by the FDA and a desire to close this facility for as much as 10 years. Where is the ownership here? Where is the executive that steps up and says there is a problem that needs to be fixed ASAP?

Food and Product Safety was supposedly a priority during the 2008 election campaign. It should have been during the 2012 campaign and yet more Americans have died while hundreds of others have been become sick.

In my post from February of 2009, I stated that over 550 people have been taken ill and as many as eight people had died from a salmonella outbreak. That was the 2nd largest outbreak in decades trailing only the prior year’s outbreak associated with tomatoes and peppers which affected over 1000 people. So here we are four years later, and our government is arguing over who is responsible. That makes me sick and is not the kind of change we deserve.

If you’d like to learn more about sourcing safe products, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

As you all know, I have been a critic of how slowly the FDA has responded to the many concerns raised about BPA or Bisphenol A.

In an article by Genevra Pittman for Reuters Health on Tue Sep 18, 2012  titled Study links BPA, obesity in kids indicates that kids and teens that had higher levels of the chemical bisphenol A in their urine were more likely to be overweight or obese, in a new nationally-representative U.S. study.

In one of my recent posts titled A day late and a dollar short! The FDA announces no more BPA in Baby Bottles on July 19th of this year, I was critical of how long the government takes to make decisions  that other countries have made more quickly. This is a perfect example of newer findings that continue to support the fact that the FDA should have acted faster regardless of whether or not more study continues to be required to support the study.

This issue should also raise a red flag for procurement knowledge workers that buying products for their customers includes much more than just sourcing the finished goods. As an example when sourcing private label products, the formulary for over the counter pain relief is important, but so is the formulary that goes into the packing. How often do your buyers and category managers focus on that?

If you want to make sure that the products you buy for resale are as safe as possible, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Today’s post is by Mark Davis; Sr. Vice President of Operations and CTO at SafeSourcing.

At the turn of the century the world was bombarded with a slew of recalls and deaths relating to the unsafe treatment of food products being widely shipped and consumed.  Because of this many new processes, organizations and certifications were born to begin to help putting the things in place to protect the public.   One of these new groups, The Consumer Foods Forum, a collection of global CEOs, was established to begin to regain the trust that had been lost by consumers by building safer supply chains.

From this group came the Global Food Safety Initiative, the purpose of which was meant to development standards that would consolidate the many different processes being currently used into a standard which could easily be applied to audits worldwide.

Today’s blog is going to look at this foundation and the audit processes that have been developed and what it means to businesses.

Globally Supported – Founded from a group of global CEOs it is no surprise that there has been a global adoption of this initiative.  8 of 25 top global retailers including Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Kraft, TESCO, Danone, Ahold, Ecolab, Wal-Mart are involved.  This level of adoption means that the standards being set here are strong and likely to be maintained for many years to come.

Defined Role Levels – Part of any strong initiative, organization or process is to have clearly defined roles and responsibilities for everyone involved.  The current flow of roles which includes: Audit Scheme Owners; Accreditation Bodies; Certification Bodies; Manufacturers; Retailers has a detailed description for each groups responsibilities to the process defined along with where each falls in the audit process.  This helps to create an efficient process where each entity knows exactly what is expected of them.  The last two; Manufacturers and Suppliers are described in more detail below.

Manufacturers – For those of you who are food manufacturers there are a number of good things that will come with a global adoption of the GFSI standards.  Having a clearly defined set of certification standards enables a company to ensure that each of their facilities is following the same processes.  This leads to a reduced number of total audits, clarity of food safety requirements, and reducing the overall time and resource investment in food quality and safety levels by having processes to follow all of the time rather than before periodic audits.

Retailers – Retailers and consumers are the biggest benefactors of initiatives like GFSI.  With the manufacturers and distributors being held to standards that will raise the confidence of those involved in the sale and purchase of these items.  Retailers will be able to expect improved production standards from processors, they can expect an increase in the quality of information on food safety schemes and they will be able to help exchange ideas, best practices and knowledge on a safer supply chain practices.

For more information about GFSI or how the initiative will affect your business, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.  

We look forward to your comments.