Cargill's Mike Robach says a combination of transparency and implementing the latest technology has gone a long way to positioning the company as an industry leader in food safety and educating its customers and consumers.
Day-to-day duties
You could say Robach has a lot of ground to cover. “I have the day-to-day responsibility for constantly improving our systems, working with our people. We have a culture of learning and development in our company, and I’m responsible for making sure our employees have the tools to ensure food safety,” he says.
That means Robach has to handle the biggest priorities in food safety at Cargill and solve the greatest food safety challenges. He has no trouble putting his finger on what those priorities and challenges are. “Both locally and in the global supply chain, they are managing the risks that exist in the safety of food products, including poultry and meat, making sure our customers’ expectations are being met, that our food products are safe for consumers,” he says. “There will always be challenges. What we, what the industry must do, is minimize those risks to the greatest degree we can.”
Robach notes over time, those challenges and priorities have changed. “Years ago, E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria were the big issues. And they still are. But when I came into the industry, suddenly there was highly pathogenic avian flu and then BSE. More recently, there are issues like food fraud.”
He points out that foreign material getting into food has become a big source for risk, where at one time, it was looked at more as a quality issue. Food processing itself has raised the risk in foods. “In fact, the more processing of food we do, the more risk increases. The more food products are handled, the greater the risks become,” he says.
Then, there is the growing concern among consumers about food safety in meat and poultry – in fact all foods – a concern that is more intense than it used to be.
“Our customers, all consumers want to know more about their food, especially the food safety part,” he says. “My job is to make sure we have the regulatory systems in place to provide that safety,” he says. “There is more awareness about food safety – a result of the instantaneous communications we have today. If something happens anywhere in the world, thanks to the internet and to social media, we know about it right away. In fact, there are no more ‘regional’ issues anymore. Everything is now ‘global,’ if you think about it,” he says.
Robach describes another big issue in meat and poultry processing today – the increasing concern surrounding the humane treatment of animals used for food. “Animals need to be treated humanely for two basic reasons. First, ethically, it’s the right thing for us to do. And if animals are treated well, the food will be safer for people to consume.”
Through the years, Cargill and other processing companies have responded to this concern by refining their approach. The key change is transparency.
“Some people want to know everything, so we provide that information. We do annual welfare audits about our products and practices, and we’re very transparent about it. Late in 2014, we brought PBS’s Frontline program into our Springdale turkey processing plant and we cooperated 100 percent in this effort to show the public how things are done. It was a great success for the public to see this, and for us, as well.”
Another major step in food safety for Cargill is the detection of pathogens by using new technology. In Robach’s view, this has been an evolving process.
“There have been big changes, really a revolution, when you think about it,” he notes. “Whole genome sequencing, the process of determining the complete DNA sequence of an organism’s genome at a single time, can be used for foodborne pathogen subtyping. This will make a huge improvement in our ability to find outbreaks of foodborne disease and find the sources of pathogens throughout the food chain...It will provide much more specific information about pathogens, and much faster, too. For example, test-and-hold protocols for ground turkey to monitor Salmonella levels. If it’s above a certain level, the turkey is diverted to cooked product.”
Another new approach to food safety is intervention technology, ways to lower pathogens in poultry and meat products. They can be organic acids, essential oils, and other techniques, he says, and more research is constantly being done.
“We were pioneers of steam pasteurization on beef carcasses, hide-on washing. We have non-government organizations (NGOs) come in and see what we’re doing...We bring in customers, suppliers, academics, student groups, government food safety organizations, all to see what we’re doing.”
Robach says traceability can also play an important role in keeping meat and poultry safe. In integrated supply chains, where a company like Cargill owns everything, it can be very effective, he says.
He remembers well the 2011 recall of ground turkey that Cargill endured, and the lessons the company learned. “It was definitely a learning experience,” he admits. “We learned to do a better job of sharing best practices between our various businesses. Our ground beef had good practices, but hadn’t supplied them to our ground turkey business. It’s important to understand the whole supply chain and how to manage risk throughout it.”
He says it’s not good enough just to meet a qualitative performance standard. The company has implemented the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA) for its FDA-regulated products and Cargill supported FSMA from the beginning. In fact, the company worked with food safety groups to develop the FSMA law and regulations.
One problem he sees is the meat and poultry industry operating under some archaic laws. The Federal Meat Inspection Act goes back to 1906, the Poultry Products Inspection Act to the 1950s. Historically, he says, the laws have focused on the detection of diseases and pathogens. The real issue today, he believes, is using science to ensure food safety. He asks: should inspection be more risk-based? Should there be more emphasis on inspection in slaughter plants vs. ready-to-eat plants? “I’d tend to move in that direction,” he says. “From federal oversight, the federal government is taking on more of a verification role, as well as inspectors doing carcass by carcass inspection. It’s an evolutionary process that’s underway right now,” he believes.
While there’s been a lot of speculation in the early days of the Trump presidency about the fate of regulations under an administration that tends not to favor government “hands-on” action, Robach doesn’t think food safety regulations are headed out the door.
“I don’t see us ‘walking back’ on food safety – because we protect the health of millions of Americans,” he says. “As chairman of the Global Food Safety Initiative, I see the priority as making sure food safety is in place. I don’t see that changing.”
