Issue #1 2021-08-16
Slavery, food fraud and chicken vs beef
Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Meat; Good News?
Workers at a Major British Poultry Processor ‘Enslaved’
Food Fraud and Its Challenges Across the World (video from recent conference)
The Current State of Food Safety Auditing
Food Fraud Incidents Reported in the International Media in the Past Week
Hi,
Welcome to the very first issue of The Rotten Apple. In this issue I share a sustainability update with an unexpected positive twist, a recent story about slavery in a first-world food processing plant, an update on the state of food fraud in 2021 from an Italian food fraud expert and I discuss the future of food safety auditing. As always, this week’s issue ends with a list of food fraud incidents from the past week.
Thanks for reading!
Karen
P.S. If you want to know why I created this newsletter, read this.
Sustainability
Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Meat are Lower than in the 1970s
Say what?
When Agricultural Economist Jason Lusk compared emissions from beef and chicken consumption in the USA in the 1970s and 2010s, he found overall emissions decreased.
Well that’s good news.
How did he reach that conclusion?
Firstly, Americans are eating less beef per capita, and more chicken. Chicken meat production emits significantly less CO2-equivalent gasses per kilogram of carcass weight than beef. Secondly, both chicken and beef yields have improved; that is, more meat per animal.
The differences in consumption patterns and yields are so significant that even with a population increase (from 215M to 320M), the total emissions from chicken and beef production still fell between the 1970s and 2010s.
Remarkable!
Read more: http://jaysonlusk.com/blog/2021/6/17/beef-chicken-and-carbon
Ethical Supply Chains
Workers at a Major British Poultry Processor ‘Enslaved’
If you think there's no such thing as modern slavery in the food supply of wealthy countries, you’d better think again.
A man in the United Kingdom was sentenced last week to six years in prison after being found guilty of human trafficking and slavery-related charges. The man had arranged jobs for workers at a large chicken and turkey meat company in Leicester.
According to its website, “Avara Foods is one of the UK’s largest food businesses, supplying chicken and turkey to the nation’s most popular supermarkets and restaurants.” The man kept the workers at his home and escorted them to their jobs at Avara foods each day. He took control of the workers’ wages and did not pass their earnings on to them. He also sold the worker’s bank accounts on the black market to other criminals who used them to launder money.
The situation was uncovered when Avara Foods and their labour hire supplier raised concerns about the worker’s welfare with authorities.
Read more: https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/news/154815/modern-slavery-leicester/
Food Fraud
Food Fraud and Its Challenges Across the World
For a 24 minute update on the state of food fraud in 2021, check out this video presentation, which was delivered at the Africa Food Safety & Quality Summit 2021 by Cesare Varallo, Food Lawyer & Founder, FoodLawLatest.com.
Watch:
Food Safety
The Current State of Food Safety Auditing
When the Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI) was launched in 2000, one of its aims was to reduce the number of food safety audits that food companies would have to submit to. I think it’s fair to say that goal has not been achieved.
These days, with an increasing number of standards, including both GFSI-benchmarked standards and customer standards, food companies are hosting more audits than ever.
With more standards to comply with and each standard increasing in its scope, both external and internal audit requirements are becoming more numerous and more complex. Food companies are bearing the brunt of these requirements, particularly in the area of internal audits.
Compared to ten years ago, internal auditors of food safety management systems for GFSI-benchmarked standards have many more elements to consider. These new elements include food safety culture, food fraud, food defense and laboratory expertise.
For external audits, the global COVID-19 pandemic resulted in a shift to more virtual auditing in 2020. Virtual auditing places extra strain on food sites that use paper-based systems, because they now have to scan and upload their documents for auditors to inspect. With potentially hundreds (or thousands!) of paper based forms and records, scanning and uploading documents can require a significant number of man-hours.
Sites that use software-based internal auditing and corrective actions systems enjoy some advantages over the paper-based sites when it comes to virtual audits. However, if a virtual audit is conducted using screen-sharing software, then the auditee will have to be (remotely) present at all times during the audit to ‘drive’ the software and guide the auditor through the system.
Inspecting production and storage areas likewise poses many challenges for auditees and auditors during virtually-conducted audits. Ambient noise makes communication difficult, access to technology like good cameras and wi-fi signals can be a challenge and the auditor isn’t able to use their sense of touch or smell.
But it’s not all bad news. The authors of a recent article titled ‘The Future of Food Auditing’ (linked below) describe some potential benefits from remote auditing.
One is that pre-recorded internal audit videos could be provided to customers so that the customers do not need to perform supplier due diligence audits. I’m not sure that suppliers would trust such recordings sufficiently to want to use them as a replacement for their own due diligence.
The authors also suggest that certification bodies could start making use of auditing teams, in which a less experienced auditor goes into the food factory with a device for filming and is directed by a more experienced auditor who is off-site. The off-site auditor would tell the on-site auditor where to point the device and what to ask the auditees. While that might be helpful for certification bodies, food companies are going to bear the additional costs.
Read more: https://www.newfoodmagazine.com/article/150589/the-future-of-auditing/2/
Food Fraud Incidents
Food Fraud Incidents Reported in the International Media in the Past Week
Officials have seized 80 tonnes of sago suspected of chemical adulteration – India