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An often-overlooked clause of the US FDA’s Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) has the potential to drive global changes in how we source our food sustainably, and offers governments around the world a blueprint on how to implement them regulation can achieve a lasting effect: digital traceability.
In order to feed the growing world population adequately and sustainably, we must not focus solely on food production. We also need to look at reducing food waste. Digital traceability gives companies the ability to pinpoint when and where foodborne illnesses begin.
Knowing where sources of contamination occur along a food product’s journey from farm to fork allows us to identify which product is contaminated, but just as importantly, which product is uncontaminated. Too often entire shelves and chains of potentially uncontaminated food products are thrown away because of the uncertainty and possibility of exposure to foodborne illness. But with digital traceability, we can ensure we only remove contaminated food before it affects other products and makes it onto your dinner table. That means less product waste – and that’s just the beginning of the potential of digital traceability for sustainability and responsible sourcing and handling.
The potential to protect health and reduce waste
In the US, the FDA’s job is to ensure that the foods Americans consume are safe, which is no easy task. The CDC estimates that 48 million Americans (one in six) contract foodborne illness each year, of which 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die from foodborne illness. In 2011, the FDA created the Food Safety Modernization Act to address some of the most common food safety challenges. The key shift in focus has been to target and proactively prevent contamination in the food supply, rather than just reacting to it.
When the law was originally published, an important piece of product traceability legislation was missing. Traceability provides some of the key insights and leading indicators needed to predict and prevent foodborne illness. When companies and governments can see exactly where each product came from and where it was in their supply chain, they can anticipate where problems might arise and proactively remove risky products from future shelves. Especially for identified foodborne illnesses, this traceability information can help identify where the contamination came from and which products need to be removed from which store shelves to prevent more people from becoming ill.
In addition to preventing foodborne illness, traceability data can also help drastically reduce food waste. When recalls occur, it often takes companies a long time to sort through their paperwork and records to determine where contaminated product came from. If the company cannot identify these quickly enough, it must remove all products in the contaminated category from store shelves. This usually includes large quantities of products that are fine but cannot be proven as such.
Recalls tend to make big headlines, dramatically impacting buyer preferences and behavior. Many people will avoid products they’ve read recalls about because they don’t trust their grocery stores or restaurants to be sophisticated enough to remove all contaminated produce. This lack of consumer confidence is often justified as many companies do not know whether their products are affected or not. This further exacerbates the problem of food waste as many safe products remain unsold and expire.
Beyond food: Maximizing traceability efforts can reduce deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions
Today there is the technology to identify contaminated products immediately and precisely. However, companies are often reluctant to implement and use this technology due to the additional effort involved in collecting the necessary data. It is also important that all members of a supply chain are involved, all the way back to farms, as partial visibility can rarely provide the insights needed to prevent and mitigate cases of foodborne illness.
In situations like these, governments need to step in and enforce regulations to drive change for the greater good. This is exactly what the FDA has done with their FSMA Rule 204(d). This traceability rule requires that any company that processes or sells products in 16 high-risk food categories must maintain digital traceability records for their products.
On a global scale, this rule is a powerful example of how a government agency can help address an issue that will have far-reaching implications. If such a rule can help reduce food waste, we could be in a much better position to feed the world’s growing population. This reduction in food waste can also help farmers avoid reaping more value from their land by engaging in unsustainable farming practices that risk rendering the land unusable.
In the case of palm oil, which is used in almost 50% of packaged products in supermarkets, including pizza, donuts, chocolate, deodorant, shampoo, toothpaste and lipstick, the product has become a major driver of deforestation due to unsustainable harvesting practices. Not only is this deforestation destroying the habitats of already endangered species, including the orangutan and Sumatran rhino, but it is also accelerating the conversion of carbon-rich peat soils and producing millions of tons of greenhouse gases that contribute to climate change. These unsustainable farming practices put future generations at risk of facing an even greater challenge to feed their populations.
If this rule helps the industry prevent incidents of foodborne illness and respond to them more quickly, it could save thousands of lives. If this rule reduced our current amount of food waste by half, we would have more than enough food to feed the projected future population of 2050. And if the rule does all of that, it will reduce the drivers of deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions.
While this rule may seem small by global standards, the impact is immensely positive and could spur the use of technology to provide a safer and more sustainable food supply chain.
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