This year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the SQF Institute will be hosting its annual SQF Conference online. The food safety event which will be held from October 27 to 29, 2020, will be able to reach SQF practitioners in 40 countries. This is a great opportunity for students to participate (a ticket costs 99…
What is Traceability? The Codex Alimentarius Commission defines traceability as “the ability to follow the movement of a food through specified stage(s) of production, processing and distribution”.1 For the Canadian Food Inspection agency, traceability is the ability to follow an item or a group of items - be it animal, plant, food product or ingredient…
What is CAPA? In order to understand the usefulness of CAPA, we must first introduce the PDCA cycle. The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) cycle is a four-step quality management process that was introduced by Dr. W. Edwards Deming in 1950. A graphical representation of the Deming wheel is represented below. This model is commonly used by project…
Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) Final Rule for Mitigation Strategies to Protect Food Against Intentional Adulteration Last February, the US Food and Drug Administration (US FDA) released the third and last installment of the draft guidance for the Intentional Adulteration (IA) rule. The FSMA IA rule is aimed at identifying and controlling significant hazards intentionally…
The second installment of the Wine Sensory Symposium took place at VV Tapas Lounge, a brand new eatery and wine bar located at 957 East Hastings in Vancouver. Wine blogger and hospitality consultant Laura Milnes from Silk and Coupe facilitated 2 great debates about BC wine showcasing Vancouver Island and Salt Spring Island wineries. Two…
Contact Information Sirocco Consulting Karine Lawrence 778-821-1392 [email protected] Release Date For Immediate Release Support Local by Drinking Local Wine: Sensory Symposium Salon Series Did you know there are over 30 wineries in the lower mainland and more than 30 wineries scattered across the islands? That means there are over 60 local wineries right…
On January 15, 2019, the Safe Food for Canadians Act and Regulations came into effect. The scope of the SFCR requirements is food that is imported, exported, and inter-provincially traded in Canada. Regulatory compliance with SFCR ensures that “anyone who is importing, exporting, manufacturing, processing, treating, preserving, grading, packaging, or labelling food has not compromised…
Food Safety Plans and Third-Party Certifications The global food supply chain is changing rapidly to meet new food safety regulatory requirements. In the US, such requirements pertaining to food safety and food fraud were introduced in 2011 when President Obama signed FSMA (Food Safety Modernization Act) into law on January 4, 2011. FSMA has given…
What is sensory science? According to the Institute of Food Technologists1 (1975), sensory science is “the scientific discipline used to evoke, measure, analyze, and interpret those reactions to characteristics of foods and materials as perceived through the sense of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing.” Koehl et al. (2007) offered an alternative definition: “Under predefined…
The goal of an Environmental Monitoring Program, or EMP, is to reduce food safety risks by testing the food processing environment for harmful bacterial contaminants. Such a program aims to identify pathogen “niches” (harbourage sites) as well as cross-contamination points. It is a critical activity that is used to verify food safety plans, sanitation practices…