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FSMA Provides All Cold Chain Participants a More Definitive Raodmap to Improve the Safety of Our Food Supply

The Food Safety Modernization Act will have a sweeping, extensive impact for temperature-controlled supply chain providers.  Read commentary from Billy Adams of Americold, in an excerpt from an article posted in Food Logistics Magazine.

Billy Adams, Americold's Director of Food Safety, was recently interviewed for an article in Food Logistics Magazine.  Below is an extract from that article:

Preventive controls are the most important aspect of the law for cold chain storage. But the Sanitary Transport (STH) rule is the rule that Americold is reviewing more carefully. “I do think that one will be somewhat of a challenge for the industry just because it’s so new, so different. The FDA hasn’t been intricately involved in invoking regulations around transportation. Now they put some very specific expectations around responsibilities of the shippers, of the carriers and of the receivers. In a company such as ours, we actually play all three of those roles in some of our facilities.”

“We’re shipping product out on behalf of our customers, whether or not we’re the shipper of record,” he says.

Americold monitors the temperature of product upon delivery to and before departure from its facilities or vehicles, but it can also monitor temperatures during transit if required by customers, Adams notes. The method it uses depends on what the customer wants, which is what the STH rule requires. In some cases, the company monitors the temperature using electronic temperature loggers. In other cases, customers supply the loggers and Americold monitors them on their behalf. “That is something that could become more of a standard in the industry than it is today,” he says.

Adams doesn’t expect real-time temperature monitoring will become standard practice just yet due to the complexities of mobile communications for temperature logger devices.

He agrees with those who say companies correctly using HACCP will most likely be in compliance with FSMA. Under FSMA, companies may need to change some of the language in their safety plans.

“For example, in the past you might have had an allergen management program; now you may have to say, ‘I have a preventive measure to prevent allergen cross-contact. That is my allergen management program,’” Adams says. “You will have to make sure you’ve read through the entire preventive controls rule.”

The intentional adulteration rule may also impact storage companies, Adams says. The rule requires food facilities to conduct vulnerability assessments and establish mitigation strategies for those areas of the facility susceptible to “attack.”

 

To read the full article on Food Logistics Magazine's website, please click here.