E-Commerce Pairs Convenience with Safety

“The regulatory requirements have to do with the type of facility, such as stores’ warehouses or distribution centers, where the food is housed prior to delivery,” as opposed to the distribution channel itself, says Dr. Thesmar, vice president for food safety programs at the Food Marketing Institute. “The regulatory requirements are the same in e-commerce [and purchasing at a grocery store] even though the supply chain may not be as visible. I haven’t seen any problems. There aren’t any visible differences.”

Paul Weitzel, vice president at Willard Bishop, agrees, “I do not see any difference in handling processes or procedures for e-commerce versus brick and mortar. Much of online grocery shopping is actually done inside a brick and mortar store. The product is bagged similarly and stored by temperature state until delivered to consumers at curbside or by a van.”

He says for home deliveries, trucks are multi-temperature (frozen, chilled, or ambient), or the food product is placed in insulated totes with either dry ice or gel packs. Most of the ratings on the totes keep products cold for at least 8 hours. “Since most deliveries are attended, there are no temperature issues,” he wrote in an email to Food Quality & Safety.

Dr. Thesmar also agrees that there is little difference in food safety requirements whether it’s a traditional or online grocery store.

“There shouldn’t be gaps in food safety if everything is done right,” in stores’ warehouses and distribution centers, she says. “Cold items should stay cold through transfers through multiple warehouses and stocking. Temperature controls should be maintained.”

She adds that with the hot competition among grocery sellers, there is a strong incentive to make sure temperature control is maintained. “Everyone is fighting for the consumer dollar,” she says. “No one will risk taking any chance of a loss of shelf life.” Packaging integrity, uniform pallets, and temperature indicators can help let store personnel know if something has been compromised.

Dr. Thesmar adds that the regulations and inspection processes are the same for brick-and-mortar and strictly online stores, as everything is relatable to the warehouse and distribution centers.

Under the Food Safety and Modernization Act (FSMA), the store is an extension of food code operations and the distribution center is an extension of the preventive control rules. Delivery trucks are not regulated, so delivery to consumers isn’t covered under FSMA regulations, she says.

Dr. Thesmar says one of the trends in food distribution, partly because of the speedy rate of commerce on the Internet, is warehouses popping up on demand so purchases don’t have to be moved that far.

“E-commerce is getting nearer to consumers,” she says. “And retailers want their customers to come back daily and weekly, so safety is important.”

Streamlining Packaging

The speedy world of e-commerce is also driving improvements down the supply chain. That includes the containers used to fulfill orders. IFCO Systems is one such large packager with customers like Walmart that want convenient, clean, and reusable containers.

“Standardization is key,” explains Paul Pederson, IFCO director of food safety in Tampa, Fla. “You want to maximize utilization and space and lower costs.”

The company is known for its reusable plastic containers (RPCs) in which vegetables, fruit, and other items are shipped. Its standard RPC is 60 x 40 centimeters and varies in height from 8 centimeters for a single-layer avocado tray up to 29 centimeters for bulk items like 40 pounds of broccoli or a head of lettuce.

Each time an RPC is used, it is sent to one of IFCO’s 60 wash facilities worldwide and goes through a cleaning process before it goes back to farmers to add produce and start the order fulfillment cycle anew. In March 2016 IFCO released SmartGuardian, an integrated software and hardware system to better monitor and control its sanitation process.