With more persons ordering foods online or having them delivered directly, the issue of food safety has increased. How do we ensure that the foods are produced, packed and transported safely to consumers?
The FDA is about to release a new paper on food safety. The New Era of Smarter Food Safety Blueprint will offer guidelines for keeping our food supply safe in normal times as well as times of crisis.
Included in the blueprint is a call for creating a more digital, traceable food system using tech-enabled traceability. This digitized food system will help in keeping our food supply safe.
Being able to trace the food journey is one way to feel more confident about its’ safety. We are all increasingly eating foods from all over the world. Tracing this journey is important in a number of ways. 1) it can establish where a public health concern may have originated. 2) it can trace food imbalances that often result in shortages of certain foods and 3) it can help anticipate and perhaps reduce food waste such as when food producers were left without their normal path to restaurants, schools, and other marketplaces that closed due to the pandemic.
Some food manufacturers are already on board with making sure consumers know more about the history and origin of their food. The message on one of my food packages says they can trace every product back to the field in which it was grown. Having been raised in mid-America, in the midst of green fields and all things growing, I wondered how this could possibly be accomplished. But modern technology is coming to the rescue and with its data, can provide another layer of food safety.
The makers of the product I had were ahead of the pack. Their “seed to shelf” mission is evident in their advertising. Through modern science, they are now able to trace every package back to the field it was grown on. I think this is quite phenomenal. I’m certain we will see more of this in the future.
Food safety calls on good practices by farmers and the entire food industry to keep our food supply safe. New measures on the horizon will strengthen how we approach the safety and security of the food supply no matter what challenges we face.
Lee Jackson
Food Writer
See what’s included in my book bundle:
https://samecartstoreur.samcart.com/products/healthy-to-the-core/
