Food Safety Comes Naturally to Arkansas

“In 2016 we were very honored to offer the first ever FBI Food Defense Workshop in the U.S., during which attendees could gain a certificate of participation from the FBI,” Dr. Cook relates. “We worked with the FBI and the U.S. Department of Justice to present a tabletop exercise that focused on food defense at poultry processing facilities.

Dr. Ricke believes much of the strong relationship between UA and Arkansas’s food industry is showcased during AAFP’s annual meeting.

“AAFP has grown considerably since its founding and it encompasses a broad range of food safety topics at its annual meetings, including fresh produce, preharvest interventions such as prebiotics, and issues concerning retail food,” he says. “AAFP is not only recognized as the premier food safety meeting locally, but received national acclaim from IAFP in 2014 by being awarded the Best Affiliate meeting. The recently concluded 2016 meeting continues the trend of covering emerging issues in food safety by including new developments in whole genome sequencing, FSMA, pet food safety, and for the first time a food defense workshop conducted by the FBI.”

Insider Insights

Brian Umberson, a lifelong Arkansas resident who works as a sales representative for Sample6, a purveyor of pathogen control solutions and technology, has his finger on the pulse of the Arkansas food industry, its history, and food safety culture, including through his service as the AAFP’s 2016 director of marketing.

“Arkansas has always been a big player in food and prepared meals because of its central location, clean water, being number one in rice, a big producer of soybeans, and having a history of growing produce like spinach, apples, watermelon, and tomatoes,” Umberson relates. “The real advancement of the Arkansas food processing sector came when Tyson exploded from 1940 to today, which modeled the way for more food processors and helped establish infrastructure for water and other utilities. Walmart added to Tyson’s impact as they exploded from the 1970s to the present and eventually became a giant in grocery. Walmart and Tyson created a grocer, food processor, distribution, and total supply chain that became the Arkansas food sector we know today. So it can be said we take farm to fork to a different level here in Arkansas.”

Umberson says UA’s development into what he calls a “top agricultural school,” compounded by the university’s involvement in the congressionally funded Food Safety Consortium, established in 1988, along with its establishment of the CFS in 1997, drove a culture of research and continuous improvement in Arkansas.

“The UA has been instrumental in bridging the gap between regulatory agencies and industry in an effort to support a continuous improvement culture,” Umberson says, noting that the quarterly round table meetings convened by Dr. Marcy for about 50 to 100 industry experts in the region to meet with regional regulatory personnel “are rare across this nation.”

In Umberson’s opinion, from his Arkansas insider point of view, Tyson’s growth over the years created a need for profits, quality, and efficiency, which drove Tyson to donate money to the UA for poultry research to drive innovations.

“Walmart has funded projects and research to grow or improve multiple food groups,” Umberson says. “Both Tyson and Walmart worked with the UA to develop the culture of research and continuous improvement that we benefit from today. Walmart’s move into grocery exposed them to temperature sensitive foods that required better food safety measures, thus Walmart demanded better food safety from its vendors. It will be interesting to see how our sector can support Walmart’s new dairy processing venture.”

A number of major food companies have contributed to the history of Arkansas’s outstanding food safety culture and they continue to contribute to the pursuit of innovations and continuous improvement at all levels of the supply chain, Umberson believes. “Today almost all of the major food companies have facilities in Arkansas and they service Walmart, so we have prepared foods companies here, including Nestle USA, Frito-Lay North America, Inc., ConAgra Food, Inc., Land O’Frost, Inc., and Pinnacle Foods, Inc.,” he notes. “Add to those multiple poultry grower networks for Cargill, Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, OK Foods, Inc., Simmons Foods, Inc., Peco Foods, Inc., Georges, Inc., Ozark Mountain Poultry , Twin River Foods, and Butterball, LLC.”