Global Food Partnerships

“Given the potential for open-ended liabilities, hundreds of customs brokers have served notice that they will no longer act as U.S. agents for any foreign food facility,” FeDuke tells Food Quality & Safety magazine. “Meanwhile, surety providers are hawking their coverage with premiums to be paid by those entities that have sufficient risk appetite to continue acting as U.S. agents for foreign food facilities.” If a Korean food facility ends up paying a U.S. agent as a condition of market access in the U.S., “why wouldn’t they, and all the dozens if not scores of other countries buying American food exports, impose the same requirements on U.S. food facilities?” FeDuke adds.

“To me, harmonizing the test methods on a global basis is an issue of concern.”

—•Wayne Ellefson, senior program manager, Covance

Quest for Global Standards

It’s possible that these and many other issues would be more easily addressed if countries adopted a uniform set of food safety standards established not by any particular private certifying organization but by an international body such as the United Nations, says Covance’s Ellefson, who is coauthor of a recent book, Improving Import Food Safety, that examines the differing approaches to food safety problems taken by the U.S., Latin America, Europe, and Asia.

While such an outcome is unlikely to happen anytime soon, Ellefson says there is an immediate need to standardize laboratory testing not only internationally but within single countries, including the U.S. “How do you know if you will get the same test result from laboratory to laboratory?” Ellefson asks. “How do you know if they are using the same harmonized methods? Expand that to the whole world–Canada, Europe, Asia, South America–how do you know the quality of the methods they are using for testing is equivalent in all locations? To me, harmonizing the test methods on a global basis is an issue of concern.”

The issue is being addressed. For example, AOAC International (formerly the Association of Analytical Communities) is one of several groups developing analytical and other standards for global acceptance. AOAC has assembled an expert stakeholder panel on infant formula and adult nutritionals and, with industry funding, is developing standard method performance requirements for nutrients and analytical methods for validation studies. “They are working on getting global buy-in. They are trying to carry this to food items other than infant formula, but you have to start somewhere,” Ellefson says.

As Acheson puts it, the global food supply situation is “already critical and is becoming increasingly more so.”

“It’s also becoming increasingly challenging and complicated through these regulatory requirements and hurdles and potentially reciprocal arrangements. Unquestionably, this is a very complex field that needs to be watched carefully over the coming months and years,” Acheson says.

Agres is based in Laurel, Md. Reach him at [email protected].

For more information on global food trends, click on this issue’s online exclusive “Is Europe Outpacing the U.S. in Traceability?”