Protecting the Food Supply

From www.ift.org

"International food contamination resulting from terrorist attack differs significantly from traditional accidental food contamination. Are food safety measures sufficient for food defence?"

What do you guys think? Will this become the a new standard in the near future?

In Singapore, the government is very strict on these kind of issues, so, for me, it would be the second choice. I guess this is something we should be proud of? Or are we relying too much on the government?


Protecting_the_Food_Supply.pdf   1.01MB   99 downloads

From www.ift.org

"International food contamination resulting from terrorist attack differs significantly from traditional accidental food contamination. Are food safety measures sufficient for food defence?"

What do you guys think? Will this become the a new standard in the near future?

In Singapore, the government is very strict on these kind of issues, so, for me, it would be the second choice. I guess this is something we should be proud of? Or are we relying too much on the government?


Protecting_the_Food_Supply.pdf   1.01MB   99 downloads

I think you should stand by your government even though at the extreme end people are saying the Singapore government is afraid of its own shadow.

To my mind, Australia is very much ahead in this field. They even have a "Code of practice for Biosecurity in the egg industry" - introduced after 9/11.

In Singapore, the government is very strict on these kind of issues, so, for me, it would be the second choice. I guess this is something we should be proud of? Or are we relying too much on the government?

I voted it will happen. I'm not sure how a government could prevent a determined group or individual from tampering with a few products (or worse) causing multiple deaths. It will happen. So all you can do is minimise the risk of it happening to you.

To my mind, Australia is very much ahead in this field. They even have a "Code of practice for Biosecurity in the egg industry" - introduced after 9/11.

Can you give more details on the egg biosecurity code Chen?

Regards,

Simon

Sabotage in the food supply chain has always existed at a low level, but when it has occurred in the past the culprit has usually been found to be a disgruntled employee or a (not so) clever twit playing a prank. However, the threat we face today is much more serious and comes in the shape of highly sophisticated, well organised terrorists cells; no country nor company are safe or so we are lead to believe.

As far as I am aware the US appears to be taking the threat of 'food terrorism' much more seriously than say the UK, after all they published the Bioterrorism Act way back in 2002. In addition, Hongyun informs us the Singaporean Government takes a strong line on protecting the food supply from terrorism. I am not aware of similar laws or policies in the UK or other countries, although I am open to learning about them.

Hongyun posted a very interesting article at the top of the thread about protecting the food supply and last month the US FDA released simple guidance to help raise awareness on food defense issues and preparedness within the US food industry. There is an article on the website that explains all about the US FDA alert initiative:

FDA alert Guidance Article

Reading the articles, I begin to ask myself a few questions; chiefly is food sabotage on a massive scale possible? Is it imminent? What are our Government, the Food Standards Agency, the BRC and the UK Food Industry in general doing to prevent food terrorism? What advice are they giving? Whom do we contact in case of an emergency? You could ask the very same questions about your country.

If it could happen then we as Risk Management Professionals ought to be considering it very seriously and should be taking all reasonable measures to prevent it from happening in our businesses. Of course, the likelihood of a terrorist attack on our business has to be very, very low, but the severity could be catastrophic.

In light of recent events with the UK airlines, surely this topic warrants further exploration by learned members - what do you think?

Regards,
Simon

It is agreeable that to most of us, the risks are very low, some may put it as not expected to happen. The consequeces, however, would be catastrophic.

I wonder, should we be starting on preventive measures on these forms of attacks, what would our measures be? How would we render our measures effective when the sabotage was intentional and designed to evade detection (before it is too late) in the first place?

Or are we relying too much on the government?

Dear Hongyun,

At least you've got a government to rely on. Some government gives me the impression that they are the last to know should anything happens (no finger pointing here). In these circumstances, the government as re-active rather than pro-active, and we have no one to rely on but OTHER government bodies.

In addition, Hongyun informs us the Singaporean Government takes a strong line on protecting the food supply from terrorism.

Opps, I may be sending out wrong information here... When I say that our government is very strict on these issues, I meant terrorism in general. You can see police officers patrolling the neighborhood, or within the Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) spread across the country to add security almost everyday.

And Singapore's not a "fine" Country for nothing. There is a FINE for almost everything! From littering to possession of chewing gums to smoking in certain areas, etc... On top of these fines are the very strict laws that we have. Like Death Sentence for possession of a certain amount of drugs, canning to those graffiti-ers etc... I briefly remembered some foreigners being charged in our country for scratching a car and drug possession.

Singapore is a very small island to being with and there is no where to run. So, by using the scare tactic like strict laws from the government, it really scares the hell out of people from trying to do something funny. Thus, the reduced crime rates and terrorism here.

Although it helps with the crimes rate here, on the other hand, having fines everywhere also showed something about our people, ya? It means we are not pro-active enough to stop littering, spit anywhere, or stick chewing gums onto seats by ourselves, and had to be stopped by the fines imposed by our govenment. And that, I think is kinda sad. Hell, Singaporeans are even encouraged by government to SMILE... Yes, we don't smile much... OK, I should stop here now. Steering too far away from the topic liao.

Hongyun I always perceived Singapore to be a liberal place - it just shows how wrong perception can be. Believe me the opposite has its fair share of problems. Now come on explain your avatar I can't quite read it.

OK back on topic (Note: need to find an emoticon for this)

Really does nobody have a comment to make about Food Terrorism, moreover how we should go about preventing it. I don't want to have to say I told you so.

Simon

Now come on explain your avatar I can't quite read it.

The avatar is an Army camp logo that reads: Singapore Armed Forces, Lakiun Camp, Survival Thru Skill.
It happened to be the camp I was in a few years back. It's kinda compulsory for all Singaporean males, since not alot of people wants to volunter to be in the Army.

Anyway, back to topic. No matter how hard the Company tries to prevent bio-terrorism from happening, I think it will not work. All you need is some kamikaze group of people to sarbotage the supply and that's it. They have no fear of being caught, sentenced, or death. On the other hand, it's their strong belief in something that makes them do something like this on a large scale. There is no preventive measures, only corrective actions for this, IMO. Take 911 for example.

A Company can supervise/restrict what it's employee can or cannot do, but they cannot predict/control what employees are thinking or will do to the food supply. It;s too exposed. You need employees everywhere to help with the production.

Hi Hongyun / Simon,

Food terrorism is very real these days and the food safety risk increases relative to the destination of your product.

I believe this potential hazard should be on top of every Food Chain and it is inevitable that appropriate Risk Assessment be carried out and subsequent Risk Communication to ensure Customer Confidence would be a good idea.

Our FSMS ISO 22000 has already covered this issue under our OPRP Program.

Each facility is unique, so you have to define the procedures to fit your purpose and scope.

Regards
Charles

A Company can supervise/restrict what it's employee can or cannot do, but they cannot predict/control what employees are thinking or will do to the food supply. It;s too exposed. You need employees everywhere to help with the production.

I agree totally with Hongyun. However good our risk assessment, however high security we have, we simply couldn't do much to prevent when the intention to cause harm is there. What food company can do is just to control on not providing the means for it to happen.

Food safety systems, or even FSMS, IMO, are designed in means to prevent hazards that are unintentional (mostly in the process), but may not be as effective on preventing hazards that are intentional.

EThe "Emergency Preparedness" in ISO22000 has all to do with calamities that can't be prevented, thus as Hongyun mentioned, the corrections, and maybe if we are lucky, the corrective actions.

Employees are very volatile, and human resource is a very tough job these days.

Dear Just Me,

It is possible that you may have missed the point on food prevention versus food safety. They are both the same - its about protecting your FSO and the FSMS boundaries to provide safe food for our customers.

If biosecurity measures are not in place, I am afraid the probability of reducing the risk exposure to a manageable level would be very difficult. However, you seem to suggest that its a waste of time and effort as it is not possible to prevent such a calamity at all.

Then I guess the US Bioterrorism and the NZ Biosecurity Acts are regulations that have not been well thought of before they became legislations.

I am afraid the FSMS ISO 22000 goes far beyond what the forum has discussed so far.

Cheers
Suzuki

However, you seem to suggest that its a waste of time and effort as it is not possible to prevent such a calamity at all.

That never came across my mind. It's not waste of time, but it is definately not fool-proof, as in any system, more so if something is intentional.

Having Bioterrorism or Biosecurity Acts is an effort (to the best we can) to prevent. Take the Food Act and Food Regulations for instance, and look at the poisoning, recall and fraud cases so far, would it mean that the Act was not very well though off as well?

It's never a waste of time to make effort in prevention, but there is only so much we can do, with the limited resources or technology we have. It becomes more difficult when humans are involved.

We could reinforce security to the premise, boost morale of employees for better company loyalty, employ loads of cctv, but at the end of the day, are we convinced?

t's never a waste of time to make effort in prevention

I am glad that we both agree on this angle of thought nevertheess IMO "emergency preparedness" is about deploying reponses through appropriate interventions, mitigating risk exposures ...etc and troubleshooting post events while Biosecurity goes beyond all these.

Although it has no relevance to food safety, we now see countries deploying tsunami alarm system as a prevention measure and we witnessed how proper planning facilitated British Intelligence to successfully avoided a hugely disastrous event at the Hethrow Airport of late.

It does help

Regards
Charles

Dear All

The ISO22K system rquests you to come up with a pre-determined / pre -planned response plan to various types of incidents. It is a mandatory requirement. Each plan is unique to that company; there is no right or wrong as long as it works.

No one knows how effective it is until it jerks your legs. Ohmmmm, this is why you need to validate and verify the effectiveness of the control measure(s).

Regards/Wayne