Food Traceability

Michael Hrycay

4 Food Traceability

Michael Hrycay

Learning Objectives

Discuss the purpose and benefits of food traceability systems.

Introduction

What is traceability?

Being able to track the movement, transactions and environment information about food throughout the supply chain.

What is tracing one step forward?

Tracing the food you provided to someone else.

What is tracing one step backward?

Tracing the ingredients another person provided you.

Food tracing is crucial in the case of food safety in order to efficiently recall products and ingredients. It decreases waste and inefficiencies. Traceability requirements are increasing for all points in the production system between farm and consumer.

Some requirements of traceability are to:

Link all raw ingredients to their suppliers
Link all raw ingredient lot numbers to finished product codes
Code finished products by lot number
Link the ingredients of rework to finished product codes
Link the ingredients in premixes to finished product codes
Link finished product codes to the accounts receiving the product

Under the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR), traceability requirements apply to most food businesses that:

import food
export food
distribute or send food products across provincial or territorial borders
manufacture, process, treat, preserve, grade, store, package or label food to be exported or sent across provincial or territorial boundaries
grow and harvest fresh fruits or vegetables to be exported or sent across provincial or territorial boundaries
slaughter food animals from which meat products are derived, where the meat product is exported or sent across provincial or territorial boundaries
store and handle edible meat products in their imported condition for inspection by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA)
sell food to consumers at retail, which would need to be traced one step back but not forward to the consumer

Traceability can be divided into two key functions: tracking and tracing.

Tracking (one step forward) is defined as the ability to follow the path of an item as it moves downstream through the supply chain from the beginning to the end.

Tracing (one step backward) is defined as the ability to identify the origin of an item or group of items through records, upstream in the supply chain.

The main objective of traceability is the identification and isolation of any potential contamination source that will enable the return and withdrawal of such products from the market.

Benefits of Traceability

Food Traceability has many benefits. In the case of a foodborne illness outbreak or contamination event, efficient product tracing helps government agencies and those who produce and sell food to rapidly find the source of the product and where contamination may have occurred. This enables faster removal of the affected product from the marketplace, reducing incidences of foodborne illnesses.

Other benefits of a food traceability system include:

reduced costs associated with recalls by narrowing the scope to only food that may present a risk of injury to human health
protecting consumers against the risk of injury to their health from hazards in your food, and
increased consumer trust in the safety of the food you sell.

Processes and Practices Enabling Food Traceability

Documentation

Documentation is the key component of any food traceability system. If some problem occurs, the documents can be consulted to track down exactly where the problem happened. Documentation will be discussed in the next chapter.

This video describes an example of a traceability system:

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP)

Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) deals with the traceability concerns.

Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP)

GMPs provide some definitions for determining whether food is adulterated (and thus illegal to sell) because it has been manufactured, prepared, packed or held under insanitary conditions. More precisely, GMPs help define whether 1) food has been manufactured under conditions that it are unfit for food; or 2) food has been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health

We can use the FDA’s GMPs as an example. The broad topics addressed in FDA’s GMPs include:

Personnel: disease control; cleanliness; education and training; supervision
Plant and grounds: grounds; plant construction and design
Sanitary operations: general maintenance; substances used in cleaning and sanitizing; storage of toxic materials; pest control; sanitation of food-contact surfaces; storage and handling of cleaned portable equipment and utensils
Sanitary facilities and controls: water supply; plumbing; sewage disposal; toilet facilities; hand-washing facilities; rubbish and offal disposal
Equipment and utensils
Processes and controls: raw materials and other ingredients; manufacturing operations
Warehousing and distribution