Food safety plans should be reanalyzed frequently and potential new threats accounted for in order to maintain the needed flexibility for a comprehensive response to unexpected hazards. | deyanarobova | iStock.com
At the most recent Association of American Feed Control Officials (AAFCO) Annual Meeting, I was asked an interesting question: How does the animal food industry prepare for and prevent hazards that aren’t here yet? The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) asks us to shift our approach to animal food safety from responsive to preventive, but at the same time we build our hazard analyses based on known or reasonably foreseeable hazards. As all signs point to a future with an increasing frequency and severity of hazards, how should we build a prevention program that ensures animal food continues to be safe?