In my last article, I wrote about the food safety elephant in the room – that somewhere along the way, we as food safety and risk managers “…became more comfortable discussing the dangers of finding problems than the dangers of not finding them”. When the conversation shifts from using science to solve the problem, to conversations on how that same data and learning is a risk in terms of legal exposure – it’s far past time to change. It’s now the time to turn our well-honed root cause skills into something more productive – correcting the system to stop failing.
The past article (and this one) was not about avoiding data and learning. It was about admitting that our current food system can make knowledge feel dangerous. But naming the elephant is not enough. At some point, we have to eat it. One small bite at a time.
Efforts need to shift to work towards a framework that builds the outcomes we seek. Prevention systems and trust don’t just happen naturally. They are invested in little bits over time. Figuring out what works, iterating, using the data to fine-tune and hone the next approach. Watching that those data are not used against you. That can’t happen in a vacuum given the legal and enforcement liabilities. We also need the legal and policy evolution to change expectations of compliance and build practical enforcement and legal systems that enforce them.
Let’s stop weaponizing the act of looking and learning. Let’s design food safety data governance and safe harbor policies. There must be a legal mechanism that protects those who do more to understand and manage their system. This is not a plea to remove accountability. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. It’s about raising the bar on what accountability looks like. Accountability is established and built through intentional, well-designed systems of knowledge, science-driven actions and that data and learnings should have safe-harbor from those using it in the wrong way. When used the wrong way and out of context, it’s scientific and data malpractice.
Knowing and looking for pathogens (or other hazards), discovering that they could be in a food or production environment, performing root cause analysis that shows there are uncontrollable steps in processes is not evidence of negligence, failure or neglect. In some cases, that is just the realities of food production in environments shared with microorganisms, including those of foodborne pathogens. If there is wrong-doing, cover-ups, manipulation of data – then all the information should be fully accessible and useable in a court of law. No bad actors welcome. Good actors and better outcomes? More please.
Not all risks are equal. Nor do they have the same risk pathway (internally-owned risk vs. externally-introduced risk).
Risk-based management is something we need to embrace, not just because science requires it (it’s a little thing called reality), but also because our existing food safety regulations (FSMA) already explicitly require it. However, sometimes risk management strategies may look counterintuitive to our older hazard-based framework. And generally, they are structured to focus on expectations of the producer only, not considering the responsibility of the downstream and upstream risk-owners. That doesn’t make sense. Risk doesn’t know our laws, legal boundaries and fence lines. It will make you sick either way, and it’s time to place responsibility and accountability where it is warranted along the entire supply chain. Some risks are internally-owned, coming from the practices and inputs chosen and managed by the producer. However, some risks are not under the producer’s control. These could be risks originating from adjacent land and operations, or risks from weather and climatic events, or risks when transporters fail to handle products appropriately, or risks when restaurants, food handlers and consumers don’t hold up their end of the food safety and preparation bargain.
Regulation and policy should reflect this holistic system and distribute legal accountability appropriately. Adjacent land neighbors, trucking companies, coolers, food service operators and retailers are part of the process regardless of whether they want to be. It makes little sense that a grower of fresh produce item can do everything in the greatest of their abilities to reduce the risk to the crop, only to have neighbors and/or downstream supply chains fail to also minimize risks from airborne and runoff, use inappropriate temperature control, introduce cross-contamination and lose traceability leading to broad recalls and market impacts. It is categorically flawed to immediately assume that a root cause for a food safety event always leads you to the responsibility of the original producer in tracebacks- what about externally introduced contamination either during production or later in the supply chain? There is some accountability and responsibility required there as well – it’s a food system, dependent upon all steps in the process.
Food safety liability should not be based on the fantasy that all risks are preventable. It should be based on whether risk was reasonably managed, and whether the supporting data establishes that case. That packet of information on production records, monitoring results, root cause analysis, corrective actions and risk-management decisions, etc. should be protected under a safe harbor policy similar to the protections we recognize for sensitive health information and medical quality-improvement systems.
We need to stop allowing information collected to prevent food safety events and to achieve continuous improvement from being used to punish the growers and producers that are doing the hard work of reducing the risks within their control. Their efforts on managing to the best of their ability the risks introduced from outside their control should be viewed realistically, recognizing that not all risks are preventable.
When prevention data becomes a weapon instead of a tool, we have not made food safer. We have only made people more afraid to learn. And a food safety system afraid to learn is a food safety system designed to fail.