September/October 2009 AFI Newsletter
AFI President's Report on Food Safety Legislation; GAO Issues Report on Food Safety; Bill to Extend COOL to Labeling Dairy Products; USDA Issues Report of Impact of Economic Crisis on Agricultural Trade; FDA Invests $17.5 Million in Food Safety; CIT Agrees with Shrimp Importers on Bonding Requirement; Turkish Hazelnut Product Forecast Down; Study Shows Olive Oil Compound Helps Prevent Alzheimer's; California Adopts New Standard of Identity for Honey; and more
PRESIDENT’S REPORT
Food safety legislation is making its return to the Senate calendar. On October 22, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held a hearing entitled, “Keeping America’s Families Safe: Reforming the Food Safety System.”
Given the hearing’s title, it’s no surprise the event included some somewhat dramatic calls for food safety legislation. What it all means is that the Senate is likely to ramp up its discussion of the bill introduced by Sen. Durbin (S. 510). Although nearly all the food safety incidents mentioned in the hearing testimony I read through referred to domestically produced products, imports were still cited as a problem area that needs to be addressed. As the item below on the GAO report demonstrates, imports are still on everyone’s minds.
AFI will continue to keep members apprised of future developments.
Representatives from several AFI-member companies and I met with the director of FDA’s Office of Food Safety and two supervisors in the Low-Acid Canned Food office. At issue was FDA’s recent change in enforcement that resulted in rejections of several containers of stuffed olives. FDA personnel told us if the stuffing was exported to the U.S. by itself, it would require a process filing; so when the stuffing is added into the olive, either the stuffing or the finished product must have a process on file.
When we raised concerns about this enforcement change being made without notice and about the length of time it takes for a process filing to be approved by FDA – typically much longer than the time allowed to re-export or destroy the product – Susan Brecher of FDA said they will temporarily try to expedite the filings of olives and olive stuffings and said filers should send an e-mail to her (Susan.brecher@fda.hhs.gov) after they file so she can monitor the filings and get them through as soon as possible. She said the turn-around time on process filings has improved a great deal and assuming the filer provides the correct information, some filings are approved in about a week.
FDA also advised that processes be filed for any product that has even the slightest chance of having a compliance office think it might be an acidified or low-acid canned food.
AFI will have a booth at the 12th Annual Americas Food & Beverage Show in Miami Beach, Fla. November 9-10. Information on the show is available at http://www.americasfoodandbeverage.com.
GAO ISSUES REPORT ON FOOD SAFETY
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued a report identifying a number of improvements federal agencies should make to further ensure the safety of imported food.
While GAO acknowledges that Customs & Border Protection (CBP), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) have taken steps to ensure the safety of imported food, it identified the following gaps: -
CBP’s computer system does not currently notify FDA or FSIS when imported food shipments arrive at U.S. ports. Efforts are underway to provide this information to FDA for air and truck shipments, but no such work is underway with FSIS.
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FDA has limited authority to ensure importers’ compliance with its regulations.
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CBP and FDA do not identify importers with a unique number. Therefore, FDA cannot always target food shipments originating from high-risk importers.
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CBP faces challenges in managing in-bond shipments, i.e., those that move within the U.S. without formally entering domestic commerce.
The GAO report makes the following recommendations: -
FDA should seek authority from Congress to assess civil penalties on firms and persons who violate FDA’s food safety laws and should determine what violations should be subject to this new authority as well as the appropriate nature and magnitude of the penalties.
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CBP should ensure that the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE) is able to accept a unique identification number for foreign firms that export FDA-regulated foods. FDA should explore ways to improve its ability to identify foreign firms with a unique identifier.
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To enhance coordination of agencies and streamline FDA’s refusal process with CBP’s redelivery process, the two agencies should study ports where a joint initiative would be feasible.
BILL TO EXTEND COOL
LABELING TO DAIRY PRODUCTS Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), chair of the Senate Agriculture Subcommittee on Food, Nutrition and Family Farms, joined Sen. Russ Feingold (D-WI) and Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) to introduce the Dairy Country of Origin Labeling (COOL) Act, which would extend mandatory country-of-origin labeling to dairy products.
Last year USDA’s current COOL law went into effect requiring country-of-origin labeling of meats, produce and nuts. The Dairy COOL Act would extend the current law to include dairy products – milk, cheese, yogurt, ice cream and butter. USDA ISSUES REPORT ON IMPACT OF ECONOMIC CRISIS ON
AGRICULTURAL TRADE
The global economic crisis that started in late 2008 has led to a sharp curtailment of international trade, including a short-term decline in the value of global agricultural trade of around 20 percent, reported USDA’s Economic Research Service. After slowing, global agricultural trade will continue to grow in the future.
The volume of global trade in 2009 will decline for the first time since 1982 (World Bank, 2009).
The global financial crisis and recession will affect each country differently depending on the country’s linkages to the world economy, its economic condition before the crisis and the degree to which it participates in the global financial markets. For example, China and India are likely to emerge from this crisis in relatively strong economic positions in contrast to developed countries, such as the European Union, partly because they started out with strong economic growth prior to the recession. FDA INVESTS $17.5 MILLION
IN FOOD SAFETY
FDA announced a $17.5 million investment in food and feed safety standards encompassing federal, state and local partners. Comprising 83 grants, the money will be invested in four major areas: response, intervention, innovation and prevention.
Response grants will be used to set up the Food Protection Rapid Response Team (RRT). It will also include Program Infrastructure Improvement Prototype Project cooperative agreements designed to develop, implement, exercise and integrate the response to all food hazards and food-borne illness.
In the area of intervention, grants will cover Food Safety and Security Monitoring (FERN). FERN laboratories provide additional capacity for analyzing food samples in the event of food-borne illness. The grants will be specifically directed towards microbiological, chemical or radiological analysis.
The innovation part of the investment will be dedicated to Innovative Food Defense. These grants will be awarded to generate products that complement, develop or improve state and local food defense programs.
The prevention grants will cover the Food Protection Task Force Conference program which focuses on meetings that foster communication, cooperation and collaboration among state, local and tribal food protection, public health, agriculture and regulatory agencies. CIT AGREES WITH SHRIMP IMPORTERS
ON BONDING REQUIREMENT
The Court of International Trade (CIT) overturned a requirement imposed by U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in 2004, but withdrawn earlier this year, for importers of shrimp subject to antidumping duty orders to increase the amount of their import bonds.
The CIT agreed with the 27 shrimp importers who brought this case that the enhanced bonding requirement (EBR) is arbitrary and capricious in imposing greatly increased bond requirements only on these importers and is unreasonable in applying a formula that secures potential antidumping (AD) duties at a substantial amount over the AD cash deposit required by Commerce.
CIT is ordering a remand under which CBP must either (1) re-determine the limit of liability of each bond covering a previous time period that has a limit of liability determined under the EBR and on which a plaintiff is the principal for purposes of allowing a superseding bond or (2) if it chooses, may cancel liability on a previous bond outright without requiring a superseding bond. ARGENTINE PEACH PRODUCTION
FORECAST TO INCREASE
Argentine 2010 peach production is estimated at 165,000 metric tons (MT), of which 85,000 will be processed into canned peaches, noted USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Canned peach exports are expected to increase to 30,000 MT, compared to 2009, primarily due to increased production and the anticipated recovery of export markets. TURKISH HAZELNUT PRODUCTION
FORECAST DOWN
Hazelnut production in Turkey is forecast to drop to 470,000 metric tons (MT) compared to the record level at 780,000 MT in MY 2008, reported USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service. Post has lowered its production forecast for MY 2009 from 650,000 MT to 470,000 MT as yields were well below MY 2008.
ETHNIC FOOD SALES FORECAST
TO REACH RECORD HIGH IN 2009
Sales of ethnic foods have climbed steadily since 2004 and are set to reach a record high of $2.2 billion in 2009, according to a new Mintel report. Additionally, Mintel forecasts solid growth of nearly 20 percent from 2010-14.
Mexican/Hispanic foods represent the largest segment of the ethnic foods market with 62 percent of sales. Mexican food has become mainstream with nearly six in 10 respondents saying they have cooked Mexican food in the past month. However, it is the Asian and Indian food segments that are driving the market’s growth with 11 percent and 35 percent growth respectively from 2006-08.
Wealth and youth are two of the strongest predictors of ethnic food cooking, with 92 percent of households with incomes of $150,000 or higher and 91 percent of consumers 18 to 24 reporting they have engaged in such cooking the past month.
CALIFORNIA OLIVE FARMERS
REPORT LOSSES DUE TO WEATHER California olive farmers claim that weather at bloom time caused more losses than expected. The Olive Growers Council stated farmers produced about 25,000 tons of olives, less than half of earlier estimates. Yield losses hit table olives especially hard, though olives grown for oil were also affected, reported California Farm Bureau. BIG JUMP IN U.S. ACREAGE
DEVOTED TO OLIVE OIL The Modesto Bee reported olives for oil are being grown on about 25,000 acres in California this year, compared with 2,000 in 1998, according to a report from the University of California at Davis. Most of the olive growers are aiming to produce extra virgin olive oil.
AFLATOXIN SORTER TOOL
DETECTS TREE NUTS
An aflatoxin laser sorter originally designed just for peanuts has been modified to allow for the detection of aflatoxin in tree nuts as well and is being rolled out globally, claims, Visys. The Belgium-based equipment manufacturers says its Toxyn sorter can now be used by producers of pistachios, groundnuts, almonds, brazil nuts and hazelnuts.
STUDY SHOWS OLIVE OIL COMPOUND
HELPS PREVENT ALZHEIMER’S
A compound in extra virgin olive oil could deter proteins from disrupting a nerve cell function that causes the debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s disease.
U.S. scientists explain how oleocanthal – a naturally-occurring compound – beneficially alters the structure of highly toxic proteins known as ADDLs in findings published in the journal Toxicology and Applied Pharmacology. The researchers say translational studies are needed to link the laboratory findings to clinical interventions. CALIFORNIA ADOPTS NEW STANDARD
OF IDENTIFY FOR HONEY
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law AB 1216 which establishes California’s new standard of identity for honey. The language is almost identical to the petition the industry submitted to FDA in 2006, except for the moisture level which is at 20 percent.
PRIVATE LABEL PRODUCT
ACCEPTANCE CONTINUES TO GROW Private label products have become increasingly more accepted by consumers as quality has increased and retailers have expanded their offerings of private label goods, reported Business Wire. Seventy-eight percent of both lower- and higher-income consumers believe private label products are typically of excellent quality, according to a new study “Private Label 2009: Understanding and Mitigating Private Label Threat” from Information Resources, Inc. (IRI).
During the first half of 2009, private label unit share increased in five of six departments led by fresh/perishables and followed by health care and frozen foods. Private label dollar share has increased in 13 of 15 sales categories, with natural cheese, butter and canned vegetables leading the way and refrigerated fresh eggs, milk and frozen seafood trailing in the categories.
Grocery channel private label share are highest in the West (excluding California) and lowest in the Northeast. AFI TOWN MEETING SET
FOR NOVEMBER 13
AFI’s annual Town Meeting will be held November 13 at the French Culinary Institute in New York, N.Y. The day will begin with a Board of Directors meeting. At 10 a.m. registration opens, followed by AFI’s issues update and an audience-participation demo by Executive Chef Jeremie Tomczak in FCI’s International Culinary Theater where the integration of applied culinary science and the latest trends in imported products will be explored. The event concludes with a delicious 4-course luncheon with wine pairings where modern French cuisine will be prepared by some of tomorrow’s most promising chefs in world-famous L’Ecole Restaurant. Complete details are available at www.afius.org.
PROMOTE YOUR COMPANY
IN THE AFI ANNUAL
AFI is proud of its members and encourages them to put their best foot forward in the upcoming AFI Annual. Some members have advertised in every issue. It’s nice to know that their identification with AFI means a lot to them and to their business. Each year, thousands of copies of the AFI Annual are distributed to supermarket buyers, foodservice buyers, overseas suppliers, brokers and trade offices. It’s a year-round resource used by companies here and abroad that want to do business with the marketers, importers and import agents in AFI and its sections. By advertising, you identify yourself in a high-profile way with your association. You assure your company of the recognition it deserves in the industry, here and abroad.
If you have never advertised before, AFI can make it painless for you, designing an ad especially for you.
Please reserve space by Jan. 15 to assure you are included in the 2010 edition. If you have any questions, please call the AFI office. AFI’S ANUGA RECEPTION
CONTINUES TO BE A HIT
Approximately 150-200 people gathered on Sunday, October 11 in Cologne, Germany at AFI’s ANUGA reception. The reception continues to be a popular event and provides a great opportunity to catch up with fellow members and get a quick update on AFI and industry news.
UPCOMING MEETINGS AFI will hold its Town Meeting at the French Culinary Institute in New York, NY on November 13.
National Honey Packers and Dealers Association Meeting: January 13, Wyndham Orlando Resort, Orlando, Fla.
North American Olive Oil Association Mid-Year Meeting: January 15, Grand Hyatt, San Francisco
2010 AFI Convention: April 29-May 1, Delray Beach Marriott, Delray Beach, Fla.
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