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It is important to plan ahead. Your food processing company may
need to recall a product at some point. The recall may result from
consumer complaints or your company has identified a problem. To
recall a product, your company needs to be able to identify the
product involved and determine the distribution of that product.
In the event of a foodborne illness outbreak, it is important
to have traceback and recall procedures in place. We know that
trace-backs cannot prevent foodborne illness from occurring. But
being able to review good records and quickly trace a food back to
its source can limit the public health and economic impacts of an
outbreak. Food processors should develop and implement systems to
facilitate tracebacks and recalls in the event of a problem. Food
processors should test their systems regularly by conducting
unannounced mock recalls. Traceback typically begins with the
retail source of the food product thought to cause illness or
injury and works back to a processing facility. Information from a
traceback can often be used to aid in prevention of future illness
outbreaks. Recall procedures are developed and used by processors
to withdraw product that is already in the marketplace. A
processor should be able to track all products. Records such as
the supplier identification, production and distribution records
for a specific lot of product should be orderly, properly
maintained and easily retrievable in less than one hour. It is
good procedure to periodically test the firm’s ability to
retrieve information from the records by conducting mock recalls.
Lot coding packages by date code or other coding may facilitate
recovery of the product, if a recall is needed. Production records
and date codes help put the puzzle together to identify the
source. What are the consequences of an outbreak that implicates a
product? Without records, the whole product line is suspect. All
of the production procedures are suspect. More questions are
raised than can be answered. Is the problem limited to only one
day, one week, or one month of production? Is the source of the
problem incoming product or employee practices? Has dirty
equipment contaminated the product? If a production facility has
accurate records of effective cleaning and sanitation of
equipment, has well-trained employees, and pays consistent
attention to GMP, Prerequisite Programs and HACCP, the facility
will greatly reduce the likelihood of it’s products causing a
foodborne illness outbreak.
A comprehensive guidelines, policies, and procedures for
recalls can be found in Title 21, Part 7 of the Code of Federal
Regulations. Please click on document below.
IA PDF/Recall Plan.PDF
To view the FDA’s recall policies, click on the link:
www.cfsan.fda.gov/~lrd/recall2.html
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