TIME TO APPLY ADVANCED ACCESS TECHNOLOGY TO

FOOD PROCESSING SAFETY

Top right, the ClearedBadge® “on.” Below, the badge goes “off,” or dark when the badgeholder is not authorized, or strays to an unauthorized area. (This card is for illustration only; it is not meant to convey an actual employee or facility.)

How did we get here? What can be

done?

Over 100 years ago, Theodore Roosevelt signed the laws that form the

foundation of our food protection, and

that have governed the USDA and the FDA ever since.

Now, with cries for action coming from

everywhere, new food safety legislation

will be a congressional priority in 2009. More than 30 bills are currently making

their way through Congress.

Recent issues with salmonella in

peanut butter and peppers, melamine in milk products and, at press time,

reports that laboratory tests have found

traces of mercury, linked to high-fruc-tose corn syrup, in name-brand food

products are lending even greater

urgency to new legislation.

It’s not that legislators have been sitting on their hands. Following 9/11, in June

of 2002 Congress passed Public Law

107-188, The Public Health Security

and Bioterrorism Preparedness & Response Act.

Its Section 301, “Food Safety and

Security Strategy,” mandated that the President’s Council on Food Safety, in

consultation with other relevant federal

agencies, the food industry, consumer and producer groups, scientific organi-

zations, and the States, develop a … “strategy that shall address threat

assessments; technologies and proce-

Jeff Minushkin Chairman & CEO Priva Technologies

dures for securing food processing and

manufacturing facilities and modes of

transportation; response and notification procedure; and risk communica-

tions to the public.”

Many of the recommendations are “ voluntary guidance” under current laws, though

observers expect most of the guidelines or

revised guidelines to become mandatory

under the new laws.

Compliance: Key Challenge for

Industry

But whether voluntary or mandatory, compliance represents a constant chal-

lenge to food processors. Food process-

ing personnel security (employee identity) is a critical element of FDA, FSIS,

The Homeland Security Department

and various state agency guidelines and

programs. Personnel, facility access, computer systems, laboratories and

hazardous materials are but a few of

the identified high-risk areas that have

published, albeit voluntary, security guidelines.