Responding to a Food Safety Crisis

Food safety is one issue generating concern, questions, and media attention. In addition, food safety issues often demand a timely and thorough response. The University of Maine Cooperative Extension developed an action-oriented team that includes contacts, resources, and procedures to quickly become aware of, assess, and address critical food safety situations.

The food safety action response process we developed depends on 21 food safety contacts, located throughout the state, several food safety response resource groups to meet the immediate needs of the emergency at hand, and a nine-member food safety action team composed of Extension specialists and educators.

The process starts when the action team determines, within 30 minutes, the emergency nature of a developing situation and what Extension's role should be. If they find the situation isn't appropriate for Extension, the team identifies the appropriate agencies and communicates this to the food safety contacts.

If the situation is appropriate for Extension, available team members, within two hours, activate the food safety response group and its chair, who coordinates the activities throughout the crisis with the help of designated action team members. These activities include establishing deadlines for tasks to be done and information to be generated; identifying an Extension spokesperson; facilitating communication with the media, other agencies, and the food safety contacts; maintaining records; and developing follow-up actions as appropriate, including evaluation.

The food safety response group assesses the needs for and develops technical information appropriate to the crisis. Through interaction and consultation with other internal and external technical experts, they develop up-to-date and balanced scientific information packages for different audiences. This group also communicates the information to the food safety contacts, the media, federal/state agencies, and other organizations.

The food safety contacts handle the crisis at the local level. These county agents coordinate the flow of information during a food safety emergency, maintain a local record of action taken, initiate the food safety response procedures through direct communication with a state food safety contact, maintain and update the food safety resources in their localities, participate in appropriate training, and arrange for a back-up.

These procedures were put into effect, for the first time, in January 1992 in response to a seafood safety alert initiated by Consumer Reports' investigation of seafood safety in different areas of the country. The food safety action team held its first meeting at 8:30 a.m. By 3:00 p.m., appropriate information was faxed to every county office in Maine so field faculty could respond to questions from consumers, clients, or media representatives.

An evaluation four months later in a meeting with the food safety contacts indicated contacts had received the right information at the right time. A number of contacts incorporated the information in their newsletters and several others used it to answer client questions. The evaluation process also provided suggestions on ways to speed the transfer of information, and identify the crisis information so it won't get lost in other mailings or fax messages. During the January 1993 E. coli/hamburger crisis involving a fast-food chain, response information was distributed through the electronic mail system. We found this was efficient and saved time and money over fax distribution.

Although the University of Maine Cooperative Extension developed the food safety action team specifically to deal with food safety, this model could be adapted to other areas. A similar process could be used to respond to a major water quality crisis or potential oil spills in coastal areas. Of course, every state has its limits in terms of resources and expertise. This means we may need to develop even more innovative approaches to get information where it's needed in a short time. No matter what the issue, however, having an action-oriented, quick response process in place can make all the difference.