The ICON’s color touchscreen identifies each test point by name, date, and time taken, and also displays the results. ICON can be connected to a PC through a USB port and the results uploaded to the ICON Dashboard software that contains widgets to report on the current state of test points as well as their historic readings.
ICON Dashboard can be a valuable tool for HACCP monitoring. According to Anita Kressner, vice president global sales and marketing, “The MVP ICON Dashboard software provides at-a-glance reporting of the most critical performance metrics of a sanitation program. Essential information including the number of samples taken and the retest rate is updated in the dashboard each time the MVP ICON is synched with the computer. The dashboard also displays a reminder for the date the next calibration is due, which can be done onsite.”
Risk Management Technologies
FDA legislation centers around assessing and managing risk. A company called Battelle in Columbus, Ohio, has recently developed a technology called PRIA that can help the poultry industry in this endeavor. PRIA is actually based on Department of Homeland Security software that performs risk assessments using mathematical and statistical projections to map out the scope of the disaster should a biological or chemical attack assault the food supply chain. Because foodborne pathogens would follow the same path of distribution as a foodborne biological attack, the same risk assessment models can be used to identify the route and degree of damage of a pathogen.
PRIA can be used to model the outcomes of any safety measures a poultry company might potentially employ. A variety of alterations can be input, including Salmonella inoculations, an antimicrobial dip, or an initiative to prevent temperature abuse in distribution and retail. The program projects what changes would result downstream of the poultry company for each variable, allowing users to evaluate the outcomes and choose the most beneficial and most cost-effective improvements to be made. Brian Hawkins, senior research scientist at Battelle, explains, “You can look at these possibilities side by side and make a quantitative decision based on the impact. You can see by how much it will reduce projected illnesses or projected contamination.” At press time, Battelle was currently working with two poultry companies to take the PRIA prototype to launch.
Despite the most stringent sanitation and testing standards, foodborne pathogens can find their way into commerce, resulting in recalls. To keep consumers as safe as possible, the agency randomly demands food processing companies to stage mock recalls. In one of these exercises, companies must be able to identify the location of each lot of food they have shipped within two to four hours.
One of the challenges encountered during a food recall is locating where a particular lot number of raw ingredient has been used, thereby limiting the recall to strictly the contaminated food. Many manufacturing facilities are still using manual records, so in the event of a recall, finding the one paper that lists the final destination of an ingredient or finished product can be daunting. Often the company recalls everything on the shelf, doing deep and unnecessary damage to the brand. GE Intelligent Platforms, a division of General Electric, developed Proficy, a software package, to digitize this recordkeeping.
Compatible with multiple hardware and software products, Proficy collects data stored in the computer brain of each machine in the automated food processing factory including oven temperature, belt speed, and humidity, as well as data input by operators such as ingredient lot numbers. The program integrates the data, giving food suppliers a holistic “snapshot” of any moment or aspect of production. Moreover, if any problems arise, a warning is sent automatically to the person who needs to take appropriate corrective action. They can know in an instant if machinery was functioning properly, if conditions were correct, as well as where each ingredient and finished product wound up. According to Katie Moore, global industry manager, food and beverage for GE Intelligent Platforms, “Proficy is not just about collecting data for its own sake, but about collecting information seamlessly and getting it to the people who need it when they need it.”
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