Traceability in the Food Supply Chain

摘要

Beginning in 2005, FDA required certain food facilities to maintain records identifying the sources, recipients, and transporters of food products. The purpose of these records is to allow FDA to trace an article of food through each stage of the food supply chainfrom a retail shelf back to a farm if FDA has a reasonable belief that a food product is adulterated and presents a serious health threat. Traceability is the ability to follow the movement of a food product through the stages of production, processing, and distribution. Traceability includes both traceback and trace forward. Traceback is the ability to trace a food product from the retail shelf back to the farm. Conversely, trace forward is the ability to trace a food product from the farm forward to the retail shelf. Traceability is often needed to identify the sources of food contamination and the recipients of contaminated food in product recalls and seizures. This study refers to such a situation as a food emergency. This study is based on two primary data sources: (1) a traceability exercise of 40 selected food products and (2) structured interviews with the managers at the food facilities that handled the selected food products.