Food Safety

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The Park City Group Food Safety Global Registry^TM, powered by Prescient^TM provides food retailers and suppliers with a robust solution that will help them protect their brands and remain in compliance with rapidly evolving regulations in the recently passed Food Safety Modernization Act. An internet-based technology, the Food Safety Global Registry, will enable all participants in the fork-to-farm supply chain to easily manage tracking and traceability requirements as products move between trading partners.

The Regulatory Landscape:

As of January 4, 2011, the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) was signed into law. This single piece of legislation is the most sweeping overhaul of the food safety system since 1938. The new law gives the FDA the ability to initiate food recalls, requires the agency to conduct a minimum number of inspections of food processing facilities, and holds importers responsible for the safety of the food which they bring into the country. However, the FSMA does not apply to meat and poultry products. This responsibility remains with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

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Several key provisions within the FSMA are:

Inspection of Records
Facility Registration
Preventive Controls/Food Plans
Foreign Supplier Verification Program
Qualified Importer Program
Third Party Audits/Certificates
Mandatory Recall Authority
Mandatory Inspection Frequency
Traceability

It is clear that the food safety regulatory landscape is rapidly changing with more mandated regulations and stricter enforcement than ever before. Regulatory agencies are universally cracking down on unsafe food and fraudulent claims with vigor. Prior to 2011, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was aggressively implementing new regulations and guidance across the entire supply chain. New or recently modified regulations include: Egg-Safety Rule, Safety Standards for Fresh Produce, Preventive Controls, Guidance for Transportation of Food, Retail Food Code and Menu Labeling.

With all these new provisions and the constant concern on customer safety, the FDA has openly commented and suggested a proactive approach to compliance.

“Yes, the industry will need the guidance documents and rules from the FDA to know what it means to be in compliance. But many in industry – big and small – have already been pioneers in prevention. So, even today, food producers and processors can be analyzing their facilities to see where potential hazards may occur, establish the preventive controls to address those hazards, monitor their performance and fix problems when they occur, and document what they are doing.”
~ Michael Taylor, FDA Deputy Commissioner for Foods Jan 27, 2011

Federal agencies are becoming more and more aggressive in the pursuit of offenders and violators of these regulations. The industry’s increased attention to food safety compliance is also being driven by the fact that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is using the full extent of its existing legal authority in its enforcement efforts, including employing the Park doctrine, which confirms personal criminal liability for corporate executives and responsible officers.

“I don’t know when, where, or how many cases will be brought,” Blumberg told a gathering of the Food and Drug Law Institute, “but if you are a corporate executive – or counsel advising such a client – I would not wait for the first case to decide now is the time to comply with the law. They won’t get a mulligan on their conduct.”
~ FDA Deputy Chief Counsel Eric M. Blumberg, The Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct 31, 2010.

“Companies must have a realistic expectation that if they are crossing the line, they will be caught, and that if they fail to act, we will”
~ U.S. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg

The Food Safety Global Registry Solution:

Park City Group, leveraging ViaLink^TM core technologies and over 16 years of industry experience, has a proven product synchronization technology for retailers and suppliers, and developed the Registry so any user will gain the “one up, one back” visibility that the new FSMA requires.

The Food Safety Global Registry provides a no-cost solution for retailers while also providing an extremely low-cost tracking and tracing best practice for all partners in the supply chain including growers, packers, manufacturers and distributors. As a single point of connection for thousands of participants in the food supply chain, the Food Safety Global Registry solves the challenge of one-to-many information exchange. The Food Safety Global Registry is fully interoperable and can easily interconnect with off-the-shelf or in-house developed systems and documents. The Registry can accept data in virtually any format and map to any record layout and is available for immediate use. The Registry provides compliance, supply chain visibility and greater efficiency without disruption or requiring participants to change any internal systems.

Park City Group’s Food Safety Global Registry system enables trading partners to meet the regulatory requirements of the FSMA by securely following products as they move through the supply chain and can easily synchronize up and down the supply chain – including many forward and many back.

Contact us to learn more about our Food Safety Global Registry