Bringing Home the Bacon (Safely) Under the Food Safety Modernization Act
Posted: May 30, 2011
Categories: Food in the News
by Derek Singleton
Modernizing our food inspection system has been on the US’s agenda for quite some time. Americans have needed to make fundamental changes to the way we regulate food for decades. Consider this: the last time there was a change made to legislation regulating the food industry, FDR was President. Well, the US finally took a step in the right direction when they passed the Food Safety Modernization Act, creating the first major change in US food regulation in nearly a century.
The Food Safety Modernization Act grants the FDA a range of new powers. Now, the FDA can issue a mandatory recall, inspect food companies more frequently, and require companies to trace their products from origin to consumption. Tracing food from origin to consumption will not be easy, and it will be an expensive endeavor.
With food traceability systems costing as much as $200K, food companies will have a difficult time keeping up with these requirements. A government incentive program could prove to be very helpful in making food traceability become a reality. In my view, putting a government incentive program in place for a food traceability system would carry three benefits.
- More companies would adopt the system faster.
- Companies would realize a faster return on investment.
- Recalls would become cheaper and there would be less food-borne illnesses.
There is evidence that such a program would work. The Canadian government recently instituted an incentive program in which food companies can apply to be reimbursed for part of their purchase. The program is Growing Forward and the government has put up $1.3 billion to help companies afford it. If Canada is having success with such a program, there’s no reason why we can’t try one our ourselves.
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