USDA 

Economists 

Group 

Seminar

Food Safety: Costs in the United States and Global Consequences

Hello,

You are cordially invited to attend the upcoming seminar hosted by the USDA Economists' Group. The presenters are Dr. Richard Gilmore, CEO/President of the GIC Group, and founder/chairman of the non-profit industry organization, Global Food Safety Forum (www.globalfoodsafetyforum.org), and Dr. Travis Minor, an Economist with the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

The seminar will be held on Monday, August 25, at 12:00 noon, in Room 107A of USDA's Whitten Building, Independence Ave SW, Washington, DC. This event is free of charge; you will need identification to enter the building.

If you can't make it to the seminar, feel free to join in on teleconference:

Dial In Number: 1-888-844-9904 or 1-816-423-4261

Access code: 9448054

More information can be found at: www.usdaeconomists.org.

Thanks, and hope to see you there!

China: No ractopamine allowed in US Pork

www.chinadaily.com: 8.14.14

As of Wednesday, China is no longer allowing pork imports from processing plants Tyson Foods in Iowa and Indiana, Hormel Foods Corp in Nebraska, Triumph Foods in Missouri, and Quality Pork Processors Inc. in Minnesota. In total there are 12 facilities (6 processing and 6 cold storage) who have been shut out due to a recent ban on growth additives in pigs. In order to ship pork products into the country, producers must secure third-party verification to confirm that ractopamine, a feed additive, is not present. 

China Daily reports that domestically, China often takes such measures to ensure safety in their products though the move to expand to imported products have been new. Although China remains the world's largest producer of pork, in 2013 the country increased its import of meat by 11.7% from 2012. 

Shanghai requires 5 of the city's restaurant chains to provide supplier information

www.chinadaily.com.cm: 8.11.14

The Shanghai Municipal Food and Drug Administration is now requiring that the following chains: McDonald’s Discos, Burger King, and Carl’s Jr. post information about their suppliers on their internet sites. As part of a movement to provide consumers additional information about their food sources, the city’s FDA aims to use this regulation to increase the costs of non-compliance for suppliers. While this mandate only covers 5 chains, residents believe that it will eventually grow to include all food serving businesses in Shanghai.

The Shanghai government’s notice puts food safety as the top priority for supplier selection. Yesterday, the Municipality held a hearing covering food safety tracking; the information will then be used to draft a provision on various food categories sold in Shanghai. 

Wal-Mart in Shenzhen under investigation by Chinese regulators

Reuters: 8.9.14

Allegations made by a Walmart employee at a Shenzhen branch that workers were violating food safety rules have now come under inspection. These reports include reusing dirty cooking oil, selling expired meat, and failing to toss insect inhabited rice. Regulators have obtained food samples from this particular branch and though they are being tested, Walmart has released a statement that none of the reported activities were found on site. During one of the inspections on this branch, regulation officers found that managers had hand written expiration dates, something that could easily result in the use of expired products. Regarding frying oil, there is no current legislation for how long it can be used or if old and new oil can be mixed. 

China reassures Japan over Safeness of Food Exports

Chinese food regulators in Beijing on Wednesday gave Japan the green light after going through evidence that no contaminated meat had been shipped into their borders. Last month’s discovery of a Husi plant clearly breaking food safety protocol eventually caused a ripple effect, resulting in Hong Kong and Japan banning all Shanghai Husi imports. In Japan, this caused the sales of McDonald’s to drop 15% in the month of July and FamilyMart to dispose of all their Husi chicken products.

Tokyo’s Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry were told that Husi separated their export products from those that were meant for domestic sale, keeping them in different storage locations. Husi employees though had produced both domestic and export goods on the same production line.  

Sources: Reuters ; The Japan Times

GFSF Announcement: USDA Economists Group Seminar on Food Safety Costs and Global Consequences

Join USDA on the 25^th of August as they host Dr. Gilmore and Dr. Minor for a presentation on how food safety issues are viewed from a global, macro perspective and what the quantitative methods for evaluating cost implications are.

 Under the FSMA scope and the supply chain, what links the costs of food safety threats to non-compliance issues in the US? What is the changing structure of the global food and feed market place and what could it mean for food safety overall?

Regarding quantitative methods, the FDA has developed an economic welfare-based method to estimate the health costs associated with foodborne illness. The method generates pathogen-specific health costs measured in both quality-adjusted life years and in dollars.

Dr. Richard Gilmore is CEO/President of the GIC Group, an international agribusiness company, and founder and chairman of the non-profit industry organization, Global Food Safety Forum (www.globalfoodsafetyforum.org).  He previously served as External Adviser to the US Government for investment in innovative ag technologies in feed the future countries; Chief Economist of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee; Director of Food Policy, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and Rockefeller Fellow.  Rick has written books and articles on agribusiness and food policy issues and is a frequent media commentator on food safety and policy issues

Dr. Travis Minor is an Economist with the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.  He received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Economics with an emphasis in Health Economics from Middle Tennessee State University. Aside from contributing to numerous Regulatory Impact Analyses put forth by the FDA, Dr. Minor has published research in Health Economics and Economics and Human Biology, amongst others.

 August 25, 2014, Monday

12:00 to 1:00 pm

1400 Independence Ave SW, Room 107A                    
Washington, DC.

Please RSVP by Wednesday, August 20, 2014.

For questions, please contact

Sherry Wise, sherry.wise@ams.usda.gov or Marina Denicoff, marina.denicoff@ams.usda.gov