GFSC 2017: Food Safety Through Collaboration

SENASICA has lead efforts among producers, buyers, state governments, and private certification schemes to work towards the ensuring that fresh products are safe. Its partnership with GFSI will focus on two aspects:

1. Enabling private schemes to act under Mexican regulation in addition to the certification of the official scheme, which will significantly increase the volume of officially certified products and subsequently ensure confidence in the delivery of safe food to consumers worldwide.
2. GFSI and SENASICA working closely together on the enhancement of the Global Markets Programme in Mexico.

GFSI and SENASICA hope that this partnership between public and private entities will act as a model for others countries, encouraging them to adopt third-party certification within their own contexts to enable the harmonization of food safety systems worldwide for the benefit of producers and consumers.

During GFSC 2017, GFSI also showcased its Web Series depicting stakeholders from around the world sharing their stories of growth through GFSI. The first video takes viewers to Myanmar, where the country’s first fisherwoman has leveraged GFSI’s Global Markets Programme through a collaboration with the United Nations Industrial Organization.

GFSI revealed winner of its first Global Markets Programme Award: Champion Petfoods.

GFSI also revealed the winner of its first ever award, which puts the spotlight on companies who have leveraged the GFSI Global Markets Programme, from beginning to end, resulting in full certification to a GFSI-benchmarked scheme. This year’s winner was Champion PetFoods’ Kentucky DogStar Kitchens. The award was made possible by GFSI supporter greenfence.

In addition to catching up on all of GFSI’s latest news, conference attendees also had the opportunity to walk the exhibit floor, where exhibiting companies held informative Tech Talks in the presentation theatre.

Tackling the popular Internet of Things (IoT) topic was PAR Technology’s John W. Sammon in his Tech Talk, “Mobility, IoT, Traceability, and Cloud.” During his talk, he mentioned how using cloud and mobility have become second nature—and so it should be with compliance and quality monitoring. He reviewed a few different technologies that can help, such as GS-128 barcodes, IoT devices and sensors, and cloud reporting.

IoT was also discussed during Rentokil Initial’s breakfast session, “The Internet of Things and its Impact on the Future of Food Safety.”

Another Tech Talk presentation was Bureau Veritas’ VP of Food, Vincent Bourdil speaking on blockchain technology disruption. He explained how this up-and-coming technology is solving major problems of any end-to-end traceability system, such as the willingness to share sensitive information, and the common language between industry players.

On the exhibit floor, Ecolab concentrated on its sanitation offerings and also showcased its newest innovation MARKETGUARD 365, a network of data collection and consolidation paired with onsite expertise to make food safety more precise and efficient. Ruth L. Petran, PhD, VP of food safety and public health at Ecolab, pointed out that while supplying product solutions to industry is of course crucial, Ecolab also places tremendous emphasis on the human aspect. More than half of its employees are in the field to help troubleshoot problems and provide support on their products, she says.

Stephen Ostroff, MD, U.S. FDA acting commissioner, spoke on importance of partnerships in food industry.

Sealed Air Diversey Care focused in on its Internet of Clean solutions, which connects devices and machines to monitor food safety and hygiene within the supply chain. The Internet of Clean solutions consists of its IntelliConsult, IntelliCare, as well as Augmented Reality—which also places emphasis on human connection. The Augmented Reality is an application for mobile phones and tablets that uses virtual reality to provide customers onsite training, troubleshooting, and information to guide their tasks.