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!