Food safety custodian Fortress Technology has showcased how the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) New Era of Smarter Food Safety rules is fast becoming the blueprint for tracing contaminated food products to source.
Effective January 20, 2023, the final New Era rule from the FDA rolled out. This last addition, applicable to any food processor operating or supplying customers in North America, now requires additional recordkeeping requirements. This can include deployment of smarter tools and approaches for prevention and outbreak responses, new business models, retail modernisation and building a food safe culture that stretches across any food processing business. As with many developments in food safety, other countries, including the UK and Ireland, are expected to converge towards this New Era framework, particularly hygiene cultures and the application of technology-enabled traceability.
Fortress Technology recently published its response to these new rules with an informative Whitepaper titled Building a Positive and Smarter Food Safety Culture. The downloadable whitepaper outlines the steps and tools food processors can utilise to create a sturdier, more flexible and safer food supply chain.
Targeting growth opportunities, production inefficiencies, QC reporting and audit transparency, the data-driven tools outlined in the whitepaper expedite the response to production bottlenecks, supply chain adjustments and product recalls.
Launching the paper at the recent Interpack 2023 show, Fortress also presented over seven reliable contaminant inspection machines, including systems for bulk, snack, bakery, meat processing, dairy, prepared meals and confectionery applications, guests are invited to view new machine features and select from the extensive digital toolkit to address the risk of manually documenting and collating paper records. This includes:
- Automatic Testing designed to eliminate human errors, eradicate health and safety risks, and save labour costs, and winner of the PPMA 2022 most Innovative Processing System Award
- Data Solutions to securely oversee the performance of an unlimited number of Fortress metal detectors, checkweighers, x-rays and combination machines connected on the same network, including paperless data capture packages
- Best practice GMP, foreign material control COP standards and internal inspection templates developed in collaboration with global food companies
- Tools to red-flag immediate hygiene and maintenance issues
- The most overlooked machine features that may exacerbate food contamination issues, e.g. setting and calibration of inspection equipment.
Describing the benefits of investing in technology, tools and real-time paperless data capture features that can be integrated with all machines located in a food factory, Fortress Commercial Manager Jodie Curry comments: “Having this level of data oversight provides complete transparency. If producers cannot prove when and where inspection of their products took place, or the performance of their equipment, they may be unable to demonstrate HACCP, GMP and GFSI compliance.
“This could trigger a reinspection of an entire batch, or at worst a full and costly product recall. The FDA’s New Era blueprint supports tech-enabled traceability by ensuring digital tools provide evidence, accountability and confidence in local and international food safety programs.”
A copy of the new Food Safety Culture Whitepaper is available to download at https://fortresstechnology.co.uk/white-papers/
