Controlling Hazards in Spices: Basic Supply Chain Food Safety Control Requirements

Learn to Identify Hazards in the Spice Supply Chain to prevent Food Contamination.

Spices and other low moisture foods are now being identified as outbreak contributors, in part due to the finalization of the FDA’s FSMA Preventive Control Rules, along with the new FDA outbreak testing technologies, and increasingly complex supply chain controls. Spices are often found to carry salmonella, or have physical adulterants, and may remain unidentified as allergens. They may also be impacted by lead, and when not carefully controlled throughout the supply chain, have bacterial growth potential that can end up in processed foods.

Spice handling operations are subject to environmental facility controls, environmental sampling and test, process validation, Good Agricultural Practices (GAP), current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGPM), sanitary transportation rules, and packaging, labeling and other controls. However, most spices used in the US are grown in tropical environments and imported from unknown, unregistered and unregulated farms, where they are hand harvested with little and no food safety controls, before moving to larger handling and packaging centers in the U.S.

Knowing where and how spices are harvested and handled, and what the basics of spice food safety are is especially important, since spices are used to enhance flavors in almost all processed foods. Understanding spice food safety will help your company prevent outbreaks that can destroy your company. If your company is involved with spices in any way, you need to ensure you have appropriate food safety controls in place. With new reports in the public domain, it is obvious that in spite of being classified "generally regarded as safe" (GRAS), spices are not as safe as previously thought.

This session with expert speaker Dr. John Ryan, Ph.D., will cover outbreaks as well as basic microbial reduction techniques, drying, testing, preventive controls, pest controls, storage, facility controls (air/dust/humidity), sanitation operation procedures, water issues, and other basic spice handling food safety considerations.

Session Highlights

• Identify spices as allergens
• Define your spice supply chain and your operational weak points
• Review spice recall data
• Use the Spice Operation Food Safety Planning Questionnaire
• Establishing Valid Preventive Controls
• Learn about new spice testing for Salmonella:  Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS)
• Control air handling, dust, humidity, pests, sanitation, processing zones
• Include spices in preventive control plans

Who should attend?

• All registered food facilities involved with spices and dried herbs
• Domestic spice receivers and foreign spice suppliers to U.S. markets
• Spice growers, packers, handlers, transporters
• Processing, carrier and distributor Facility owners and managers
• Spice importers, handlers, growers, and packers,
• Food Safety and Quality Personnel whose operations are involved with spices
• Process and facility sanitation and maintenance personnel
• Spice purchasing and supplier qualification personnel
• Company compliance officers
• Internal and External Auditors
• All restaurant and food retail store owners and managers

Ask a question at the Q&A session following the live event and get advice unique to your situation, directly from our expert speaker.

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