One Good Turn

Spreading the SSQA Dawn and Favour to ALL:

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The GCSE-Food and Health Protection SSQA Development Team is strategically offering reduced price copies to selected individuals and companies. Some of the ways to qualify for these offers are listed below:

The social media "LIKE" Challenge Offer:
Check the web with the phrase "GCSE-FHP SSQA concept", write a post about why you like the SSQA concept that obtains at least 20 likes on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook or any other social media, send the link or other proof to show the number of likes (minimum 20) that you have received to gcse@afisservices.com and request your free searchable PDF (single copy) of the current SSQA Implementation Manual. Unless extended, this offer ends on May 31, 2017 

Congratulations to Chi Samuel, winner at the 111,111 winning sequence point !!!

The next winning Sequence: 222,222
Watch the top right corner of the blog page for the winning numbers that will be shown from time to time. When you see a winning number, take a screen shot of the page and post it on LinkedIn, Twitter or send it to GCSE-Food and Health Protection at - gcse@afisservices.com – The first person to post or send the screen shot will win a free PDF copy of the SSQA Implementation Manual 

AFISS Offer:

You may take advantage of this offer and receive your free PDF copy of the current SSQA Implementation Manual if you are willing to work with AFISS on the development and implementation of SSQA concepts in your operation. If you are interested, go to “AFISS Offer Details”:

Membership Benefit Package 

Consultants and Trainers Events (with opportunities to receive free copies of the SSQA implementation manual 

One Year Free Online Access Offer:

If you are a food safety and/or quality manager in a company that has turned a new leaf, the SSQA Development Team is offering to grant you free access to the online SSQA Implementation Manual for one year. Evidence of what your company is currently doing with internal audits, external party audits and regulatory inspections is required. You will receive the free access only if the SSQA Development Team determines that your approach to internal/external audits and regulatory inspections aligns with the principles of the GCSE-Food and Health Protection SSQA concept. This offer is currently open but a time limitation may be applied depending on the number of requests. If interested, you may contact the SSQA Development Team for details.

Find out more about the SSQA Manual. . . 

Safest Times to Eat Out

I had a brief interview with William, a chef with very good knowledge of restaurant food safety measures who has worked at restaurants that are affiliated with high-end hotels. I am using only his first name to protect his identity. You probably can already guess what he said about the extent to which he and his fellow kitchen staff were committed to ensuring that food is safe for patrons. "At the off hours," he said, meaning outside of the breakfast, lunch and dinner rush hours, "it is possible to follow food safety rules". "However," he added, "the rules go out the window when the rush is on." Incidentally, these are the times when a majority of people are served at restaurants with the increased chances of getting more people ill at once.

He did not say this but I suspect he saw no reason for anyone to worry. After all, a few rules ignored until it is more convenient to obey them will not hurt any of the hungry patrons during the rush hours, right?

Posted by Felix Amiri

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Felix Amiri is currently the chair of GCSE-Food & Health Protection, and a sworn SSQA advocate. 

Ebola and Food Risks

In the not so distant past, the Ebola virus devastation in West Africa posed a global threat according to the World Health Organization (WHO). 

Is Ebola still a threat to the entire world? Watch the Ebola documentary video and see what some investigators are saying: 

Video: https://youtu.be/EaZqfwFVjgQ

Clearly, the death rate associated with Ebola may still be of some concern. Is there any connection or similarity between Ebola and food? Is Ebola conveyed through food? In the past, the World Health Organization has published a table of global health risks. How many of these risks can be attributed to food?

Many people do not care but we are all food consumers. Although we may feel invincible at times, it only takes one instance to change our invincibility with very regrettable consequences. In some cases, the regrettable consequences are suffered for life where life is not altogether lost.

With food, as it is with the Ebola virus disease, indifference can be fatal. The false security of being far away from West Africa is insidiously deceptive in a shrinking, highly mobile and continuously mingling world.

Interesting Developments in the Field of Food safety

This blog post has been moved to the author's eBook.

FSMA – Is a Re-think Happening?

How far will the published "Operational Strategy" go? Should further re-thinking be happening? Do the math: If enforcement has not stopped or even reduced incidents of fraud, what gives us confidence that enforcement will lead to better protection of consumers against food-borne hazards and illness under FSMA than has been achieved under previous regulatory measures?

The “Operational Strategy for Implementing the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA)” was published by the FDA On May 2, 2014. It addresses some of the challenges that I posted in January of 2013. In that post, I said: “Disappointment awaits us if these initiatives are pursued without serious modifications to address the points listed  . . .  and other limiting factors that are implicit in the current proposals.” You may read the full 2013 post - The New Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) 

The published FDA’s Operational Strategy appears to have partially addressed some of the points I listed in support of the disappointing prediction. I find this to be inspiring although some specific details are still lacking and several of the listed points have not been as clearly addressed. For example, the FSMA rules are still too vague (generalized) and leave too much room for confused interpretation, deliberate misinterpretation and manipulation; the narrow focus on food production, manufacturing and distribution businesses persists to the neglect of other significant parties – e.g. the roles of restaurants, canteens and consumers; etc. Although the strategy identifies the use of public health-oriented outcome metrics for evaluating the success of FSMA, specific details are not provided to show how consumers will be engaged and encouraged to actively participate in the process of evaluating the success achieved.

Radical changes are needed in the FSMA as in other regulatory initiatives worldwide. The most challenging is re-thinking the punitive approach to regulatory enforcement. The proposed incentive of compliant establishments receiving fewer inspections by the US FDA is a good direction. It provides a more targeted approach that is necessary for enforcement efficiency and success. However, it does not go far enough. With the fewer inspections incentive, the proposed regulatory changes still maintain the “catch-and-punish” focus. A strategy for a sustained collaboration of all parties towards the desired goal of consumer protection is not sufficiently developed within the proposed regulatory framework.  

The proposed new regulations, still cloaked in the old policing mentality, are poised to increase the burden for law-abiding operators and abate the pressure for dubious food business owners who are very good at dodging inspectors' surveillance techniques. Catch-and-punish methods only deter until the criminally-minded find ways around them. As violators cause undesirable events, they force regulators to spread the surveillance net. With such broadened surveillance that wastes resources on looking at compliant along with non-compliant operators, the burden is increased for law-abiding operators who will do everything to comply with any extra imposed cautionary (often unnecessary) measures. On the other hand, due to regulatory resources that are often spread too thin to effectively go after the dubious, the pressure is abated for them. The dubious will do everything to avoid the extra cautionary and cash-strapped enforcement measures.

I have discussed some alternatives in other related posts which appear to be attracting increasing attention. I strongly suspect that we have not seen the end of the re-thinking process that appears to be going in the direction of the GCSE-Food and Health Protection proposals.