Bulloch Bill Moves Food Safety Forward in Georgia

Georgia’s Commissioner of Agriculture has high praise for State Senator John Bulloch and his food safety bill.

“I want to publicly thank and applaud Senator Bulloch for his work in putting Senate Bill 80 together and working to get it passed,” said Commissioner Tommy Irvin.

“Drafting legislation is not easy, so I was pleased when Senator Bulloch took this on. He worked with his colleague Representative Tom McCall in the House to craft this bill. I am pleased with the outcome. It will make the Georgia Department of Agriculture’s food safety program more effective by requiring testing and reporting of tests by food processors,” said Commissioner Irvin.

“Senator Bulloch shares my commitment to food safety and, as a farmer, he personally knows that food safety is an issue that is as important for producers as it is for consumers,” said Irvin.

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Salmonella: Tough to Crack When It’s in Peanuts

For the second time in two years, a nationwide outbreak of salmonellosis has been tied to peanut products. This time, over 570 people have been sickened and over 1700 products have been taken off supermarket shelves so far, in what is now the largest food-related recall in the country’s history.

Is there something special about peanut products that we should know?

Yes, said Mike Doyle, Regents Professor of Food Microbiology and director of the University of Georgia Center for Food Safety in Griffin, Ga., who advises the food industry on how to prevent food-borne illness and food policymakers on strengthening our nation’s food safety regulations.

“What we’ve learned,” Doyle said, “is that peanut butter needs heat over 190 degrees F. for over 40 minutes to kill salmonella, but such lengthy heating times may affect the quality of the product.” In contrast, the recommended temperature for cooking ground beef to kill bacteria is 160 degrees F. for just a few seconds.

That’s because peanuts have a high fat content, but unlike meats—which also must be cooked properly to inactivate bacteria—they are low in moisture, explained Doyle. The salmonella are protected against heat inactivation by the high fat content and low moisture of the peanuts.

Following an outbreak of salmonellosis in 2006-2007 that was linked to peanut butter from a processing plant in south Georgia, Doyle worked closely with the company and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to determine the type of treatments that will kill salmonella and what practices might be applied at different stages of the process of making peanut butter.

Only one critical control point emerged in the studies, Doyle said. “The emphasis needs to be placed on the peanut roaster. The temperature and time for roasting the peanuts needs to be properly applied and monitored.”

Contamination of the peanuts after roasting is another issue. Because the quality of peanut butter can suffer from treating it with heat, the emphasis needs to be first on proper roasting of the peanuts, and second on maintaining a salmonella-free environment.

“Food safety requires sticking to good manufacturing processes, no matter what food product is involved,” Doyle said.

Doyle said peanuts aren’t the only food with these qualities. Chocolate—another favorite—also can harbor salmonella if not properly treated, Doyle said. Like peanuts, the high-fat, low-moisture cacao beans from which chocolate and cocoa are made must be properly roasted to destroy salmonella.

Doyle explained that the high fat content of peanut butter or chocolate also protects the salmonella in the stomach of the person ingesting these foods if they are contaminated. Even in the acid environment of a person’s stomach, the fat in these foods continues to provide a protective environment for salmonella, enabling it to survive, and then grow, when it reaches the small intestine.

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FDA Launches Food Defense Awareness Training Kit for Employees in the Food Industry

Today the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Department of Agriculture launched its food defense awareness training kit for first line food industry employees. The training targets these individuals because they can play an important role in helping to keep our nation's food supply safe, from the farm to the table.

Food industry management will use the FIRST tool kit as part of ongoing employee food defense training programs. The tool kit focuses on five key points that industry and businesses can use to educate first line workers about the risks of food contamination. It also provides industry with measures to consider and implement to reduce these risks. Each of the letters in the FIRST acronym describes an action that a first line employee can take to mitigate risks of contamination.

F – FOLLOW company food defense plan and procedures

I – INSPECT your work area and surrounding areas

R – RECOGNIZE anything out of the ordinary

S – SECURE all ingredients, supplies and finished product

T – TELL management if you notice anything unusual or suspicious

Single copies of the kit are available in English and Spanish. The kit is free to employees and includes one DVD, a training poster, and on-screen instructions. Copies can be obtained by ordering online from the Food Defense & Terrorism Web site: http://www.cfsan.fda.gov/fooddefense . A Web-ready version of the kit will be available later this month.

The FIRST tool kit focuses on preventing food contamination. Prevention is the essential first step to help ensure the safety of the nation's food supply. A shift to an increased emphasis on prevention is at the core of the FDA's Food Protection Plan . The FDA released the Food Protection Plan last fall and has been implementing the plan since that time. The plan provides a robust strategy to protect the nation's food supply from both unintentional contamination and deliberate attack.

The FIRST training kit is the second in a line of Food Defense Awareness Materials. ALERT, a program that was issued in July 2006, also focuses on prevention and identifies key points that supervisors and managers in industry and businesses can use to raise awareness of food defense issues and decrease the risks of food contamination.



A – AS SURE that the supplies and ingredients are from safe and secure sources

L – LOOK after the security of the products and ingredients

E – Know your EMPLOYEES

R – Provide REPORTS about the security of products

T – Know whom to notify if there's a THREAT , including suspicious behavior.

The FDA sets food safety standards, conducts inspections, takes regulatory action, and works with other government agencies and private sector organizations to help reduce the risk of tampering and other malicious, criminal or terrorist actions on our nation's food supply.

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