Food Safety News and Resources | January
January 2024
20 January | Food Safety News and Free Resources1 |
(Weird) Dog food safety warning (UK)
FD&C Red No. 3 Outlawed (USA)
Phthalates in foods - good survey results (Canada)
Webinar - Microbiological Examinations in the Food Chain, 21st January
Webinar - Ensure Food Authenticity & Quality with NMR: Advanced Profiling Solutions, 29th January
🐶 (Weird) Dog food safety warning (UK)
The Food Standards Agency (FSA) of the United Kingdom has warned dog owners about certain brands of dog chews that have been linked to behavioural changes in dogs in the European Union. The dogs have exhibited ‘werewolf syndrome’, with symptoms that include panic attacks, aggression, spasms, epileptic fits and death.
🩸 FD&C Red No. 3 Outlawed (USA)
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has repealed regulations that permit the use of FD&C Red No. 3 in foods (including dietary supplements) and ingested drugs, effective January 15, 2027, in response to a petition submitted in 2022.
🧪 Phthalates in foods - good survey results (Canada)
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency conducted a targeted survey to assess phthalate levels in ready-to-eat meals and vegetable fats and oils from locally made and imported foods.
Samples were collected in 2020 and 2021 from 4 major cities. Ninety three percent of samples (n = 500) had no detectable levels of phthalates. Of the samples that contained phthalates, all were present at levels deemed safe by the authorities.
🎓Webinar - New EN ISO 7218 on General Requirements and Guidance for Microbiological Examinations in the Food Chain, 21st January
Join New Food's upcoming webinar on the revised standard EN ISO 7218:2024 on general requirements and guidance for microbiological examinations in the food chain which cancels and replaces the third edition, EN ISO 7218:2007, and its 2013 amendment.
Register here:
🎓Webinar - Ensure Food Authenticity & Quality with NMR: Advanced Profiling Solutions, 29th January
Bruker is hosting a webinar that will allow participants to explore the fundamentals of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). The session will cover specific food profiling solutions and emphasize NMR's versatility, including various upgrade options. Additionally, attendees will learn about statistical analysis using Mestre Software for chemometric analysis of NMR data from different food matrices.
Register here:
Ensure Food Authenticity & Quality with NMR: Advanced Profiling Solutions | Bruker
13 January | Food Safety News and Free Resources |
Recall: UHT Milk with added water (Turkiye) |
Report re. improvements to systems after the Boar’s Head outbreak (USA) |
New lead levels for baby food (USA) |
Webinar – Organic and Food Fraud: Ensuring Compliance, on-demand |
Webinar - Selecting the Right X-Ray Detector for Your Application, on-demand |
This is The Rotten Apple, an independent publication dedicated to food safety. Subscribe now to get not-boring, ad-free food safety news straight to your inbox every Monday
⚠ Recall: UHT Milk with added water (Turkiye)
Danone recalled a batch of UHT milk products after a government agency discovered water in the milk during inspections for adulterated and counterfeit food products. The company said the presence of the water was accidental and due to a “technical error” related to the processing steps in UHT milk heat treatment.
🐗 Report re. improvements to systems after the Boar’s Head outbreak (USA)
The USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) has published a report explaining what will be done differently to help ensure the multiple failings at Boars Head, which caused a deadly Listeria outbreak in 2024 will not be repeated in other facilities.
It lists a range of actions, both short-term and long-term, which the FSIS intends to take, and has begun to implement, including changes to sampling (Listeria species instead of only Listeria monocytogenes), better training for FSIS inspectors, updated protocols for follow-up inspections by field supervisors, revised alert criteria for high risk facilities and more oversight of state-inspected facilities.
🥣 New lead levels for baby food (USA)
The US FDA has published new guidance for lead in foods for babies and young children, with action levels of
10 ppb for fruits, veggies, mixtures, yogurts, and meats.
20 ppb for root vegetables & dry infant cereals.
🎓 Webinar – Organic and Food Fraud: Ensuring Compliance, on-demand
Hosted by SCS Global Services, This informative webinar covers the 2024 updates to the National Organic Program (NOP) and addresses how to develop an Organic Fraud Prevention Plan (OFPP). Icnludes how to conduct a Vulnerability Assessment to understand the risk factors within supply chains. Plus developing controls and monitoring to mitigate or eliminate food fraud risks identified.
🎓Webinar - Selecting the Right X-Ray Detector for Your Application, on-demand
An industry expert outlines the intricacies of X-ray detector technology, the factors that must be taken into consideration prior to investing and the benefits of detection.
6 January | Food Safety News and Free Resources |
Deadly Christmas cake incident (Brazil) |
Cocktail-related poisonings – perhaps not methanol? – (Fiji) |
Food tampering incidents caught on film by the offenders (USA) |
Microplastics from tea bags and their activity in human cells (new research) |
Influenza viral persistence in raw milk (new research) |
Improved Process Controls versus Additional Product Testing for Pathogens in Leafy Greens (new research) |
Evidence for the harmful effects of certain food additives (new research) |
Webinar - New Year, New Regulations - Preparing the Food Industry for 2025, 16th January |
This is The Rotten Apple, an independent publication dedicated to food safety. Subscribe now to get not-boring, ad-free food safety news straight to your inbox every Monday
☠ 🎂 Deadly Christmas cake incident (Brazil)
Christmas cake has been linked to a poisoning incident in which three people from the same family died, with two others hospitalised. Arsenic was discovered in the victims and the cake was seized by authorities for testing.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/12/29/americas/poison-christmas-cake-brazil-intl-latam/index.html
🍸 Cocktail-related poisonings – perhaps not methanol? – (Fiji)
Tourists were hospitalised with critical illnesses after drinking cocktails at a five-star resort in Fiji in December. The seven guests all drank the same cocktails from the same bar. An investigation and product testing is underway. Methanol poisoning was initially suspected however a medical expert said the symptoms were not consistent with methanol poisoning. This follows the death of at least 6 international tourists who drank at a bar in Laos in November.
https://www.foodpoisoningnews.com/food-poisoning-news-across-asia-fiji-hong-kong-vietnam/
🎥 Food tampering incidents caught on film by the offenders (USA)
A man has pleaded guilty after police found videos on his phone showing him ejaculating onto and touching food with his penis. The foods included strawberries, donuts, cupcakes and pastry frosting, some of which had been ordered for a child’s birthday party.
In a separate incident, another man posted footage online of himself in a Walmart store spraying insecticide on foods including fresh produce and rotisserie chickens. He admitted to the crimes when contacted by police.
https://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/revolting/pervert-plea-in-cupcake-contamination-365290 and https://www.wafb.com/2024/12/22/man-arrested-spraying-bug-killer-food-inside-walmart-police-say/
☕ Microplastics from tea bags and their activity in human cells (new research)
Tea bags release 1.2 billion, 135 million and 8 million nano- and microplastic particles per milliliter of tea from polypropylene, cellulose and nylon tea bags resepctviely according to new research. The researchers also explored how particles interacted with human intestinal cells using stained particles to track their movements. Some particles were able to penetrate cell nuclei.
https://www.earth.com/news/tea-bags-release-millions-of-plastic-particles-during-brewing/ and https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653524026377?via%3Dihub
🧬 Influenza viral persistence in raw milk (new research)
New research builds on previous work on avian influenza in raw milk and shows that human influenza can remain infectious in refrigerated raw milk for up to five days.
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1068292
🍃 Improved Process Controls versus Additional Product Testing for Pathogens in Leafy Greens (new research)
Which is better when it comes to reducing the risk of Shiga-toxin producing E. coli (STEC) in leafy greens: improved process controls or more more product testing?
The science says improved process controls. New research shows that additional product testing is less effective and would result in the rejection of lots that pose a potentially low risk to public health.
In this research, "improved process controls" means the implementation of additional food safety interventions during fresh produce processing, especially improved washing processes.
Note: the best way to keep leafy greens safe from STEC is to keep it out of produce-growing environments altogether. However, this research only examined the differences between processing and testing for produce that had already become contaminated.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0362028X24001777?via%3Dihub
🧪 Evidence for the harmful effects of certain food additives (new research)
A paper published in Food And Chemical Toxicology explores the genotoxicity of 32 widely consumed food additives, alone and in mixtures. The researchers concluded that 2 food additives and 2 mixtures are genotoxic and “Food additives consumption was linked with an increased risk of developing cancer.”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0278691524007646?via%3Dihub
🎓Webinar - New Year, New Regulations - Preparing the Food Industry for 2025, 16th January
Join SCS Global Services in this interactive webinar, where participants will receive tips on improving their compliance by understanding regulatory risks and learning what others are doing in the industry to address the impact.
Register here: Registration
In this week’s food fraud news:
📌 Methods for olive oil, essential oils and meat;
📌 Predicting unknown adulterants in dairy foods;
📌 Rat juice guilty plea, massive organised crime network in clam supply chain, rice misrepresentation, ‘saliva oil’ in restaurant dishes;
📌 Unauthorised chemical treatment of bean sprouts an open secret in industry.
Past Issues of Food Safety News
Food Safety News, December 2024
Food Safety News, November 2024
Food Safety News, October 2024