Mitigate Pathogen Risk in Frozen Foods

To help food processors and manufacturers achieve these goals, AFFI developed ways to assist companies to validate their lethality processes, particularly for frozen foods. For example, Dr. Gummalla points to research that established a correlation of key time and temperature parameters with significant log reduction of L. monocytogenes when blanching frozen vegetables. “Blanching was originally intended to be a way to stabilize the quality of the raw materials prior to freezing, but appropriate time and temperature treatment can also serve as an effective anti-microbial step,” he says.

He cites this and other research at AFFI that is available to help food manufacturers develop and implement food safety practices for their operations. Found on its Food Safety Zone website at affifoodsafety.org, resources and downloadable tools developed by food safety professionals for food safety professionals offer manufacturers an easy way to search, access, and incorporate food safety practices. The site also includes a Listeria Control Program with more than 100 recommendations to help prevent and control L. monocytogenes.

John Rusiniak, vice president of quality and product safety at Lakeside Foods, Inc., in New Richmond, Wisc., reiterates the importance of seek-and-destroy principles as a key best practice for mitigating pathogen contamination. “We employ aggressive environmental monitoring and testing practices based on pathogen seek-and-destroy principles, supported by focused corrective actions when needed,” he says.

That said, Rusiniak, who is a member of AFFI’s Scientific and Regulatory Affairs Committee, underscored the idea that the challenge faced by frozen food manufacturers to ensure safe food products is the same for all food manufacturers and is based on the essential principle of “Safe Food Always.”

“How we get there differs in terms of managing the four Ms: methods, materials, machines, and manpower,” he says. “I would also add a fifth M for “money,” because food safety only happens with commitment during the budgeting process to financially support all aspects of food safety.”

Food Safety Culture

Basically, what Rusiniak is describing is the need for food manufacturers to invest in and adhere to a food safety culture. “The bottom line is that manufacturers must build a food safety culture, which boils down to awareness, education, and commitment,” he says.

Dr. Wiedmann also stresses the need for food processors to take seriously the risk of pathogen contamination of their frozen food products and not adopt a “we never had a problem so everything must be fine” attitude. “There is a need for continuous improvement and regular re-assessment of food safety systems,” he says, citing, for example, the need to continually monitor sanitation procedures. “Often, problems can be traced back to sanitation procedures that do not include sufficient disassembly before cleaning and sanitation, which is essential to make sure cleaning agents and sanitizers reach all spots where L. monocytogenes may ‘hide,’” he adds.

Talking about food safety culture in terms of the level of cultural maturity of an organization, Dr. Butts underscores questions that companies can ask themselves about their commitment to food safety: What are our values? Are we going to apply our values to our production process? “The culture of an organization drives what they are going to do,” he says.

An article recently published in the journal Comprehensive Reviews in Food Science and Food Safety describes in detail how organizations can look at food safety culture in terms of moving from a compliance-oriented organization to one that is more integrity oriented, and the ways to determine the cultural maturity of an organization (see “Determining Cultural Maturity,” p. TK).

One outgrowth of organizations moving to a food safety culture built less on compliance and more on integrity (or a higher maturity level) may arguably be a more risk-based regulatory approach, moving away from the more stringent FDA “zero tolerance” approach. Some argue that this will, in turn, actually improve food safety more than a “zero tolerance” approach, in which a food product is recalled if it is found to have any trace of L. monocytogenes regardless of the product’s risk profile, by reducing the disincentive to companies to regularly sample foods in fear of a recall.