Food Traceability : Tracing the footsteps
In the recent years food safety incidents and food scares have been increasing and consumer confidence dwindling. Recent food scares have demonstrated that the identification of the origin of food and feed is of prime importance for the protection of consumers. The recent case in the US of Salmonella in peanuts resulted in over 300 product recalls, but an interesting factor was that these recalls took place over a 3 month period, indicating that it took many weeks for some suppliers to realise that their products contained peanuts from the contaminated batches.
A food traceability system enables us to follow the movement of any food product by documentation through each point of food handling. When an incident occurs, the food traceability system could assist in the recall of the food products in question and assist in the investigation of the cause. Also transmitting and verifying the relevant information would contribute to increasing reliability on the information of the label, and thus enable consumers to purchase food with a sense of security.
In 1700 BC, Mesopotamian shepherds marked animals with different colours and in the 7th century, Chinese used tattoos to identify the breed of horses. In 1875, US livestock were marked with tags.
This article written by our Technical Head Muralikrishna Bujji has been recently published by Food & Beverage News October 16-31 2009 issue.
A food traceability system enables us to follow the movement of any food product by documentation through each point of food handling. When an incident occurs, the food traceability system could assist in the recall of the food products in question and assist in the investigation of the cause. Also transmitting and verifying the relevant information would contribute to increasing reliability on the information of the label, and thus enable consumers to purchase food with a sense of security.
In 1700 BC, Mesopotamian shepherds marked animals with different colours and in the 7th century, Chinese used tattoos to identify the breed of horses. In 1875, US livestock were marked with tags.
This article written by our Technical Head Muralikrishna Bujji has been recently published by Food & Beverage News October 16-31 2009 issue.
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