October 4, 2005
Volume 1 Issue 30

WHAT RECORDS:

What records must be established and maintained by non-transporters of food?  

1.      Identify the immediate non-transporter previous sources, whether foreign or domestic, of all foods received, including the name of the firm; address; telephone number; fax number and e-mail address, if available; type of food, including brand name and specific variety (e.g., Brand X Cheddar Cheese, not just cheese; romaine lettuce, not just lettuce); date received; quantity and type of packaging (e.g., 12 oz. bottles); and identify the immediate transporter previous sources including the name, address, telephone number--and, if available, fax number and e-mail address. Persons who manufacture, process or pack food also must include lot or code number or other identifier if the information exists.

2.      Identify the immediate non-transporter subsequent recipients of all foods released, including the name of the firm; address; telephone number; fax number and e-mail address, if available; type of food, including brand name and specific variety; date released; quantity and type of packaging; and identify the immediate transporter subsequent recipients, including the name, address, telephone number--and, if available, fax number and e-mail address. Persons who manufacture, process or pack food also must include lot or code number or other identifier if the information exists. The records must include information that is reasonably available to identify the specific source of each ingredient that was used to make every lot of finished product.

What records must be established and maintained by transporters of food?

1. Records have to include names of the transporter's immediate previous source and transporter's immediate subsequent recipient, origin and destination points, date shipment received and date released, number of packages, description of freight, route of movement during the time the food was transported, and transfer point(s) through which the shipment moved.

These records can be manual on paper or computerized. The cost of manual can be tremendous. Let’s review some of the increase costs of manual records and the advantages of a computer. 

• Computers are very easy to use these days.

• Store all information; such as tickets and shipping forms.

• Computers allow you to maximize the space of your building.

• Labor costs of creating and maintaining the documents.

• Paper will start to physically swallow your buildings' space and eventually take over floor space where product should be sitting and waiting to be delivered or processed. 

• Over time information will be lost; whether it was misplaced or it was simply discarded by mistake. 

• If you would need to look up information of a ticket that occurred 2 years ago, the retrieval time would be extremely slow. 

• There will be valuable time wasted retrieving the ticket causing a loss in money, because we all know that time is money. 

• The cost of paper will be extremely high over time.  Though it may be a few bucks out of your pocket at the time, but your expenses do add up over the course of years.  

To review the first three parts of the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002, CLICK HERE.

1. WHO?
2. WHEN?
3. WHAT FOOD?

Next week we will discuss USDA and HACCP recall requirements.

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