Welcome to the second edition of the Food Packaging Safety Forum. Last month, we set the stage for discussing the realities of food safety in this day and age. Now more than ever, members within the food supply chain are commanded to apply industry best practices, which are in a state of evolution as precipitated by the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), Global Food Safety Initiative (GFSI), and other industry best practice-based guidance and processes. Regardless of the medium, these programs and schemes have the obvious objective of ensuring that participants of the food processing and handling supply chain reduce or control risk, thereby minimizing “incidents” at every level of the chain.
Whether through legislation (FSMA) or industry best practice-based guidance and process (GFSI), the general objective is to put growers, providers, processors, vendors, manufacturers converts, their supporting partners, lawmakers and the public on notice that a major irreversible change has taken/is taking place in regard to the global food supply chain entering and within the United States and other developed nations. This is important to note in relation to peripheral supply chain partners (i.e., supplier or vendor of goods or services to the process), because many food safety programs, schemes and related organizations are not US-based, but are US-embraced as representing best practices. Naturally, the public and legislators in other parts of the world are as anxious as we are to control risks and apply best practices for the handing and manufacture of edibles. These programs (FSSC22000 and BRC, as examples) are developed and written to include every aspect of process and performance, which, of course, includes packaging, warehousing, transportation and other peripheral aspects of the food supply chain that are not directly edible, but affect that which is.