Food safety is not a subject that has typically been on the minds of elementary and high school teachers or their students’ minds in the past.  But helping the next generation understand what the risks are, where they exist and the roles of government, food companies and consumers in contributing to safer food was an essential program to introduce. 

Following the Listeria crisis in August 2008, we made food safety our priority at Maple Leaf which included investing in food safety education.  As part of that commitment, we partnered with the Science Teachers’ Association of Ontario (STAO) to develop innovative food safety resources for teachers and students in elementary and high schools.  

Through these new teaching resources, students can discover and explore food safety issues in interesting ways, making connections to real life situations and in their day-to-day lives.  We’ve developed hands-on activities and engaging research exercises for elementary students in grades 1, 5 and 8, and senior science students in grades 11 and 12.  Part of the curriculum also provides insight into careers in the food industry.

These educational resources were launched at STAO’s annual conference in Toronto last week and are now available online.  For more information or to download the resources, visit: www.stao.ca.

In addition to two sessions to introduce these educational resources to teachers attending  the annual conference, I was also given the opportunity to speak to conference attendees.  I talked about the critical importance of food safety to the global challenge of feeding a population expected to hit nine billion people by 2050.  Science and technology play such an incredibly important role in ensuring that our food system produces safe, wholesome and great tasting products to this ever growing population worldwide. 

While science is critical, I also made the point, very strongly, that the real key to safe food is having every person involved in the food chain, from farmers and ranchers, to processors and retailers, and even consumers, fully aware of their role in food safety.  We preach this concept daily at Maple Leaf Foods with our 22,500 employees, and I encouraged the science teachers in attendance that they also have a huge role to play as they are developing the next generation of food industry employees and consumers.  I want to thank the leadership of STAO for giving Maple Leaf Foods this opportunity to contribute to food safety education. 

It’s been an incredible partnership working with the STAO to develop these excellent teaching resources which I’m confident will engage the young and inquiring minds of the next generation.  By investing in food safety education, we are taking another step forward in our journey to food safety leadership and building stronger food safety practices in Canada.

This week the federal government issued a progress report on actions it’s taken to strengthen food safety. The report is available on the CFIA site and it outlines significant progress made since the 2008 listeriosis outbreak and in response to the report delivered in 2009 by the independent investigator tasked to make recommendations around strengthening food safety systems.

Key to this has been new money it announced towards a five year Food and Consumer Safety Action Plan. Just one of the investments the government is making: $13 million for increased inspection capacity for meat and poultry processing facilities this year and next. It has also been linking up more laboratories to the PulseNet Canada network to allows DNA fingerprints across Canada to be compared and to identify sources of illness in real time. It outlined clearer roles and responsibilities in the event of health emergencies and new leadership with the appointment in May of a Chief Food Safety Officer. And it has improved communications outreach so it can better inform Canadians, including new online tools.

And the government is working with companies like ours to ensure the entire system – with public and private sector members – is working together. The new Agri-Subcommittee on Food Safety (ASFS) has met several times and these meetings are facilitating good cooperation between companies such as ourselves and Health Canada, the CFIA and food safety partners.

There’s still more to do however – for government and companies. We’ll be looking for evidence of progress on steps the government has committed to complete, such as finalizing new guidelines around recalls and the revised policy on Listeria monocytogenes.  We’re especially interested in seeing the approval of a range of new technologies that are commonly in use elsewhere in the world such as technologies that facilitate rapid-testing of foodborne pathogens.  It’s important for Canadian companies to have approval to use the range of food safety tools that are being used elsewhere, notably in the US, so that our systems are robust and complementary to regulatory requirements.  We are also anxious for government to provide ongoing reporting of industry compliance to the regulatory requirements so that the industry can hold ourselves accountable for continuous improvement against meeting and exceeding the standards.

Canadians want to know that companies and government officials are cooperating and moving ahead with improvements and better regulation and we are. There’s been a lot of progress since 2008, demonstrating that the lessons learned during that year are being implemented and backed up by good collaboration between the food industry and public health agencies.

Last week I had the honour to be invited to speak at the 2^nd Latin American Conference on Food Safety, held in Bogota, Colombia.  The meeting was co-sponsored by the International Association of Food Protection (IAFP), the Colombian Association of Food Science and Technology (ACTA), and the Latin American, and Caribbean Association of Food Science and Technology (ALACCTA), with ACTA serving as the host.        

I was speaking alongside a tremendous group of food science and food safety professionals from industry, government and academia hailing from primarily North and South America, but with speakers from Europe and China as well.  The speakers provided perspectives on both applied and basic science from a broad cross-section of the food chain.  

My presentation was titled “Control of Listeria monocytogenes in RTE Foods” and was part of a session theme of “Tools for Control of Pathogenic Microorganisms.”  My discussion covered three main topics:

1. summary of the Maple Leaf Foods 2008 Listeriosis outbreak;
2. specific operational and sanitation best practices and environmental testing protocols that have been implemented across the Maple Leaf RTE plant network; and
3. trend analysis of data from the Maple Leaf testing program that indicate significant improvement.

 The following is the abstract of the presentation.

 Control of Listeria in Ready to Eat Foods

Randall Huffman, Ph.D.

 In August 2008, Maple Leaf Foods produced sliced deli meats that were linked to 23 deaths and over 50 illnesses from Listeriosis across Canada.  This lecture will discuss the root cause of that event and the preventative programs that have been implemented across the Maple Leaf Foods network of facilities to prevent a reoccurrence.  Listeriosis is a serious disease in humans that is primarily transmitted through ready-to-eat (RTE) foods. Although there is increasing evidence that low numbers of organisms are unlikely to cause illness, Listeria monocytogenes can grow to high numbers in RTE foods held at refrigerated temperatures; therefore, it is critical that aggressive control programs must be in place in RTE food processing facilities to prevent product contamination.  The primary route of contamination of RTE food products is from the post-lethality processing environment, where external surfaces of fully-cooked products come in contact with Listeria cells present on food contact surfaces.  Normal cleaning and sanitation practices are typically very effective at removing Listeria cells that have contaminated food contact surfaces; however, Listeria is very adept at surviving and growing to high numbers in areas of processing equipment sheltered and protected from normal cleaning and sanitation practices.  During daily operation of the processing line, contamination can occur when cells from these protected areas are released to the processing area due to wet conditions, mechanical action of the equipment, employee traffic and other normal operating practices.  These sheltered areas, referred to as “harborage points,” must be actively managed and eliminated, where possible.   Implementation of targeted interventions, sanitary re-design of equipment and facilities, control of construction events, management of people and processes to avoid contamination and aggressive environmental testing programs to verify effectiveness of the overall program are the keys to an effective control program.   The use of management tools such as “seek and destroy” and “root cause analysis” are critical to the success of a Listeria control program.  Description of these various tools and data to demonstrate their effectiveness will be shared during this lecture.

The presentation was well received and was complemented by talks on “Cleaning and Sanitizing Programs for Controlling Pathogens” by Dr. Katie Swanson, Ecolab Inc, and “Environmental Monitoring of Food Pathogens” by Dr. Paul Hall, AIV Microbiology / 3M as well as “Ecology and Control of Salmonella and Campylobacter in Poultry Production and Processing” by Dr. Stan Bailey of Biomeriuex.

During one of the other conference sessions, Frank Yiannas, V.P. Food Safety for Wal-Mart made a very tangible point for the audience regarding the current and future state of food safety globally.  He described how increasingly sensitive detection technologies coupled with our effective use of those technologies has, and will continue, to provide the food industry with challenges that were simply not present five or 10 years ago.  He used an analogy of two Formula One race cars, one titled “detection” the other “prevention”.  He urged the audience that industry has the responsibility for “prevention” and that we must win the race, making certain that our food safety systems prevent problems before they are detected.  Frank stated that “status quo simply will not suffice”.    I could not agree more with that statement Frank!

There were numerous other sessions on a variety of food science topics.  Thank you to Dr. Jairo Romero and the many professionals, volunteers and students on the ACTA host committee for planning and organizing a fantastic meeting.  The Colombian hospitality was amazing!