As Private Brand continues to evolve the growth of not only manufacturing but also brand value is increasingly important. National brands products from peanut but to painkiller have been the subject of numerous food and product safety recalls/scares so this article from the US News and World Report’s Health Day should be particularly disconcerting for both national brands and Private Brands alike. Retailers must be at the forefront of food safety and build Private Brands that deliver not only good quality products at great prices but also safe products. Retailers must demand a overhaul of food safety in America to protect not only the brands the are creating but more importantly the families they are feeding.
FDA Needs Food Safety Overhaul: Report
Focus must shift from reacting to illness outbreaks to preventing them, experts say
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) isn’t equipped to handle problems with the food supply and is in need of a major revamping, a government panel of experts reported Tuesday.
To come up to speed, the FDA needs to squarely focus its efforts on identifying and addressing high-risk areas and on preventing foodborne illness in the first place, stated the report, issued today by the Institute of Medicine (IOM) and the National Research Council at the request of Congress.
Among other things, the report recommends giving the FDA authority to issue mandatory recall of food products and to delegate responsibility for inspections to states, which already handle about 60 percent of this task.
“The agency’s approach now is too reactive and lacks a systematic focus on prevention,” Dr. Robert Wallace, chairman of the committee that prepared the report and professor of epidemiology and internal medicine at the University of Iowa College of Public Health, said at a Tuesday news conference. “The time has come to modernize the FDA’s food safety program focusing on the development of an integrated, risk-based system.”
A leading consumer group applauded the report.
“A distinguished panel of experts has concluded that FDA has neither the resources nor the powers it needs to keep our food safe,” Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at Consumers Union, said in a prepared statement. “The report recommends that Congress act to give FDA the power to order recalls of tainted food, which amazingly, it still lacks. The report further urges that Congress require all food processors to register with the FDA, to act proactively to prevent foodborne illness, and tell the FDA when they discover adulterated products. FDA needs all these powers as well as a mandate to inspect high-risk processors at least annually. While the House passed a bill last July that would give FDA much of what it needs, the reform legislation remains stalled in the Senate. The time is now for Congress to act.”
