Food Safety Magazine, April/May 2010

NEWS BITES

Dr. Robert Brackett Joins
Food Safety Magazine Advisory Board

Food Safety Magazine is pleased to an-
nounce that Robert E. Brackett, Ph.D., senior
vice president and chief scientific and regula-
tory affairs officer for the Grocery Manufactur-
ers Association (GMA), has joined the
magazine’s advisory board. Dr. Brackett over-
sees all of the association’s scientific and regu-
latory activity, including the operation of its
in-house food safety laboratory. Prior to com-
ing to GMA, Dr. Brackett served in various po-
sitions within the U.S Food and Drug
Administration’s Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition. Dr. Brack-
ett has served elected leadership positions in several professional associ-
ations, and is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the
International Association for Food Protection. He serves on the advisory
boards of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, and the
National Center for Food Safety and Technology.

Recent Articles Available Online at
www.foodsafetymagazine.com/
signature.asp

The use of pesticides in food production is regulated by the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Learn more about pesticide sample preparation and analysis in Multi-residue Pesticide Analysis by Thermo Fisher Scientific.

Today’s manufacturing companies are seeing traceability as a costly and unfair expense, imposed by regulators to force food manufacturing companies to conform to legislation. Read SG Systems’ Turn Traceability into Profitability to learn how fears surrounding compliance with the latest food traceability regulations can be turned around into an opportunity to make food manufacturing practices significantly more efficient and highly streamlined.

Whenever commercial, manufacturer-sized loads are lifted or manipulated by operators in the food industry, there’s risk of injury. See the article Preventing Back Injury: Increasing Safety, Capacity and Productivity for the Food Industry by AirOlift Lifting Systems and Handling Concepts, Inc., for tips on how to streamline production with the strategic use of lift devices and attachments.

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Online & Of Note

http://nmaonline.org/pdf/Generic_Food_Defense_Plan_9_3_09.pdf

This site allows the download of the new Food Safety and Inspec-
tion Service (FSIS) Food Defense Program Tool for Small and Very
Small Establishments. Simply by adding a minimal amount of infor-
mation to a printed version of this document and submitting it to
FSIS, a processor can receive FSIS confirmation that a Food
Defense Program is in place at its establishment.

First Lady Michelle
Obama Addresses
GMA Science Forum

First Lady Michelle Obama accepted an invitation from the GMA to address their Science Forum on March 16, issuing a challenge to the nation’s largest food companies to make healthier foods by reformulating products and reduce marketing of unhealthy foods to children.

Mrs. Obama asked those gathered to “step it up” and put less fat, salt and sugar in produced foods as part of her goal to address the problem of childhood obesity.

“We need you not to just tweak around the edges but entirely rethink the products you are offering, the information that you provide about these products and how you market those products to our children,” she said.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is strengthening its requirements for labeling on food packages, a decision lauded by Mrs. Obama, who commented that she would like to see less-confusing food labels and portion sizes and increased marketing for healthy foods. She also urged companies not just to find creative approaches to marketing foods as healthy but also to increase the nutritional value of the foods being produced.

“While decreasing fat is certainly a good thing,
replacing it with sugar and salt isn’t,” she re-
minded the audience. “This needs to be a serious,
industry-wide commitment to providing the
healthier foods parents are looking for at prices
they can afford.”
While introducing Mrs. Obama, Richard G.
Wolford, chairman, president and CEO of Del
Monte Foods Company and chairman of the
GMA Board of Directors, said that this was “a wa-
tershed moment in the fight against obesity.”
The GMA later issued a statement in support
of the First Lady’s goal, pledging its enthusiastic
support of Mrs. Obama’s “Let’s Move!” initiative
and its goal of solving childhood obesity within a
generation.