Canada Moves To Streamline Food Inspection System

“The world in which the CFIA operates is changing and the CFIA needs to change with it.”

– Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), August 9, 2012

On June 7, 2012 the Canadian government introduced the Safe Food For Canadians Act. This legislation, once passed into law, will ensure that the same food safety criteria apply to both domestic and imported food commodities, and will consolidate several different food inspection regimes into a single, unified approach.

Some elements of the proposed law include:

Licensing of all food commodity importers, exporters and domestic producers;
Puts the onus on importers to ensure that their off-shore suppliers produce foods under conditions that meet Canadian domestic production requirements;
Provides inspectors with full authority to examine any documents – including those stored on computers – during the course of an inspection;
Prohibits anyone from selling a food commodity that is the subject of a recall order;
Reaffirms CFIA’s mandatory recall authority;
Allows the Government to recover costs incurred during “…the inspection, moving, seizure and detention, forfeiture, disposal, return or release…” of any item; and
Protects those exercising their functions from liability for their good faith actions while performing their duties.

Under Canada’s parliamentary system, with a strong majority government in place, the Safe Food for Canadians Act will almost certainly become law with very few amendments.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) – charged with enforcing food safety laws in Canada – already is preparing for the new mandates. On August 9th, CFIA released for comment a draft of an Improved Food Inspection Model.

I find a lot to like in this draft document, such as:

Mandatory licensing of food production facilities, importers, and exporters, providing for annual renewals, and for suspension or cancellation of licenses, where certain criteria are met.
Places the onus on an importer to verify that its supplier complies with the same criteria as domestic food producers/processors.
Applies a risk-based set of criteria to determine the intensity and frequency of oversight.
Clearly describes the inspection process.
Enunciates the mandatory components of a licensed facility’s preventative control plan.
Establishes that it is the responsibility of industry to comply with food safety laws, and it is the responsibility of CFIA to police/enforce that compliance.

What’s not to like?

Lip service to transparency: suspensions and cancellations of licenses “may” be posted on the CFIA’s external website.

Wiggle room for old or sub-standard facilities to be “grandfathered”: Although the draft policy clearly requires that the “design and layout of food establishments prevents cross-contamination…” there is a provision allowing for procedures to “mitigate the risk” in cases where plant design does not meet standards for reducing contamination.

What would I like to see?

1. CFIA should commit to the following transparency initiatives:

timely posting of basic information on all licensed facilities, including name, contact information, activities, product and process information and compliance status;
timely posting of all license suspensions and cancellations, including the reason(s) for suspension or cancellation of a license;
regular updates to the current compliance status / inspection outcome for all licensed facilities;
recall notices should explain whether the recall was triggered as a result of a company’s own food safety verification, actions carried out by a government agency (e.g, routine surveillance program), customer complaints, or third-party testing;
recall notices should state whether a pathogen was found in a sample of the specific product under recall, whether it was found in a different production batch, or whether it was present in the production environment, instead of reporting that the recalled product “may be contaminated with…” a pathogen; and
retail-level distribution information should be provided for all Class I recalls and Allergy Alerts.

2. CFIA should phase out the grandfathering of old, outdated, or non-compliant facilities by making full compliance a condition of license renewals.

I have long been an advocate for a single food safety agency system in the USA – one that would consolidate the food enforcement arms of FDA, USDA, and the several other federal agencies that also dabble in this arena. The Safe Food for Canadians Act, coupled with CFIA’s Improved Food Inspection Model proposal represents a major advance in the right direction.

Government Transparency – An Oxymoron: Updated

Oxymoron – a rhetorical device or figure of speech in which contradictory or opposite words or concepts are combined for effect

On June 27, 2012, FDA posted the following notice on its Enforcement Report web page:

FDA is pleased to present a new format for its weekly Enforcement Report. When you select the link below for this week’s report, you will hopefully find a simpler, clearer report that offers downloadable data for analyses while also providing savings and encouraging future innovation for Government. This data-driven report provides FDA a baseline as it moves forward in its efforts to integrate the Agency’s compliance and enforcement data.

The new reporting format is, indeed, easier to use – so much easier, in fact, that it highlights the purely cosmetic nature of FDA’s interest in transparency.

One of my pet peeves with FDA is its refusal to release retail distribution information for food safety recalls. The agency claims that this information is proprietary to the companies who “voluntarily” recall their products. In contrast, USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) maintains a policy of releasing retail distribution lists within seven days of a recall announcement. Same government. Different department. Different policy.

Another of my gripes is FDA’s equally adamant refusal to provide a list of countries to which a recalled product was exported, unless the company itself releases that information. Particularly frustrating was the recent series of Diamond Pet Foods Salmonella recalls.

Diamond Pet Foods – and several other companies for whom Diamond manufactured dry dog food – recalled a long list of products after three separate batches of the pet food were linked to a Salmonella Infantis outbreak that sickened 49 people (47 in the USA and 2 in Canada). One of the companies caught up in the recalls was Natural Balance Pet Foods.

On May 4th, Natural Balance recalled 833 tons of dry dog foods in response to the Diamond Pet Foods recall notice. At the time of the recall, consumers were told that the products “may have been” distributed in Alabama, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, DC, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, Wisconsin, West Virginia, Wyoming and Canada.

Consumers were NOT told that the recalled Natural Balance products also were shipped to Taiwan and Israel. That information, which was in FDA’s hands at the time of the May 4th recall, was released today (July 25th) in FDA’s Weekly Enforcement Report.

What is the logic in refusing to release an international (country-level) distribution list at the time of a recall, when the information will eventually be made public anyway?

On June 27th, when FDA introduced its new Weekly Enforcement Report format, I sent the following request to the agency’s Office of Public Affairs:

I’ve been thinking of using the new format of the FDA Weekly Enforcement Report as the jump-off for a blog story about the recall process. I would greatly appreciate answers to a couple of questions. Specifically,

1. What are the criteria that determine when information on a specific recall is included in a Weekly Enforcement Report?

2. Why does FDA not release retail distribution lists for Class I recalls (as FSIS does)? When does consumer protection trump “proprietary” interests?

3. Why does FDA not release information (when it is available) on the foreign countries to which a recalled product was exported? While I realize that FDA’s primary responsibility is to US citizens, the FDA web site is often the SOLE source of this type of information for people (including expatriate US citizens) living in many foreign countries.

I plan to comment on each of these issues in my article, and would appreciate a clear statement of FDA’s current policies and the reasons for these policies.

I received an acknowledgment of my request the next day, asking for my deadline. I indicated that I would appreciate a reply by the end of June. On July 12th, I sent a reminder. As of today, I’m still waiting for answers.

FDA is not the only culprit – or even the worst culprit – when it comes to timely public disclosure of recall and outbreak information. Canada’s federal and provincial health and agriculture agencies are just as bad. Information requests sent to Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and some of the provincial departments often are ignored completely – acknowledged at times, but rarely answered substantively. Some US states are equally at fault. Idaho, for example, requested that the name of an Idaho mail-order hatchery be withheld from a CDC Outbreak Investigation Report. And the EU publishes a daily list of food and animal feed safety notifications (Rapid Alert System for Food and Feed) without providing any identifying information – neither brand names nor lot numbers – even when the food is implicated in a disease outbreak.

Government agencies are inherently secretive. They can’t help it; it’s in their DNA. President Obama’s earlier promises notwithstanding, we shall never see true transparency from US government departments. Not today. Not next year.

Sadly, the best we can hope for is a reduction in government opacity.

FDA’s response

After sending a link to this article to FDA’s Office of Public Affairs, I received the following replies to my questions:

1. What are the criteria that determine when information on a specific recall is included in a Weekly Enforcement Report?

When the recall is classified it is available for the weekly (by CFR part 7 section 21 CFR) published Enforcement Report.

2. Why does FDA not release retail distribution lists for Class I recalls (as FSIS does)?

Freedom of Information regulations do not permit us to release this commercial confidential information (CCI) information. The following link should be helpful and will provide greater clarity. http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/12600.html. In addition, I would need to refer you to USDA of which FSIS is a subpart.

When does consumer protection trump “proprietary” interests?

Congressional mandate when the Freedom of Information Act was passed.

3. Why does FDA not release information (when it is available) on the foreign countries to which a recalled product was exported? While I realize that FDA’s primary responsibility is to US citizens, the FDA web site is often the SOLE source of this type of information for people (including ex-patriate US citizens) living in many foreign countries.

See response #2

Guest Blog: Going Beyond Legal

It’s not often that I come across an industry consultant who tries to call the public’s attention to deficiencies in the practices within his own industry. Mr. McNaughton’s article highlights the practice of “grandfathering” – a practice that allows older procedures, equipment and building designs to continue in operation even when they no longer represent “Current Good Manufacturing Practices.”

The following Guest Blog first appeared on Cheese Reporter (Volume 137, No. 1, June 29, 2012), and is reproduced here with the kind permission of its author, Neville McNaughton.

Going Beyond Legal

Grandfathering: What Is It and If Consumers Knew

by Neville McNaughton

As an advisor to cheese makers, investors, and anyone who wants to be a part of the dairy processing industry, the practice of grandfathering is the most difficult to understand.

For those unfamiliar with the concept of being “grandfathered in,” it is the practice of allowing an operator who was in production prior to a change in safety regulations to not be required to meet the same upgraded standard as a new entrant into the industry.

This is a common practice and one that is perhaps the most difficult to understand. As a rather literal person, regulations to me are regulations and they should apply to us all. It so happens that this is not the case. If you were fortunate enough to have been in operation prior to the introduction of a new rule, there is a possibility that you will not have to comply.

This is unacceptable on many levels: Food safety regulation should have only one function — that of protecting the health and safety of consumers. This protection is far more important today than in the past as the consuming public is more removed from the production of food than ever in history.

Consequently the consumer has little chance of being able to assess the food they consume. Caveat Emptor! Generally I mean this in a technical sense, but in all fairness, our food is being produced farther than ever from its point of consumption. The distance food now travels is revealing, and has led to the rise of movements like the “10, 20 or 100-Mile Diets” to promote healthier eating that also supports the local food supply.

If public health and safety is the goal of regulation, then one would think that as new discovery and processing requirements come into play, operators would be required to meet the standard. No? I can assure processors that consumers do expect and believe this; they do not accept two standards where only the new operator meets the safety requirements.

Sound like a Tale of Two Industries?

Grandfathering is definitely not just an issue for small operators. One of the most glaring/disappointing cases in recent history was a Listeria issue in a large meat plant.

After several years of analysis the reports are telling us that a contributor to the problem was the age of the building, which determined its design and construction methods. The reports are never totally illuminating because, as consumers, we are expected to accept that our inspection agencies are looking into the issues in great depth and somehow that will solve the problem. The plant in question is still in production today. Sounds like Band-Aids were added, doesn’t it?

At what point should our regulators sit down with a processor and advise them that their building and equipment need to be upgraded or replaced?

Let’s consider the state that banned raw milk cheese production while allowing one historical producer to continue. Where is the level playing field? Who needs the upgrades?

The Grade A processor who is operating in an historical building with wooden ceilings?
Grade A processors who have shields above their filling operations to stop drips contacting product and packaging as it is being filled?
The cheese maker who has trays on the top of his cheese to stop drips landing on the cheese?
The cheese packaging operation that has drips falling down on the filling line from HVAC registers in the ceiling?
The cheese maker who was told (an independent consultant was brought in to audit and advise) to add a positive air system to their production space when they had a Listeria problem before they could recommence production? (Other new operators setting up in the same state after this incident were required to put in extract fans only, no filtered air in, and were permitted to operate with open screened windows).

These may seem like trivial issues, but if something in a drip is unsafe for a product for instance, consider how far the drip splatters when it hits the horizontal shield. You can see how the problem grows exponentially.

Regulatory discrepancies happen because of the many influences in the System. An impacted industry puts pressure on their local politician, local politician puts pressure on the top bureaucrat, and it’s all downhill from there.

Observing operators with influence has never made me comfortable. What makes operators and their industries good is whether or not they make good decisions. A checks and balances system is absolutely necessary for regulating the decisions surrounding food processing safety.

If food safety is as much about attitude as it is about regulation, “Grandfathering” is an attitude problem. It shows arrogance on the part of the operator, weakness on the part of the regulator, and corruption (or at the very least confusion) on the part of the politician.

The politician can be a problem because he/she is frequently unduly influenced by the business operator in his electorate. The politician wants profitable businesses in the district to create jobs etc. but he or she should not be able to overwhelmingly influence the decision-making processes surrounding public health and safety. The situation is compounded when states do not have similar regulations. Can the operator just pick up and move across the state line?

Additionally, many states do not enforce their own regulations equally. As an example, a new construction must have brine tanks set away from walls to ensure easy cleaning while existing operators are required to make no changes.

But in one case, a new operator was permitted to build brine tanks into a corner with no provision for cleaning. They placed a freon-based evaporator in the room directly above the brine tank, further impacting the potential for dripping from the condensate tray, the potential for leaking from the condensate tray and condensate drain that led the condensate away to waste.

If condensate drains are not properly installed, they certainly can leak. The freon gas lines to and from the evaporator are insulated, frequently becoming a major source of drips and contamination.

I have a long history of working with regulators and inspectors. What were acceptable practices when I began in this industry are not acceptable today and certainly should not be. I am certain that if we had consumers on a committee along with federal and state regulators, the Grandfather rule would be gone.

Remember that many of the top federal regulators came from the industry they regulate, so they already work closely with the processors. The potential for influence is clear. The creation of a working regulatory committee that includes consumers would improve the dynamic that has led to the current situation.

There is much room to improve the way we run our food industry. There are challenges ahead for which we either don’t have solutions or don’t want to make the change mostly because of cost.

Remove the Grandfather rule and we can expect to see change occur more quickly.

About the Author: Neville McNaughton, president of Cheez Sorce, St. Louis, MO, has many years of experience manufacturing dairy products in both New Zealand and US. He has been a judge at several cheese competitions. Neville writes a regular column in Cheese Reporter.