Government investigators find it Impossible to Track Food
by David Farnum DVM
A report last week said that government investigators could only track about 12% of foods that they attempted to trace to their origin.
It said that they bought 40 food staples at retail grocers and could only trace 5 back to their source. That’s right only five out of 40 food items that they bought could be traced back to the source. This kind of failure may explain why we are still seeing new recalls of consumer products months after Peanut Corporation of America first announced it had produced products that contain Salmonella.
The Associated Press and NY Times both have stories about the report that was requested by Representative Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn. Rep. DeLauro has long been a leader in the call to improve food safety. She was a founding member of the Food Safety Caucus in 2003. In 2007
Agri Food Certification was accredited by USDA as a Certifying Body for Certified Traceable food and feed. This system certifies that product is traceable from farm to fork. Using this kind of a public / private sector partnership is the way to solve the complex problem of implementing traceability and making our food safer and healthier.
Dr. Farnum’s bio is below.
David Farnum DVM Dr. Farnum brings a varied and unique experience and
practical applications to the management team. His 19 year career has varied
from helping individual producers improve their operations to P&L
responsibility for global software and technology companies. Dr. Farnum
spent 8 years in full time private consulting practice before moving to the
feed industry where he spent 4 years with Purina Mills and led sales for the
highest growth swine sales team in the company.
He caught the technology bug and moved to Farms.com where he led the
acquisition team of PigCHAMP in 2001. PigCHAMP is the largest and most
established pork production business record software in the world and does
business in 55 countries. In the year following the PigCHAMP acquisition Dr.
Farnum led five additional acquisitions in the livestock technology sector.
Dr Farnum led PigCHAMP to record sales and 80% North American market share.
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