newsworthy
food for thought
Since 2005, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
(FDA) has required U.S. food facilities to maintain records
identifying the source, recipient, and transporter of food
products. The goal was to allow the FDA to trace food
through each stage of the supply chain if the agency
believed the product was tainted and posed a public
health threat.
However, a March 2009 report by the Inspector
General’s office of the Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS) revealed that 59 percent of the 118 facilities surveyed failed to meet the FDA’s record-keeping
requirements. The report, Traceability in the Food Supply
Chain, said 20 percent of the facilities did not provide all
of the required information about the sources of the food,
52 percent failed to provide full information about the
recipients, and 46 percent did not supply complete data
on the transporters of the goods. One-quarter of the facilities were not even aware of the FDA’s requirements, the
HHS report found.
One problem, according to the report, is a lack of IT
tools needed to connect the dots. “In some cases, managers had to look through large numbers of records—
some of them paper-based—for contact information,” the
report noted. In addition, some facilities couldn’t integrate record-keeping systems to link suppliers and recipients to specific shipments or carriers, forcing facility managers to search through separate databases to identify the
participants, the report found.
In a world where tracing technologies such as bar-code
labeling have become commonplace, why is the food
supply chain seemingly stuck in the last century? The
reasons, according to Cristina DeMartini, market development leader at the Vernon Hills, Ill.-based supply
chain technology supplier Zebra Technologies
International LLC, are related to price and competitive
paranoia. “The food industry has been slow to adopt
because of the cost of the technology and worries that
competitors will have access to vital information,” she
says.
Zebra says it has developed bar-code labels that could be
affixed to food products at the grower and then be easily
scanned and traced as they move through the supply chain
to the retailer. While the technology cannot prevent a
food-borne illness or outbreak, it can quickly identify
where the affected product originated, who handled it,
and where consumers purchased it, Zebra says.
Companies in the supply chain can then quickly determine the source of the problem and take corrective
action—first to take the product off the shelves and then
to prevent future incidents, the company says.
The pressure on the food supply chain to maintain better records is likely to intensify. This summer, the U.S.
House of Representatives passed H.R. 2749, the Food
Safety and Enhancement Act of 2009, expanding the FDA’s
regulatory authority over the nation’s food supply. The bill
allows the FDA to conduct warrantless searches of business records and to establish a national food tracing system. No companion bill has been introduced in the
Senate.
Some industry groups are not waiting for dictates from
Washington. Three industry associations, most notably
the Produce Marketing Institute, are developing traceability requirements on produce growing, manufacturing,
and distribution in an effort to avoid government intervention into their business.
—M.S.
ground breakers
; Industrial real estate developer ProLogis has announced
plans to build a 616,000-square-foot distribution facility in
Osaka, Japan, for Senko Co., an integrated distribution services company. The facility, to be called ProLogis Parc Maishima
IV, is strategically situated within a region that is fast becoming
a Japanese distribution hub. ProLogis is one of the largest
providers of distribution space in Japan, with approximately
8. 5 million square feet completed or under development.
; TechniPak, a third-party logistics service provider, has
opened a facility in Sparks, Nev. The facility is designed to
serve clients who import cargo containers through the Port
of Oakland, Calif.
; Inmar CLS Reverse Logistics has leased a 92,143-square-
foot distribution facility in Allentown, Pa., from Liberty
Property Trust. The facility is a high-bay industrial property
that features a 30-foot clear ceiling height, 16 loading docks,
and T5 lighting. Inmar CLS specializes in technology-driven
reverse logistics and supply chain solutions for the retail and
consumer goods industries.
; Averitt Express has added new facilities in Kalamazoo,
Mich., and Harrisburg, Pa. The new sites will allow Averitt to
position additional trucks in Michigan and Pennsylvania in
order to respond rapidly to local demands for truckload
service.
