05/05/08 Ensuring Food Safety

Ensuring Food Safety. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure when it comes to ensuring a safe food supply. Being proactive by providing outreach to the food industry is now a major goal of the Oregon Department of Agriculture, according to Food Safety Division Administrator Vance Bybee. BYBEE: "Even though our division is part of what is called a regulatory agency, we believe our first responsibility to industry is to educate and to communicate. ODA has 30 food safety specialists who offer inspections of retail establishments and processing plants, looking for potential problems that could lead to food borne illnesses. Program manager Jim Postlewait says, in some cases, ODA reviews the design and engineering plans of processing equipment before it is ever installed. POSTLEWAIT: Those plants appreciate the help we give them because their goal, ultimately, is now exactly the same as our- which is provide a safe, wholesome, properly-labeled food. They want what we want, and it makes for a good relationship. With a more global food supply and the increasing threat of bioterrorism over the past few years, the emphasis on industry outreach has never been more important in assuring the Oregon consumer that the food supply is as safe as ever. Bybee says the outreach provided by ODA food safety specialists is designed to help protect the food industry and, ultimately, the consumer. BYBEE: We want to make sure that anything that might be coming up that could cross their path to hinder their industry at all, is discovered by us before they ever even know about it. Bybee says industry outreach is more important today than it was 10 or 20 years ago, mainly because we are now in a global economy. BYBEE: A lot of our food and our ingredients that go into food are coming from other countries. So it's important that we have outreach to make sure that those products are safe as well. In addition, we have bioterrorism threats that we didn't have 20 years ago. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.