Issue #35 2022-04-25
Whistleblowing mechanism, questions about Chinese seafood trading, and a Tale of Two Food Regulators
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Anonymous food safety incident reporting for whistleblowers
China Seafood Trading; More Than Meets the Eye?
A Tale of Two Food Regulators
Just for fun (fruit with a built-in Instagram filter…. ?)
Food fraud incidents and horizon scanning updates from the past week
To hear me read this issue out loud, click here.
In this week’s newsletter, you will find an anonymous food safety reporting tool, a discussion of seafood trading and a tale of two food regulatory bodies. The US FDA is facing serious criticism over its slow responses to food safety problems. I compare that to another regulatory body and their successful strategy to reduce Salmonella-related foodborne illnesses.
Finally, check out some Instagram-able pink pineapples. The issue ends with a list of food fraud incidents and horizon scanning updates from the past week.
If you’ve got questions about the payment thing, or anything else, just hit ‘reply’ to get in touch.
Karen
P.S. If you value my independent, advert-free reporting, you’ll definitely want to sign up for a paid subscription (subscribers get access to a complete index of past news items and articles, plus a compilation of previous issues in a downloadable, printable format)
Food Safety
Anonymous Reporting Mechanism
An anonymous food safety reporting tool is now available to whistle-blowers (or at least to English-speaking whistle-blowers).
The creators, ‘The Global Harmonization Initiative’ have published a simple website with a form where whistle-blowers can provide details of incidents including company name, product name, pack size, batch/use-by dates and more. They promise to first check that each report is real and is not intended to defame or take revenge on a company or person, and then to “act upon it in the most appropriate way”.
Collecting employees’ feedback about food safety-related issues is an important part of building and maintaining a food safety culture. Anonymous reporting is particularly powerful but not always possible, especially in a small company. This tool can help.
🍏 https://whistle.globalharmonization.net/ 🍏
Food Fraud
China Seafood Trading; More Than Meets the Eye?
There is more to seafood trading in China than meets the eye and fraudulent practices have (almost certainly) been going on for decades, if not centuries.
Back in 2017, an entry in our food fraud (‘Trello’) database, mentioned shrimp smuggling across Chinese borders. New research published in January this year touches on similar issues. The research paper reports on unusual aspects of the international seafood trade, including the trading of “Distant Water Fishing” seafood in and with China.
Our database entry from 2017 reads: “Credible reports of large-scale smuggling of shrimp across the Vietnam-China border have surfaced. The smuggling allows fraudsters to avoid paying sales tax and customs duties. It is thought that much of the shrimp enters Vietnam from Ecuador and India, before being smuggled to China. It is also suspected that some is then [also] exported from China, gaining the exporter subsidies worth 13% if it is passed off as domestically produced shrimp.”
China is the world’s largest producer of seafood by volume. It is also the largest consumer, importer and exporter, as well as being the world’s largest “Distant Water Fishing” nation, according to the new research. Distant water fishing is fishing that occurs outside a country’s territorial waters.
Distant water fishing is susceptible to problems like illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. Environmentally unsustainable practices like the taking of threatened species or fishing in closed and protected areas are more likely to occur with distant water fishing.
Interestingly, the researchers found that China does not eat all of the fish it catches and imports. In fact, they estimate that China processes and exports a whopping 75% of the seafood it imports. So Chinese operators are buying raw seafood from distant catch areas, processing it and exporting it.
As we recorded in 2017, it has been alleged that Chinese aquaculture operations and associated entities have fraudulently obtained government subsidies for food production by importing shrimp from Vietnam in large quantities, pretending that they grew the shrimp in China, then processing and exporting the shrimp, for further profit.
The scientists behind January’s research don’t mention subsidy fraud. But they do discuss the fact that distant water fishing followed by domestic processing and export makes traceability and transparency of Chinese seafood even more challenging than it usually is for seafood products.
Poor traceability enables fraud about the provenance of the fish and the legality of the fishing methods.
In March this year, just two months after the paper was published, Chinese authorities exposed a massive frozen seafood smuggling ring and arrested eighteen people who are accused of smuggling 183,700 metric tonnes of frozen seafood with misrepresented specifications, origins and prices.
The takeaway: 🍏 China-processed seafood is at risk of being fraudulently misrepresented with respect to its provenance and the legality of fishing methods, harvest areas and quotas 🍏 Take care 🍏
Sources:
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abl4756
Food Regulation
A Tale Of Two Food Regulators
“They just kick the can down the road… We’re global laggards.” (An insider talks about the US FDA)
Versus
“… achieving the 30% reduction target [resulted in] an estimated 40,000 fewer people contracting salmonellosis and a saving in health care costs of approximately $196 million.” (NSW (Australia) Food Authority).
These two quotes crossed my desk on the same day. One is about the USA’s food regulatory landscape, the other is about an Australian regulatory authority and the success they had with a recent program. The contrast is stark.
In 2014, the NSW (Australia) Food Authority recognised they had a problem with Salmonella. A root cause analysis showed food businesses were mishandling foods and didn’t always have a good understanding of cleaning and sanitising practices. So the food authority created a strategy. From 2015 to 2021, they worked to improve the food safety culture of food businesses with education and they introduced rules that require even small businesses to have a trained and certified “Food Safety Supervisor” on site. They also implemented increased surveillance of pathogens and introduced pathogen gene sequencing, which allowed for faster identification of Salmonella outbreaks, which meant faster recalls and less sick people.
The result: NSW smashed its 30% target in salmonellosis reduction, achieving 60% reductions – reductions that were no doubt boosted by COVID lock-downs, but nevertheless double the target figure.
The lesson: If you see a problem that needs fixing, figure out the root causes, create an effective strategy, implement the strategy, measure the results, report, review, repeat. It’s not easy but it’s not fricken rocket science.
Now to the other organisation in this story, the so-called can-kicking “laggards”.
Back in 2006, the US FDA became aware that they had a leafy greens food poisoning problem. One of the root causes was agricultural water. The FDA set out to create an effective strategy to reduce the risks. Rules for ag water were included in the produce safety rule of 2015, nine years later. Unfortunately, the rules were widely agreed to be based on outdated science and were apparently “too complicated” to work. They were scrapped two years later, leaving the US with no specific rules for preventing contamination of fresh produce with agricultural water.
Meanwhile in the USA, more ag-water-related outbreaks are occurring and more people are getting seriously ill and dying; think E. coli in romaine lettuce and Salmonella in raw onions.
Fast forward to today and the FDA has just released a proposed new rule for agricultural water, which could take months or years to be finalised. It's fifteen years since the FDA recognised they had a problem with leafy greens outbreaks. And there is still no definite solution.
It’s not just leafy greens where the FDA seems to be acting too slowly. Earlier this month I complained that their response to the Abbott baby food Cronobacter problem seemed criminally slow. Well, what about another issue then, what about lead in baby foods? The FDA promised to propose lead limits for foods for babies and young children by April 2022, in their “Closer to Zero” action plan. You’ve got less than a week to meet that deadline, fellas!
Hopefully, the FDA won’t take as long to sort out the baby food heavy metals rules as they did when the dairy industry started requesting an update to the standard for yoghurt 40 years ago. The industry pestered the FDA for almost four decades for an update and finally got their wish in 2021. Unfortunately, the FDA’s new standard ignored the basics of yoghurt making and so parts of the rule had to be stayed. Updates to the French dressing were speedy by comparison, taking just 23 years.
Insiders have damning things to say about the culture and leadership of the FDA. If you would like to read what they say, check out this deep dive by POLITICO. And please join me in celebrating the vision, leadership and effectiveness of the NSW (Australia) Food Authority for the success of their Salmonella strategy. (Yay!)
In short: 🍏 An effective food regulatory agency follows this method (in a timely manner)….🍏 If you see a problem that needs fixing, figure out the root causes… 🍏 create an effective strategy… 🍏 implement the strategy… 🍏 measure the results… 🍏 report… 🍏 review… 🍏 repeat… 🍏 Not easy 🍏 Not rocket science 🚀 🍏
Sources:
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2022/fda-fails-regulate-food-health-safety-hazards/
https://www.foodsafetyselect.com/news/nsw-successfully-reduces-salmonella-cases
https://www.fda.gov/food/metals-and-your-food/closer-zero-action-plan-baby-foods
Just For Fun
No Filters Needed
This new variety of pink pineapple was (perhaps?) bred just for Instagram. It’s a pretty pink colour, so you don’t need to add an Insta image filter to make the fruit look fabulous (darling!). Whole fruits are available in the USA for $30 to $50 each. That’s right, $50 for a pineapple.
If you’re American (except Hawaiians, sorry Hawaiians!) you can now go online and purchase a $50 pineapple with pink flesh that will be delivered straight to your door. Lucky you.
🍏 https://www.pinkglowpineapple.com/ 🍏
Food Fraud Incidents and Horizon Scanning
Note this is the last free food fraud report. From next week, you will need to be a paying subscriber to access this section of the newsletter. Want it for free? Get it direct from our Food Fraud Risk Information (‘Trello’) Database.
Food fraud incidents added to Food Fraud Risk Information Database in the past week
Vegetable oil stored in non-food grade drums and without correct documentation was disposed of by authorities – Pakistan
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/951373-4-200-litre-unhygienic-edible-oil-discarded
Frozen seafood, including octopus and Chinese hairtail (daiyu), with misrepresented specifications, origins and prices, was being smuggled on a large scale, probably into China (reports are unclear). Eighteen people have been arrested and they are accused of smuggling 183,700 metric tonnes of frozen seafood - China
Food fraud horizon scanning (other updates to the Food Fraud Risk Information Database in the past week)
Bird flu is threatening flocks in Canada, with poultry farmers warned to keep birds indoors. This may affect the availability of free range poultry meat and eggs, and potentially increase the likelihood of fraudulent claims about free range products – Canada 10/04/2022
What you missed, and coming soon
An awesome allergen management tool (Issue #30)
A very cool way to visualise global data, Our World in Data (Issue #28)
Coming soon: I’ll unpack the FAO’s new 68-page report on national and international food fraud regulatory strategies in 500 words or less - wish me luck!
Thanks for reading, see you next week.
I liked the article about the FDA and its lack of expediency in regards to protecting consumers.