Total Recall

Too many times, food companies find themselves scrambling to pull product from shelves, notify customers and clear up any consumer fears or doubts during a food product recall. Food companies can’t always rely on their suppliers for immediate notification, since the suppliers are likely caught up in their own recall nightmares. FDA and USDA are helpful recall resources, but food companies have to rely on themselves to search these websites for updated recall information.

Wouldn’t it be great if you knew about recalls that affect your company as soon as they occur? How would your company’s recall situation change if you actually knew about a recalled product before your supplier, or before it was posted on regulatory sites?

AIB was recently introduced to a company with the sole purpose of providing real-time, around-the-clock data about food-borne illness outbreaks, product recalls, tampering incidents, bio-terrorist threats and similar food-related risks. FoodTrack. was established in 1996 by its founder and president, Robert Waite as a food incident reporting service. In today’s electronic information age, the company has been successful at notifying the world’s largest food companies, supply chains, retailers, government bodies and leading trade organizations of relevant food incidents as they occur.

Unlike other news services, which report data days after an incident occurs, FoodTrack individually screens hundreds of independent news sources, which are then filtered to identify threats, and reports them as they occur. The company’s staff works 24/7, including holidays, to summarize the incident reports and deliver the information to their clients via e-mail, Blackberry messages and voice broadcasts for very important threats. Once events are deemed reportable, FoodTrack personnel prepare Incident Advisory Bulletins that feature an Executive SnapShot Summary that highlights pertinent aspects of a breaking story. This is followed by a full text version along with a list of prior Advisory Bulletins for cross-reference.

SAFETY THROUGH SPEED. This real-time delivery permits clients to respond swiftly and provides the critical time needed to assess crises that threaten the integrity of their products, the safety of consumers, and the value of their corporate reputations. In most instances, FoodTrack gets info to its clients before their supplier contacts them. A regional grocery retailer that uses FoodTrack’s services issued more than 60 withdrawals/recalls last year and received notification from FoodTrack on the majority of them prior to receiving notification from their suppliers or other sources. “We were able to get a jump on our competition in removing potentially unsafe products from our shelves,” the retailer said.

FoodTrack services companies across the globe, but most of its clients are based in the United States, Canada and Europe. There are a variety of food companies that use FoodTrack’s services, including grocery retailers, foodservice distributors, restaurant chains, food processors, wholesalers and produce companies. One benefit of the service is that users can select the geographical coverage zone from which they receive alerts.

FoodTrack clients use the helpful incident alert bulletins to address day-to-day food safety, quality and defense issues. Instant notification allows users to remove recalled products and ingredients from production or distribution quickly. It also allows purchasing personnel to arrange for alternate sources of key products and ingredients before competitors lock up excess supply. “There were several instances where quick response allowed our purchasing department to arrange for alternate sourcing of product prior to supplier price increase due to increased product demand,” said one grocer.

Another extremely useful feature is that FoodTrack lists UPCs on recalled product when the codes are available. This service helps clients search their inventories to see if they are affected by the food incident. One global retailer said, “There are times where, although we didn’t use the supplier listed in the recall, the item was brokered to us. The UPC allows us to check our system for that specific item, pull the product from our inventory, and lock it out of our system to prevent purchase by our consumer.”

FoodTrack also enables swift corporate response to crisis events, including consumer liability issues. A global food processor used FoodTrack extensively during the 2007 melamine contamination of pet food. “Even before the FDA or USDA made any statements about movement into the food chain, we pulled supplier information from the FoodTrack information and started a database search on our internal suppliers globally to understand who was obtaining what from where in China. We then turned that information into a search of our complex ingredient sources to prompt our suppliers to check their sources as well.”

After trying the information delivery service for several months, AIB has found FoodTrack to be a very beneficial resource for the latest food related incidents. If you are interested in learning more about the incident alert service, visit www.foodtrack.net/. AIB

The author is Publication Coordinator, AIB International.