Washington, April 3 - The U.S. Agriculture Department should expand its risk-based inspection system to focus on products neglected by the Food and Drug Administration to help stop a stop a rash of massive food recalls, an official from a U.S. grocery chain said on Thursday.
The U.S. food supply system is under fire after a series big food recalls in recent years, leading to vociferous calls by lawmakers, consumer groups and most recently the Obama administration to reform the antiquated system.
"We must look beyond the meat and poultry divide and focus on food safety systems across all categories of commodities using a risk-based approach," said John Hanlin, vice president of food safety with Supervalu Inc .
This would help "commodities that today receive minimal inspection due to budget challenges at FDA," he said.
USDA's risk-based inspection system conducts inspections at plants each day, but puts more inspection resources depending on the type of product produced and how each plant is controlling risk. In some cases, the FDA can go several years without inspecting a facility.
Hanlin said USDA has used its risk-based inspection system to reduce the incidence of salmonella in poultry and to highlight the challenges of reducing E. coli in ground beef. He proposed expanding the authority to other high-risk products such as spinach, other leafy greens, tomatoes, nuts, grains and other raw agricultural commodities.
"We must remove products from our shelves and our (distribution centers) almost daily due to food safety issues reported to us by USDA, FDA and food manufactures," Hanlin told members of the House Agriculture Committee. "Consumers are losing confidence in our food supply."
House Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson said he was willing to consider the plan he said "has some merit."
Fifteen federal agencies handle food safety including FDA, which handles about 80 percent of the food supply, and USDA, which is in charge of red meat, poultry and eggs.
In the latest food-borne outbreak, a California firm on Monday issued a nationwide recall of pistachios due to possible salmonella contamination, prompting snack makers and retailers ranging from PepsiCo Inc to grocery chain Kroger Co to remove products from store shelves as a precaution.
The recall comes as the United States deals with the fallout from its largest recall in history. A salmonella outbreak, which began in September, was traced to peanut products and led to 700 illnesses and the recall of more than 3,400 products.
Efforts to overhaul the food safety system have yielded several proposals, including splitting the FDA to create a separate organization in charge of food safety and merging all 15 food agencies into one group.