179 | Common Mistakes With Food Recalls |
Plus, food fraud testing and a downloadable e-book
How to design a food authenticity testing plan;
Common Mistakes in Recalls;
Food Safety News and Resources;
Out now: The Rotten Apple e-book, Issues 151 to 175;
Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents.
Hi, Welcome!
It’s great to have you here with me as I nerd out on food safety and food fraud issues from around the globe from my base in Australia.
Looking northwards to the USA, it feels like watching a slow motion train crash. First it was the mass firings at government agencies with responsibility for human health, then it was the dismantling of two national food safety committees at the USDA, one on Microbiological Criteria for Foods and another for Meat and Poultry Inspection.
Now it’s watching highly pathogenic avian flu jump from dairy herds to domestic cats via pet food presumably made from flu-affected cows or their milk. Read about that in this week’s food safety news.
Epidemiologists have been warning that the presence of this virus in mammals such as cows and cats is like a ticking time bomb… just one mutation could turn it from a disease that does not spread easily between humans to one that could cause a pandemic of COVID-19 proportions.
Scary times. We stand with you, American food safety professionals, as you keep striving to keep food consumers safe.
The main story in this week’s issue is a guide to food fraud testing, and I share an article about how to avoid common mistakes in food recalls.
Plus the latest copy of our printable issues has just been released. Get it while it’s hot!
Karen
Feed safety webinar this week (all welcome)
Last week there was a huge egg recall because of a problem in chicken feed. This week cat food is being recalled because of a link with highly pathogenic avian flu in pet cats, which poses a risk to their human carers.
Animal food and animal feed are intrinsically linked with human food safety.
Join me and feed safety expert Bronwyn von Hellens on Thursday to learn about feed safety and its relationship with human food safety.
All are welcome at the live event. Recordings are for paying subscribers. See you there!
Food Authenticity Testing
Authenticity testing of ingredients and foods is an important tool in the fight against food fraud, but it’s not as simple as putting a suspect material into the tricorder from StarTrek and pressing a button.
If you’ve discovered that ingredients you purchase are vulnerable to food fraud, and you’ve decided you need to check their authenticity, how exactly should you get started?
Before you get in touch with a laboratory, you need a plan.
How to design a food fraud testing plan
A food fraud testing plan provides a documented framework to follow when arranging authenticity testing of foods and ingredients. Follow the steps below to create a plan.
First, define the goals of the testing plan. Because different materials have different food fraud risk profiles, you will need a different testing protocol for each material that you want to test. For each material to be tested, choose a test type and laboratory and set accept-reject criteria for test results. The Food Authenticity Network maintains a list of laboratories with expertise in various techniques and commodities, which they call Centres of Expertise.
Decide how samples will be collected, and define the sample size with the help of your chosen laboratory. For each lot or batch of material that needs to be tested, figure out how to obtain a sample that is properly representative of that batch. Sampling protocols will depend on the size of the lot, the form of the food (solid, liquid, bulk, etc.) and the practicalities of accessing materials within the batch. Learn more about sampling protocols from the US FDA’s laboratory manual.
Choose how often you will test each material and document it in the plan. The initial test frequency should be based on each material’s vulnerability to food fraud and the amount of material you purchase.
Write down your goals, test methods, accept/reject criteria, sampling procedures and approved laboratories. This written information will be the foundation for your testing plan document. Add a description of what action you will take if you get results that confirm or imply authenticity problems with the sample. Who will you report the results to? Who is responsible for making decisions about actions to be taken? Add document control features and file the plan within the food fraud section of your food safety management system.
Implement your plan. Be prepared to change your test frequencies or test methods as new information becomes available.
Review your test plan at least annually to make sure it aligns with your food fraud prevention goals and priorities.
This article was originally published at FoodFraudAdvisors.com
Image and terminology: Crew. S. (2022) Food analysis: a practical guide. Food Science and Technology, 36(3), pp.52–57. doi:https://doi.org/10.1002/fsat.3603_12.x.
🍏 Learn more: Food Analysis, a Practical Guide | Institute of Food Science and Technology 🍏
What I’m Reading: How to Handle Recalls
This week I’ve been reading about common mistakes made by food companies during recalls and how to avoid them, by Kitty Appels of Food Safety Experts.
Here’s what Kitty said about recalls on LinkedIn recently:
“🚨 Are food recalls a nightmare for QA teams? They don’t have to be! 🚨
Recalls can make or break a food business. But the truth is, most recall failures aren’t caused by the recall itself—they happen because of poor preparation and execution.
🔎 The most common mistakes I see?
❌ Delayed responses—waiting too long to act increases risks.
❌ Incomplete documentation—if you can’t track it, you can’t recall it.
❌ Ineffective communication—stakeholders left in the dark = disaster.
❌ No root cause analysis—fix the problem, not just the symptom!
❌ Lack of training—is your team really ready for a recall?
✔ The good news? All of these mistakes can be avoided! In my latest article, I break down how to handle recalls the right way and keep your company out of crisis mode.”
Read now:
Avoid These Common Mistakes During Recalls - Food Safety Experts
Food Safety News and Resources
In this week’s list of unusual food safety incidents: someone spent 3 years filming themself putting urine on food at a bulk food store???? And highly pathogenic avian flu infects pet cats, with pet food the suspected source of infection.
Click the preview below to read.
The Rotten Apple in print
If you love to read offline or want to catch up on past issues, you’ll love our downloadable e-books.
We’ve just published the latest compilation, which covers Issues 151 to 176 and includes gems like Food Fraud Verification, Learnings from a Salmonella Outbreak and the ultra-popular food safety escape room competition of Issue 160.
Grab your copy today. Bonus: they’re searchable and link-click-able.
Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, horizon scanning and incident reports
📌 Food Fraud News 📌
In this week’s food fraud news:
📌 Olive oil test methods;
📌 Computational modelling for food safety risks from food fraud;
📌 Cupuaçu authenticity;
📌 (Not) organic ricotta, coffee and cocoa bean smuggling, counterfeit seeds, stolen avocadoes and more.
Major organic fraud in ricotta cheese
Ricotta cheese falsely claimed to be organic was sold in large quantities for many years to major supermarket chains. The cheese was made with conventional (not organic) whey.
A former employee whistleblower revealed the fraud which triggered searches and wiretaps. A second worker and technician confirmed the claims.
Hundreds of bags of protein powder, milk and whey without organic certification were found and were destined for use in the production of the ‘organic’ product. The fraudulent processes started in
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