Issue #42 2022-06-13
How to make an approved supplier program, fertiliser woes, (un)lucky charms and a special offer to celebrate World Food Safety Day
Welcome to The Rotten Apple, an inside view of food integrity for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors. Subscribe for weekly insights, latest news and emerging trends in food safety, food authenticity and sustainable supply chains.
Three Steps to an Approved Supplier Program
Fertiliser Supply Chains (buckle up!)
Lucky Charms Cereals - A Foodborne Illness Mystery
Special Offer for World Food Safety Day
Food fraud incidents and horizon scanning updates from the past week
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Hello everyone,
Firstly, I’m super embarrassed to have sent you all an email last week with the subheading “How peanut butter gets into Salmonella” … pretty sure it was supposed to be the other way around! Oh dear. I write the subheadings last and I guess my brain was just fried by that point.
By the way, if you are curious about how I put together these newsletters – either how I choose the topics or how the technical webpage/payment stuff is handled – then book a date for a private Ask Me Anything session and find out. Details can be found below.
Welcome to Issue 42 of The Rotten Apple.
This issue has a step-by-step guide to creating your first approved supplier program, plus some dismal news about the fertiliser shortages you’ve probably heard about - it’s worse than you thought! - and an unexplained foodborne illness outbreak that has sickened perhaps 8000 people in the USA… it’s big and it’s weird.
As always, this issue ends with food fraud incidents and horizon scanning news from the past week, for paid subscribers only. Sorry, not sorry, this girl’s gotta eat!
Thanks for being here, I love putting this newsletter together for you each week.
Karen
P.S. Need more info about paid subscriptions? Click here. Or….
Cover image: Providence Doucet on Unsplash
Food Safety Systems
How to create an approved supplier program from scratch
As we saw last week, an approved supplier program aims to ensure that all the food, ingredients, raw materials and services you buy in your food business are safe and suitable for your products, consumers and customers.
An approved supplier program is a set of policies, procedures and records, usually encompassing risk assessments.
If you don’t already have an approved supplier program, these three steps will help you get started. Warning: the steps are simple but that doesn’t mean the process is easy. It takes time and effort to build a robust program. If you are short of time or resources, you might want to start with just your most important incoming materials and add less important materials later…
Step One: Understand the Stuff You Buy
Start by making a list of everything that you purchase that is related to the food you make or sell.
Your list should include ingredients, products, packaging materials. It should also include any service providers that work with, in or around the food, such as contract manufacturers, cleaners and pest contractors.
For each material or service provider, write down the requirements it needs to meet to allow your business to make or sell food that is safe and of the desired quality. In large food companies, this description takes the form of a purchasing specification.
The list of requirements should be based on hazards and risks to food safety - including allergens - plus food quality; food authenticity and business continuity risks (what happens if you can’t get this material?).
Address the food safety risks first. This should be done by performing a food safety risk assessment on the materials. Include the food safety hazards that might arise from food fraud as well. I’ve included a risk assessment tutorial resource below.
Example of requirements for ready-to-eat, single-serve cheesecake: must be free from pathogens, provided with accurate allergen information, at a temperature of < 4 degrees C when received, and with at least 4 days left before the Use By date.
Step Two: Know Who You Want to Buy it From
Now you have a structured list of what you are buying, you can create a formal description of what you expect from suppliers.
Criteria for selecting suppliers should include food safety attributes and can also include their past history of compliance with your specifications, customer service, and their business background, such as whether they have a history of food recalls, food hygiene problems or food fraud.
Example: Suppliers of ready-to-eat single-serve cheesecake must have a current, 3rd party certified food safety certification; must use accredited food transport vehicles for deliveries; must have passed a background check for past food safety issues.
Why is it useful to formally list these criteria? Because if you want to source something from a new supplier, you will have a framework to decide if the new supplier is “ok” or not. For example, if a potential new cheesecake supplier doesn’t have a food safety certification, you will know they don’t meet your criteria and you will not buy from them.
Step Three: Create Your Approved Supplier List and Monitoring Process
Now that you know what requirements your suppliers need to meet to be considered “approved”, you can put this into a document, with a list of your actual suppliers.
For each of your current suppliers, make a note of which requirements they need to meet in order to be “approved” and for each requirement, explicitly state whether or not they comply with it. If there is a requirement they don’t comply with, you should write down why you think this is okay (= a “risk assessment”), or make a plan to stop purchasing from them.
Example: Your current cheesecake supplier does not use an accredited transport company, so they don’t meet your approved supplier requirements. But this supplier always delivers their cheesecakes individually wrapped, in a spotlessly clean portable cooler box and at the proper temperature, so you are satisfied that the risks are properly controlled.
When you have done this for all your suppliers, you will have an approved supplier list. It’s a good idea to include backup suppliers for important materials as well.
Finally, include a note that explains how often you will review each supplier to check if they still comply with your requirements. In a formal food safety program, this must be done at least once a year.
In short: 🍏 An approved supplier program is a set of policies, procedures and records, usually encompassing risk assessments 🍏 They help ensure that all the food, ingredients, raw materials and services you buy in your food business are safe and suitable for your products, consumers and customers 🍏 Start with what you buy 🍏 Then consider who you buy it from 🍏 Write it all down and review suppliers regularly 🍏
Learn more
You can learn more about performing risk assessments on suppliers and products in this YouTube video by the friendly blokes at the International Food Safety and Quality Network (https://www.ifsqn.com).
Food Supply Chains
Fertiliser Supplies (It’s Worse Than You Thought)
Lately, international food supply chain news is chock-a-block with dire warnings about fertiliser shortages. No doubt you have heard about this already. And, of course, you also know that this is having an impact on food production and food prices. But…
… you may not have realised just HOW bad things are looking right now. Buckle up for a list of some (not) fun facts about fertiliser:
Rice crop yields are predicted to be down by 10% next season. The difference is enough to feed 500 million people.
When less nitrogen fertiliser is used, grains end up with less protein, especially with wheat.
The price of urea fertiliser has tripled in the Philippines in the past 12 months.
Rising food prices triggered serious social unrest in the past, including the Arab Spring of 2011.
Fertiliser prices in Kenya have increased by 70% since last year.
North American prices have nearly tripled since January 2020.
Cutting the use of potash fertiliser by 20% in Brazil could mean a drop of 14% in soybean yield.
Reducing fertiliser use by 33% in Costa Rican coffee plantations could mean output reductions of 15%.
West Africa is expecting a 33% reduction in rice and corn production this year due to a reduction in fertiliser application.
China is preventing the export of phosphate, an important component of fertilisers, to protect its domestic markets.
Production of fertiliser in the US Gulf Coast region was shut down over summer by ‘back-to-back’ storms.
I did manage to find a few silver linings…
In places like the USA and some parts of Brazil, where farmers typically over-apply fertilisers (sigh), farmers have started to use tools that help them figure out exactly how much they actually need to use. It’s about time!
The current problems provide more incentive than ever before for farmers to engage in regenerative cropping practices like crop rotation, fallowing and nitrogen-fixing cover-planting.
Manure sales are soaring!
Main source for most of these stats: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-05-01/farmers-are-struggling-to-keep-up-food-supply-as-fertilizer-prices-surge
Food Safety
Are Lucky Charms and Cheerios Breakfast Cereals Causing a Massive Foodborne Illness Outbreak in the USA?
Lucky Charms is a dry breakfast cereal that – some claim – has been making people sick in the USA since April. Now Cheerios are being blamed too. What’s going on?
After thousands of people reported illnesses and blamed Lucky Charms in April 2022, the USA’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initiated an on-site inspection plus sample collection and analysis.
That was six weeks ago. What did they find? Who knows! They are not saying, telling the New York Post last week that
“The FDA continues to take seriously any reports of possible adulteration of a food that may also cause illnesses or injury. As we continue reviewing and investigating these reports, we will provide updates as they become available.”
The manufacturer, General Mills, says they have investigated and found no apparent link between the reported illnesses and their cereals.
As of today, there were 558 adverse event reports recorded on the FDA’s website, more than double the number in late April. The source of the original illness reports, the website iwaspoinsoned.com has collected more than 7000 reports of illness.
The FDA is not listing symptoms on its website, but symptoms described on iwaspoisoned.com include nausea, vomiting, diarrhoea, cramps and green stools, or green liquid stools 😧 for Lucky Charms. The Cheerios symptoms also include nausea and diarrhoea, but don’t seem to include green stools.
It’s possible that the cereals are not the cause of the illnesses – but rather that the link is a coincidence because lots of Americans eat cereal – and it’s also possible that there is a deliberate campaign being conducted against General Mills, which manufactures both products.
I went looking on the internet to see if I could find evidence of a smear campaign. I didn’t find any.
But I did find this…
And this witticism from someone who calls themselves mrwknd:
What?! Only 3,000 [illnesses]? That shiat isn't even food to begin with. Just eat a bowl of sugar with some stale bread, you'd be better off. mrwknd on www.Fark.com in April.
Next week I’ll explore how a dry cereal could be making so many people sick.
In short: 🍏 Lots of people in the USA are claiming to have become violently sick after eating Lucky Charms and Cheerios breakfast cereals 🍏 The FDA is investigating but isn’t providing any information about symptoms or affected batch codes 🍏 The manufacturer says they can’t find anything wrong 🍏
Sources:
https://nypost.com/2022/06/09/cheerios-cereal-making-people-sick-reports/
https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/investigations-foodborne-illness-outbreaks
https://iwaspoisoned.com/tag/lucky-charms
https://iwaspoisoned.com/tag/cheerios
Special Offer
Special offer for World Food Safety Day
This month, June 2022, to celebrate World Food Safety Day (which was last Tuesday), I'm offering private Ask Me Anything sessions to everyone who signs up for a paid one-year subscription.
You get a one-hour session where I answer your questions about...
- food safety standards,
- food fraud systems (VACCP),
- food supplier approvals programs,
- audits, regulations and inspections...
- even questions about the technology I use (like Trello and newsletter subscription software).
Ask me Anything sessions are your chance to get clarity and confidence about your food safety issues in a relaxed, supportive environment. The sessions are private and confidential. They last for one hour and are delivered by live Google chat, or live video call, at a time of your choosing.
To access the sessions, simply sign up for a one-year subscription before 30th June 2022. You'll receive an invitation to join a private Ask me Anything session, where you can ask me questions in writing or on a private video call, at a time that suits you.
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