Those who are ahead of the curve are reaping the benefits. They deepen current customer relationships, and gain new business from positive word of mouth. Improper storage conditions can lead to contamination or worse. Retailers who demonstrate quality and safety steal margin from those who do not.
Our controls and monitoring solutions achieve better temperature control and predictive diagnostics to prevent product loss while significantly reducing your energy, maintenance, and operating costs, through industry-leading optimization.
From FDA-validated laboratories, to some of the largest and most stringent seafood processing facilities, people who care about quality and precision temperature control, rely on NRM to ensure state-of-the-art efficiency, performance, and critical operation. Our customers are able to prove their adherence to federal regulations such as the FSMA and HACCP, all the while having the peace of mind that our tools have automated the record-keeping process.
"The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) is transforming the nation’s food safety system by shifting the focus from responding to foodborne illness to preventing it. Congress enacted FSMA in response to dramatic changes in the global food system and in our understanding of foodborne illness and its consequences, including the realization that preventable foodborne illness is both a significant public health problem and a threat to the economic well-being of the food system.
FDA has finalized seven major rules to implement FSMA, recognizing that ensuring the safety of the food supply is a shared responsibility among many different points in the global supply chain for both human and animal food. The FSMA rules are designed to make clear specific actions that must be taken at each of these points to prevent contamination."
1. Accredited Third-Party Certification
2. Current Good Manufacturing Practice and Hazard Analysis and Risk-Based Preventive Cntrols for Human Food, Food for Animals
3. Foreign Supplier Verification Programs (FSVP)
4. Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration
5. Sanitary Transportation of Human and Animal Food
6. Standards for the Growing, Harvesting, Packing, and Holding of Produce for Human Consumption
7. Voluntary Qualified Importer Program (VQIP)
Within the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), there are clear instructions on how to develop a food safety plan, and also what is required to be in it. In general, you are a covered facility if you are required to register with FDA under section 415 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic (FD&C) Act. Covered facilities are required to have and implement a written food safety plan that includes:
Hazard Analysis
Preventive Controls. Facilities have the flexibility to tailor preventive controls to address hazards that occur in the products they manufacture. The preventive controls, which must be written, must be implemented to ensure that any hazards requiring a preventive control will be significantly minimized or prevented and help ensure that the food is not adulterated. The rule includes the following preventive controls:
Oversight and Management of Preventive Controls. Once a facility has identified a preventive control for a hazard, the facility must make sure that the controls are being met.
Supply Chain Program
Recall Plan
There are two completely different families of bacteria: pathogenic bacteria, the kind that cause foodborne illness, and spoilage bacteria, the kind of bacteria that cause foods to deteriorate and develop unpleasant odors, tastes, and textures.
Pathogenic bacteria can grow rapidly in the "Danger Zone," the temperature range between 40 and 140 °F, but they do not generally affect the taste, smell, or appearance of a food. In other words, one cannot tell that a pathogen is present.
Spoilage bacteria can grow at low temperatures, such as in the refrigerator. Eventually they cause food to develop off or bad tastes and smells. Most people would not choose to eat spoiled food, but if they did, they probably would not get sick. It comes down to an issue of quality versus safety:
HACCP is a management system in which food safety is addressed through the analysis and control of biological, chemical, and physical hazards from raw material production, procurement and handling, to manufacturing, distribution and consumption of the finished product. This system has been developed to encompass a swathe of industries from dairy to juice to retail & foodservices to seafood.
"The goal in applying HACCP principles in retail and food service is to have you, the operator, take purposeful actions to ensure safe food. You and your regulatory authority have a common objective in mind - providing safe, quality food to consumers. Your health inspector can help you achieve this common objective, but remember that the ultimate responsibility for food safety at the retail level lies with you and your ability to develop and maintain an effective food safety management system.
Managing food safety should be as fully integrated into your operation as those actions that you might take to open in the morning, ensure a profit, or manage cash flow. By putting in place an active, ongoing system, made up of actions intended to create the desired outcome, you can achieve your goal of improving food safety. The application of the HACCP principles provides one system that can help you accomplish that goal."
The path to fewer operational headaches, and more money in your pocket at the end of the day, begins here.
National Resource Management, Inc. © 2018