Industry and Government Talk Food Safety

“Most responses occur at the state and the local levels; seldom would they call a federal agency,” he said. This isolated approach is changing, however. “We have a lot more at stake at this time,” Steingart said in an interview with Food Quality. “We’re getting involved more now than ever before with imports and recalls … these things are something that are on the rise.”

One example of a successful collaboration between the FDA and a state agency occurred as a response to the Castleberry Food Company recall in North Carolina in July 2007, which came about due to the risk of botulinum toxin.

“They utilized what they called in North Carolina an incident command structure to coordinate the efforts of over 1,000 people and maybe 80 or so different local agencies within that state working with FDA to do recall-effectiveness checks,” Steingart said. The FDA did over 3,000 such checks, he added.

“What makes that different is the large number; second is the fact that they went to what’s considered nontraditional places—daycares, campgrounds, and personal care homes,” he said. Nowadays, many people get their food from places other than supermarkets, Steingart said. This collaboration allowed food safety experts in North Carolina to execute more recalls within 10 days than the FDA accomplished nationwide.

Another reason the FDA and state and local agencies should work together is to pool resources, especially at a time when the FDA is understaffed, Steingart said. “The point I tried to make in Washington is that it’s not that we do better or more than the FDA, but given the resources, the states and locals working with FDA can do more together than any one agency can,” he said.