Food Defense

Food Defense Overview:

What is food defense and why is it important?

Food defense is the protection of food products from contamination or adulteration intended to cause public health harm or economic disruption.

The food system within the United States continues to increase in complexity, diversity, and reliance upon interconnected domestic and global systems. Concurrently, the threat landscape and potential sources of intentional adulteration continue to evolve and increase in complexity, which could ultimately have a powerful impact on public health and the economy.

Responsibility for the global food supply chain is shared across all levels of government (foreign and domestic) and through collaborative, public-private partnerships with industry. Developing comprehensive risk management systems to protect the food supply establishes a foundation for minimizing public health and economic impacts and ultimately promotes food security and resilience.

What is FSIS’s role in food defense?

Food defense continues to be a priority for FSIS. The Significant Incident Preparedness and Response Staff (SIPRS) within FSIS works with government agencies at all levels, industry, and other organizations to develop and implement strategies to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from intentional contamination of the food supply. FSIS promotes food defense by encouraging establishments to voluntarily adopt a functional food defense plan; implement food defense practices (including inside, outside, and personnel security measures); and conduct training and exercises to ensure preparedness.

The primary functions of SIPRS include:

• Conducting vulnerability assessments;
• Collaborating with Federal, state, local, and tribal governments, industry, and academic partners to promote food defense;
• Developing and sharing guidance for developing and maintaining food defense practices, including functional food defense plans;
• Identifying and implementing countermeasures and mitigation strategies;
• Conducting analysis of food defense surveillance data;
• Maintaining close relationships with the intelligence and law enforcement communities to educate collectors and analysts on food defense to better inform their work and enhance the exchange of information (e.g., Commercial Targeting and Analysis Center (CTAC), Infragard); and
• Working with the scientific community on food defense research initiatives, integrated project teams, and risk assessment workgroups.

FSIS inspection program personnel perform food defense tasks in all regulated establishments to identify vulnerabilities that may lead to intentional contamination of product. These tasks also allow FSIS to understand food defense practices that are being implemented by industry, thus providing a better understanding of preparedness and ultimately guiding outreach and education activities. The data from the task are used to inform Measure 1.1.4.1 of the FSIS Strategic Plan 2017-2021, which measures the percentage of establishments that maintain food defense practices.

For food products not regulated by FSIS, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) works with other government agencies and private sector organizations to help reduce the risk of tampering or other malicious, criminal, or terrorist actions on the food and cosmetic supply. FDA offers a variety of food defense tools and resources, including the Food Defense 101 online course.

What is the relationship between Food Defense, Food Safety, and Food Security?

In order to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from threats and hazards of greatest risk to the food supply, it is important that preparedness efforts encompass food safety, food defense, and food security. While there are distinct differences between these three concepts, a comprehensive approach that addresses food safety, food defense, and food security considerations improves resilience and protects public health.

• Food Defense – the protection of food products from contamination or adulteration intended to cause public health harm or economic disruption
• Food Safety – the protection of food products from unintentional contamination
• Food Security – when all people, at all times, have both physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life (Food and Agriculture Organization, 2014)

International Food Defense:

In addition to ensuring that domestic and imported products are safe from intentional adulteration, FSIS also supports international outreach efforts on food defense. These efforts help to institutionalize food defense measures and encourage the global recognition of food defense to prevent incidents that could have severe and negative social, economic, and public health implications. The globalization of the food supply makes international outreach for food defense a priority for FSIS.

Our domestic and local food supplies are part of a global network:

Our food system is global. An incident of intentional adulteration or contamination could have a significant impact on the economy, public health, security, and consumer confidence of the producing country, as well as the country’s trading partners.

Building Global Capacity to Protect the Food Supply:

As increased amounts of products are imported into the U.S. for consumption, and the U.S. becomes increasingly reliant on a global food supply, the responsibility to protect food sources must move closer to the originating source. FSIS partners with the international community to leverage resources, exchange information, and reduce duplicative efforts on food defense-related activities. We partner both with countries that already institutionalize food defense measures and those that may require assistance developing capacity. This outreach is conducted in collaboration with experts from other government agencies, U.S. industry, and academia.

FSIS and its partners have gained significant experience designing programs for food defense through a series of international workshops led by subject matter experts from U.S. government, academia, and the private sector. Workshops are designed to incorporate train-the-trainer sessions, educational presentations, and collaborative group exercises to support each country’s capacity to implement food defense measures, as well as provide a platform for dialogue on actionable food defense items. FSIS’ joint international outreach efforts helped initiate strategic dialogue and partnerships among international government ministries, private industry, and academia to collectively work together in addressing global food defense challenges.

Recognized successes of these efforts include:

• Significant increases in the number of international facilities implementing food defense.
• Incorporation of food defense into academic curricula at universities worldwide at the undergraduate, post-graduate, and continuing education levels.
• Development of country-specific food defense training materials by counterpart institutions.
• Development of facilitators who are now considered experts in leading food defense efforts in their country/region.
• Establishment of inter-agency committees for the development of food defense programs.

Functional Food Defense Plans:

A functional food defense plan is an important tool an establishment can use to prevent, protect against, mitigate, respond to, and recover from an intentional contamination incident.

• Developing a Functional Food Defense Plan
• FSIS Food Defense Plan Survey & Results

What makes a food defense plan functional?

A food defense plan is functional when it meets all four of the following conditions

1. Developed – the plan is documented and signed
2. Implemented – food defense practices are implemented
3. Tested – food defense measures are monitored and validated
4. Reviewed and maintained – the plan is reviewed at least annually and revised as needed

Step 1: Develop your food defense plan

The food defense plan should be written or documented to identify mitigation strategies and protective measures that will be implemented within the facility. Vulnerability assessments help to inform where mitigation strategies are needed.

Step 2: Implement mitigation strategies and protective measures

Mitigation strategies are preventive measures to better protect facilities, personnel, and operations.

Step 3: Test the mitigation strategies and protective measures

The food defense plan should be tested at least annually. Testing your plan can be as simple as verifying that food defense practices you have in place, such as locks and cameras, are functional.

Step 4: Review and Maintain

Reviewing and maintaining a food defense plan is important to ensure that it remains current and functional. Annual review of the food defense plan is recommended, although routine monitoring and surveillance, exercises, real-world incidents, or other changes may result in more updates.

Food Defense Considerations for Transportation of FSIS-Regulated Products:

Commercial food transporters move the vast majority of all food commodities shipped on a daily basis throughout the United States. Together, the food and transportation sectors are vital to the Nation’s economy and public health. Thus, transportation is a critical point in the food supply chain.

Products in transport provide significant opportunities for access. Food truck thefts and deceptive pickups also provide an opportunity to contaminate food and reintroduce it into commerce. Therefore, planning for and implementing security practices in the commercial transportation of food products will enhance efforts to ensure the continued safety and security of those products.

The protection of food during transportation is a shared responsibility requiring actions by all stakeholders including transporters, customers, suppliers, law enforcement, and government agencies. Individuals in the transportation sector need to have increased awareness of the threat of both intentional and unintentional contamination of the food supply. They also need to have access to training and tools available to prevent and report an incident.

As this phase of the food supply chain was consistently identified as a vulnerable point in FSIS’ commodity vulnerability assessments, an assessment was conducted specifically on the transportation phase to evaluate this vulnerability and identify potential countermeasures. The agency conducts outreach to and works closely with its Federal partners and the private sector to develop and implement mitigation strategies to prevent contamination during transportation.

The benefits of implementing food defense security measures during transportation include:

• Providing value-added component to product;
• Deterring theft and tampering;
• Maintaining greater control over product;
• Protecting public health;
• Increasing public and customer confidence, including trading partners; and
• Possibly reducing insurance and freight rates.

FSIS Tools and Resources for the Transportation Industry

• FSIS developed voluntary security guidelines for transporters and distributors of meat, poultry, and processed egg products to assist industry with recommended additional security measures to further protect the integrity of the food supply: Food Defense Guidelines for the Transportation and Distribution of Meat, Poultry, and Processed Egg Products.
• USDA also collaborated with the Agriculture and Food Transportation Conference to develop similar guidance, which includes a self-assessment tool for transporters to identify potential vulnerabilities: Guide for Security Practices in Transporting Agricultural and Food Commodities.
• Finally, the FSIS Food Defense Risk Mitigation Tool includes strategies for additional security measures that can be implemented for the transportation of food products.

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