To curb outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, the federal food safety overhaul signed into law this month calls on farmers and processors to help the government keep track of their products. The aim is to enable authorities to more quickly zero in on the sources of tainted foods.
And although the main benefits of that provision are years off for consumers, the Washington Post reports that tech companies already are getting a boost.
The new law, the newspaper said, “has triggered a small gold rush for technology companies angling for a piece of an emerging market … They are competing to develop the tracking technology and manage the data.” The technology firms are looking to join companies in the food business already using so-called traceability technology.
Some companies are even going beyond the federal requirement and making traceability information available to consumers. HarvestMark, a California company, has developed a two-dimensional bar code sticker that can be attached to individual fruits and vegetables or packaging. Shoppers can scan the sticker with a smartphone or go to the HarvestMark website and enter the number from the sticker to trace the food’s path through the supply chain.
“They want to know, ‘Where does this come from and is it safe? How far has it traveled? What are the growing practices?’” HarvestMark’s chief operating officer told the Post.
The “one step forward, one step back” traceability requirement of the Food Safety Modernization Act applies to processed food and produce. It requires all businesses in the nation’s food supply chain to be able to quickly trace from whom they received a food product and to whom they sent it.
Tech firms are experimenting with sophisticated methods such as etching identification codes on produce with lasers or “micro-percussion” markers that make tiny indents. But a former Food and Drug Administration official cautioned that tracking an outbreak of a foodborne illnesses will still take time.
“It still involves the FDA going to the local Safeway, finding out who they received it from and they’ve got to go to those three suppliers and do the same thing,” he said. “They’ll be more efficient, but it won’t achieve the desired speed to shut it down.”
You also have to wonder if all this will take some consumers to an extreme. In the new comedy series “Portlandia” on the Independent Film Channel, a couple takes five years to decide whether to order chicken at a Portland, Ore., restaurant, even visiting the farm where the chicken was raised.
The FDA announced last week that a separate early warning system to spot problems in the U.S. food supply logged 2,240 reports of possible health hazards over its first 12-month tracking period. Data from the agency’s first annual Reportable Food Registry Report showed two particular hazards.
One was salmonella in such items as spices, seasoning, fresh produce, pet food and nuts. The other major problem involved substances in bakery goods, dried fruit and vegetables, prepared foods, dairy products and candy that triggered allergies or intolerances.
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