The food we eatDemands grow for improved global food supply chain

Experts have called for the creation of a simpler, globally accepted food supply chain that can benefit from existing commercial systems. The demand comes in a report from the U.S. Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), which has been released by the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (CFSAN).

“Food can become contaminated at many different steps in the supply chain. Experience in conducting food-borne disease outbreak investigations suggests that improved product tracing abilities could help identify products associated with disease more quickly, get risky products off the market faster, and reduce the number of illnesses associated with food-borne illness outbreaks,” the study stated.

The IFT report is part of the public record that U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) will consider in determining ways to improve the ability of government and industry to trace food products throughout all stages of the supply chain.

The FDA and the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service jointly announced a public meeting on food product tracing in Washington, on 9 and 10 December 2009, and formally requested written input from stakeholders on measures to improve food product tracing.

CFSAN commissioned the IFT report in 2008 as part of the agency’s ongoing examination of food product tracing practices, and its commitment to improve the ability of government and industry to trace commercially distributed food products potentially of risk to US consumers. The IFT is a non-profit scientific society focusing on the science of food.