In 2015, 40,000 pounds of beef – enough to make 160,000 quarter pound hamburgers – was loaded for delivery into a trailer near Loganton, Pennsylvania, and was never seen again. Authorities say the company information on the truck was fraudulent, while the driver had used a fake ID to get the delivery contract, allowing him to drive away with $110,000 worth of product.
Do you think there was a risk of intentional adulteration/contamination that could have resulted in a wide scale food safety issue? Likely mishandled once it had been stolen, even a minor food safety issue due to the consumption of this beef could have been catastrophic. That is why having a food defense plan, program and training is so critically important. Building on the principles of food safety and adding mitigation strategies to keep food, facilities, and personnel free from intentional harm can help you protect people, products, assets, and your brand.
What Is New in 2021?
As you probably know, the Final Rule on Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration (or Intentional Adulteration Rule) requires food facilities covered by the Rule to develop and implement a food defense plan. This plan must identify significant vulnerabilities at actionable process steps and implement mitigation strategies to address those vulnerabilities. As we first wrote about in 2017, compliance dates have now passed, with the last one for very small business taking effect in July 2021.
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