Asia v. US Food Practices

The news has been full of food safety issues lately. Just in the past 12 months we have seen a Mad Cow scare (never made it to the food chain), E. coli in lettuce, green onions (maybe not), Salmonella in peanut butter and now tainted pet food. It is interesting to see how two Asian countries have been affected by this type of news.

I just read an article entitled, "Japan Halts Imports From Kansas Meat Plant" from the AP. In this article it talks about how Japan ordered imports halted from this particular meat plant because...a shipment arrived without proper papers! This was the third American meatpacker to have forgotten to dot all the i's and cross all the t's for their Japanese customer.

This same week I read the angry response to the FDA's identification of a Chinese Wheat Gluten supplier as the source of the contaminated ingredient suspected in killing "dozens" of pets and injuring "hundreds" more. The Chinese manufacturer denied being responsible, and continues to ship Wheat Gluten to numerous US food manufacturers. In fact, the FDA now says that not all of the contaminated pet food has been removed from store shelves...they can't seem to trace all the ingredients properly!

Here's the basic difference as I see it...and yes, maybe I am qualified to talk about it after being in the food industry for 24 years.

In the US, we operate on a basis of TRUST first, until you are proven to be untrustworthy. Our system is set up for self-regulation and inspection. This means that if you are a food producer, you are responsible for regulating yourself. The FDA provides the rules, you oversee your own practices to ensure that your firm meets them. Inspections usually aren't done unless someone else narcs on you to the FDA...or until someone gets sick, finds a rat's head in a can, or a beloved pet dies. Then the cause must be investigated and identified. So a reactive v. proactive scenario. The FDA couldn't possibly inspect everyone, the industry is too large and the budgets too small. So, our situation in the US is built in this manner...you make sure your meet all the regulations yourself. US businesses operate this way, and when faced with a different system (like in Japan), they can't help but screw up.

You see, in Japan, they operate exactly in the opposite manner...they distrust until the food company proves over a long period of doing business that it can be trusted. The food regulators in Japan know that the system they have set up...where sometimes the following of policy (filling out all the paperwork correctly, and even posting correctly on containers) is as important as the safety of the contents. If you can't be trusted to even follow simple instructions, what else might you be incapable of? It might sound ridiculous to us in the US, but this is the system that works for them. Costs aren't even a consideration. Japanese importers might do 100% sampling and testing of goods to prove to themselves that the product meets guidelines, let alone regulations. Your specifications are used as a weapon to try to find failures. Your Certificates of Analysis are deemed worthless...they will retest all the specs to see if you pass your own parameters. In the US, Certificates of Analysis are usually guarantees that the shipment will meet the set specifications.

In the US, we import foods from all over the world in huge quantities. Our system of "trust first" means very little of what is brought into the country is actually analyzed. Once in the country, distribution nation-wide means tracking tainted or contaminated goods is a difficult and costly process.

Advice I would give to US companies looking to do more export business? Think like a Japanese regulatory scientist...

Advice I would give to the FDA and our government? Maybe it is time to flip budgets...switch the military budget over to education and the FDA (and USDA), and give the education and FDA budgets to the military.

Chow!