Dive Brief:
- The FDA and USDA joined the CDC in warning food companies about being more proactive in preventing foodborne pathogens.
- Per a new CDC report, the agencies cited "new data showing that multistate outbreaks - which involve widely distributed products - cause more than half of all food poisoning deaths, even though they account for just 3 percent of all outbreaks," Reuters reported.
- State-of-the-art disease tracking tools, particularly gene tools, are making it easier for investigators to resolve foodborne outbreak cases by tracking down their sources, but many still go unsolved.
Dive Insight:
Up until now, the way food companies and regulators dealt with foodborne pathogens and outbreaks was reactive rather than preventive. Now, particularly as the new FSMA preventive rules and other FSMA regulations begin to take effect, food companies will be held more accountable to use science-based approaches to integrate safety controls into food production.
In one attempt, the agencies have encouraged U.S. food companies "to voluntarily submit the genetic sequences of the pathogens they find in their food production plants to a nationwide database that could be used to track down the source of outbreaks earlier," according to Reuters.
In the report, the CDC pressed food companies to be more proactive about food safety by "keeping detailed records to allow for faster tracing of foods, using store loyalty cards to identify which foods made people sick, and notifying customers of recalls," Reuters reported.