Keeping Up on Food Safety Regulations

With outbreaks from food-borne illnesses killing an estimated 5,000 Americans each year and sending hundreds of thousands to the hospital, the Obama Administration has made food safety a priority and earlier this year established a new food safety working group. With the increased focus on food safety, here are a few of the new measures in place:

• The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will help the food industry create better tracking methods to locate the source of a food-borne illness.
• A network will be created to improve communication among all the federal agencies that regulate food safety.
• To find E. coli contamination, the Agriculture Department's Food Safety Inspection Service will increase sampling of ground beef ingredients.
• The FDA has announced a new regulation to help make eggs safer for consumers to eat. The regulation is designed to cut down the number of illnesses caused by eggs contaminated with the bacterium salmonella.

The key now is that eggs will have to be refrigerated from farm to market.

The FDA said salmonella is a major cause of foodborne illness in the United States, and raw or undercooked eggs are a major source of such infections. An estimated 142,000 illnesses each year in the United States are caused by consuming eggs contaminated with salmonella.

To read more visit: http://health.usnews.com/articles/health/healthday/2009/07/07/us-unveils-stricter-food-safety-standards.html

To learn about Idaho Technology's easy, accurate and timely food pathogen identification system which tests for pathogens such as Salmonella, E.coli O157:H7, Listeria and more please visit: http://www.idahotech.com/FoodSecurity/

Updated Software Release Improves Accuracy and Sensitivity of Food Security System

Yesterday we were pleased to announce the release of our new software:

Building on its reputation for speed and accuracy in the food testing marketplace, Idaho Technology, Inc. released software V3.0 for its R.A.P.I.D.® LT Food Security System.The updated software incorporates a proprietary post-PCR melting procedure designed to increase the sensitivity of the R.A.P.I.D. LT Food Security System by using melting temperature and melting curves along with PCR amplification curves to determine the presence or absence of pathogens in a food or environmental sample. This additional feature provides users with increased confidence in the sample result.

This is the first food testing solution that provides both PCR and a melt curve analysis together with fast and reliable automated detection. Results are reported as a simple and clear “Positive” or “Negative.” Additionally, easy-to-use wizard-based protocols give users the ability to run custom assays on the system as well as the ability to run Idaho Technology bio-threat assays and food security assays on the same instrument and software simply by installing the appropriate wizards.

To read the full press release, please visit: http://www.idahotech.com/ContactUs/Media.html

IAFP Annual Meeting Recap

This week I had the opportunity to travel to lovely Grapevine, Texas (where it was a sizzling 106 degrees!) to attend my first IAFP annual meeting. The show was held at the beautiful Gaylord Texan Resort, and with an immense atrium including four and a half acres of indoor gardens and winding waterways it was a refreshing refuge from the heat.

We were able to showcase our R.A.P.I.D.® LT Food Security System and our EAT (Easy Accurate Timely) campaign and I was able to learn first-hand what a great forum for education and learning about protecting our food supply this annual meeting provides.

This was the 96th IAFP annual meeting and I was in the midst of over 1,800 attendees from the top industry, academic and government food safety professionals. The meeting also featured over 500 technical papers, posters and symposia, detailing current information on a variety of topics relating to food safety. Idaho Technology was proud to submit two posters: “Sensitivity and Specificity Testing of the new Escherichia coli O157:H7 PCR-based Detection Assay using Idaho Technology’s R.A.P.I.D. ® LT Food Security System” by Kelly Winterberg and “Evaluation of Idaho Technology’s R.A.P.I.D. ® LT Listeria Food Security System in Select Foods and on Environmental Surfaces” by Traci Hayes.

All in all, it was a great meeting and I’m looking forward to attending next year in Anaheim, California (I’m thinking Disneyland….)!

Food Safety Tip of the Week: Cut or cooked produce items such as baked potatoes or vegetable casseroles, should never be left out or held at room temperature for an extended time period.

29TH ANNUAL K-STATE RAPID METHODS AND AUTOMATION IN MICROBIOLOGY WORKSHOP JUNE 15-22

Kansas State University's 29th annual Rapid Methods and Automation in Microbiology workshop (http://www.dce.k-state.edu/conf/rapidmethods/index.shtml) was held June 15-22 in Manhattan, Kansas. The workshop is under the direction of K-State's Daniel Y.C. Fung, an internationally known authority in the field and professor of animal sciences and industry and food science, and offered through the K-State department of animal sciences and industry.

The workshop has served more than 4,000 participants from across the United States and 60 countries in the last 26 years. It focuses on the practical application of conventional and new commercial systems of rapid identification of microorganisms from medical specimens, foods water, and the environment. Participants received intensive theoretical and hands-on training in microbiological automation.

A big thanks goes to our U.S. distributor, Microbiology International, who was one of the sponsors for the event and invited us to attend and present on our R.A.P.I.D. ® LT Food Security System. From Microbiology International, Jason Cadle also presented on “The Total PCR Solution” To learn more about Microbiology International, please visit www.800ezmicro.com. To learn more about the Idaho Technology Food Security System, please visit us at: http://www.idahotech.com/FoodSecurity/.