141 | Happy Food Safety Week | 3 Unexpected Food Safety Incidents | Competition Winners |
Plus, packaging standard update and the best (funny) food safety video for your team
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Join us at our June meet-up on Thursday/Friday this week;
What food safety means to you (competition winners);
Unexpected Food Safety Incidents: 3 Case Studies;
Packaging Corner: Updates to the BRC Packaging Standard;
Food Safety News and Resources;
The BEST (funny) food safety video for your team;
Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents
Food safety means: Always doing the right thing… even if nobody is watching. Wow, we got so many wonderful entries in our inaugural Food Safety Day competition. That quote is from Leonie of South Africa, what a ripper!
Welcome to Issue 141 and happy Food Safety Day for Friday. If you’ve just upgraded to a paid subscription, you’re the best 👏👏 thank you for your support 👏👏 I couldn’t make this newsletter without you.
This week’s issue features a collection of unexpected food safety incidents, in keeping with the theme for this year’s Food Safety Day which is Prepare for the unexpected. Also this week: news for packaging professionals and the best funny food safety video I have ever seen - I challenge you not to laugh out loud (and sing along).
Our June meetup is on Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, depending on your location. Everyone is welcome, so come and say hi.
Karen
P.S. If you love this newsletter, please tell your friends and colleagues about it and help grow our community of global food safety champions.
Food Safety Day Competition Winners
Thank you for your wonderful entries to our Food Safety Day competition, well done!
Here’s what you said about food safety (answers have been abridged).
Food Safety Means…
Our people know what to do if something out of the ordinary happens - Theresa
A scientific discipline - Marthica
My everyday work - Diana
Being aware of what is happening around you and speaking out if you see anything that isn’t right - Nicola
Keeping food free of contaminants - Telmo
A strong food safety culture from the top of the company down - Agnethe
Confidence that what I eat won’t hurt me - Vicki
Being accountable and vigilant - Agnethe
Making sure procedures are understood by everyone - Diana
Everyone working to ensure our products are safe enough for their babies to eat - Kristin
Special mentions
For me, food safety comes down to TRUST: TRUST in the food law makers and enforcers. TRUST that food businesses prioritise the health and safety of consumers above all else. TRUST that the food I feed to my child every day will not make him sick - Sally-Anne (Australia)
Food safety means having a culture of understanding which means people always do the right thing as they understand the consequences of what can happen if they don’t! Safety First, Quality Always - Leah (United Kingdom)
… and the winner is…
⭐⭐⭐ Food safety means: Always doing the right thing…even if nobody is watching! - Leonie (South Africa) ⭐⭐⭐
Thank you to everyone who entered, I’ll be in touch with each of you later this week.
Meetup this week: Thursday/Friday 6th/7th June
Come celebrate Food Safety Day at our meetup on Thursday 6th June (Friday morning for Australia and Asia). Everyone is welcome. Click the green button to learn more and get a link to join.
Unexpected Food Safety Incidents: 3 Case Studies
Friday is International Food Safety Day and this year’s theme is Food safety: prepare for the unexpected so I thought I would share some case studies of unexpected incidents you can use in your food safety training materials.
I’ve included incidents caused by unexpected environmental contaminants, unexpected human behaviour and unexpected food ingredients. Other unexpected events that can impact food safety include extreme weather events, such as floods or storms, and cyberattacks, such as the 2021 attack on global meat processor JBS that caused massive supply chain disruptions in Australia and North America.
Food Safety Incidents Caused by Unexpected Environmental Contaminants
Case 1: Mice and wine
A cluster of six patients with serious illnesses presented to hospitals in Frankfurt, Germany in 2018. They all required ongoing medical attention for at least two weeks. They were diagnosed with tularemia, a bacterial disease with symptoms including diarrhoea, sore throat, pneumonia, swollen lymph glands, inflamed eyes and death. Tularemia is rare in Europe.
It was initially unclear how the patients had contracted the disease because it is usually transmitted through tick bites or contact with dead rodents. None of the patients had been in contact with dead rodents and none had the skin swelling or sores associated with tularemia-infected tick bites. However, doctors noted that all patients had tasted grape juice (must) or wine from the same vineyard in the days before their illnesses.
The first person to seek medical attention was sick for more than two months and required hospitalisation and multiple courses of intravenous antibiotics.
The illnesses were ultimately traced to the mechanically harvested grapes used to make the grape must. Investigators presume a tularemia-infected rodent had been crushed with the grapes, allowing the bacterium which causes tularemia, Francisella tularensis, to enter the grape juice. Transmission of tularemia through food is rare, however, a similar outbreak also affected six vineyard workers in 2016.
Other incidents from unexpected environmental sources
Between 1982 and 2002, three outbreaks of Escherichia coli O157:H7, which causes serious symptoms including kidney failure and death, were traced to unrelated municipal water suppliers that did not chlorinate their water. Two of the suppliers chose not to chlorinate while the third had a malfunctioning chlorinator. We usually expect municipal water sources to be free from pathogens! (Rangel et. al. (2005))
In 2022, 43 people became ill with viral encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) after eating cheese made from the milk of goats that had been infected by ticks carrying tick-borne encephalitis while grazing in a forest.
In 2023, doctors treating an Australian woman found an 8 cm (3 inch) long worm in her brain. The worm is the larval stage of a parasite thought to have been deposited as eggs on wild greens she had collected and eaten.
Food Safety Incidents Caused by Unexpected Behaviours
Human behaviour can be unpredictable, and it’s a key factor in most food safety incidents. Among 393 foodborne illness outbreaks reviewed by researchers in their paper Environmental Antecedents of Foodborne Illness Outbreaks, United States, 2017–2019, the three most common precursors to outbreaks were human behaviour-related, being lack of oversight of employees (89%), lack of training (74%) and ineffective food safety culture (58%).
Case 2: Human error in batch-weighing leads to 800 illnesses
A batch of tortillas which some consumers said smelt or tasted soapy was linked to more than 800 illnesses in Finland in August 2023. The cause of the illnesses was initially a mystery, with investigators finding no pathogens, toxins or signs of microbial spoilage in the tortillas. They did, however, note some unexpected pH variations within the batch.
The cause was later revealed to be an overdose of the bakery preservative calcium propionate in the tortillas. It was present at ten times the usual amount in the implicated batch (Sources). The preservative overdose was likely due to human error in the batch-weighing or mixing processes at the tortilla manufacturing facility.
Other incidents attributed to human error
In 2022, fourteen people at a school in Alaska experienced mouth injuries and discomfort after drinking ‘milk’ that was actually a construction chemical. Someone had accidentally included containers of the construction chemical, a sealant used for floor tiles, in a bulk shipment of large bag-in-box containers of shelf-stable milk destined for a school district food warehouse. The ‘milk’ was subsequently served to unsuspecting teachers and students. (Sources)
In March 2024, investigations that followed complaints of “chemical tastes” in meat products revealed that the meat had been contaminated with non-food grade mineral oil. The meat processor claimed their oil supplier had sent them a drum of non-food grade mineral oil labelled as food-grade mineral oil. The oil was seal oil and was used on food contact surfaces. More than 93,000 pounds of raw meat was recalled (sources).
Unexpected Food Safety Outcomes from Ingredients
Case 3: Food supplements cause fatal blood poisoning
In March 2024, researchers published the results of an investigation into four illnesses and one death from Clostridium butyricum bacteremia (blood poisoning). They linked the illnesses to the patients’ consumption of a probiotic health supplement while in hospital.
Genetic tests confirmed that the infection strains in the patients matched organisms in two C. butyricum probiotic products taken by the patients. C. butyricum probiotic products are commonly prescribed in Asia. The researchers concluded that C. butyricum probiotics may not be suitable for vulnerable persons such as those with compromised immune systems (Sada, et. al, (2024))
Other unexpected incidents linked to ingredients
In October 2023, The US FDA recalled more than 200,000 packages of a supplement for preterm infants because it had caused “serious adverse reactions”. The supplement contained the probiotic organisms Bifidobacterium infantis and Streptococcus thermophilus. In a warning letter sent to the maker of the supplement, the FDA said of the two probiotics: “B. infantis [is] an unsafe food additive within the meaning of sections 201(s) and 409(a) of the FD&C Act; and S. thermophilus [is] a new dietary ingredient for which there is inadequate information to provide reasonable assurance that such ingredient does not present a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury, when used in preterm infants.”
The cinnamon ingredient in apple-cinnamon purees caused hundreds of people to be diagnosed with elevated blood levels of the heavy metal lead in the USA in 2023 and 2024. The source of the lead was lead-chromate, allegedly added to the cinnamon during processing to enhance its apparent quality, an act of economically motivated adulteration (food fraud). (FDA 2024)
A natural food ingredient, tara flour, was the suspected cause of hundreds of serious liver and gallbladder illnesses in 2022. The company that used the ingredient in its food product initially believed it was safe but later suggested it had been the cause of the illnesses among its consumers. The US FDA has since declared the ingredient does not have a safe history of use and should not be used in food without further safety investigations and/or approvals. (Sources)
Takeaways for food professionals
Many food safety incidents are the result of predictable failures in systems, and our risk assessment processes are designed to control hazards that are expected. However, some food safety incidents are the result of an unexpected event or unpredictable error.
Use the examples in this article in food safety training and communications.
In short: 🍏 Unexpected events can lead to serious food safety outcomes, including the folowing three cases 🍏 Six people got seriously ill when a diease-causing bacterium from a crushed rodent in a mechanical grape harvester contaminated the grape juice they sampled at a winery 🍏 More than 800 people were sickened when the quantity of preservative in a batch of tortillas was ten times higher than it should have been 🍏 Five vulnerable patients were made critically ill with blood poisoning from the organisms in a probiotic supplement that were presumed to be safe 🍏
Packaging Corner - Quick Update
Updates to the BRCGS Packaging Standard - Submissions Close 12th June
Last month the BRCGS published a draft of the next version (Issue 7) of their Packaging Standard and invited comments on the draft. Submissions close 12th June.
The standard has not been updated since 2019, so there are a large number of changes in the draft including,
more detail in product safety culture clauses;
significant updates for hazard analysis and risk assessment process requirements;
changes to supplier approval requirements;
the introduction of allergen controls;
changes to audit protocols, as related to unannounced audits and blended announced/unannounced audits, plus new rules for changing certification bodies.
Issue 7 will be published in October 2024.
Certification audits against Issue 7 will commence in April 2025.
Food Safety News and Resources
Two big news items in food safety this week:
Infant formulas in the USA exceed lead limits surprisingly often, with other metals including cadmium, mercury and aluminium also present at levels exceeding drinking water limits in a recent survey of 20 products.
Bird flu has been found to pass from raw milk to mice in laboratory experiments, which also confirmed the viral particles remain infective in refrigerated milk for “several weeks”.
My weekly food safety news roundups are free for everyone. Click the preview below to read.
The Best (funny) Video for Your Food Safety Team
I challenge you not to laugh out loud (and sing along) to this video created by the food safety boffins at the University of California Davis.
Recorded to the music of Queen’s We Will Rock You, it includes such lyrical gems as “You got spores on your plate, they’ll incubate and there’s trouble if you cross contaminate” and;
“You toiling with the fast food, bad mood, careless, it don’t matter if those burgers stay pink inside. Serving up a storm with coliform, 0157’s deadly if it don’t get warm…”
LOVE it!
Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, research and incident reports
📌 Food Fraud News 📌
📌 Food Fraud News 📌
In this week’s food fraud news:
📌 Seafood vulnerabilities report;
📌 Protocol for honey sample collection;
📌 Insights into illicit seed trading;
📌 Mass-scale organic fraud in fresh fruit and veg, dairy food adulteration in Europe, coffee smuggling and much more.
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