Supply Excellence — Don’t Wait for the FDA

Don’t Wait for the FDA

June 16th, 2008 · by Kris Colby · No Comments · supply management, supply risk

While the drumbeat of headlines on food safety rolls on (this week’s special: salmonella in raw tomatoes), the most intriguing news item for food safety fans was a report issued by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) stating that the FDA had yet to implement much of its own “food protection plan” they unveiled before Congress late last year. Additionally, the Bush administration had not requested funding for the plan until this week and even then only made a partial request.

The plan, which would focus primarily on new policies and increased food facility testing, would cost billions of dollars and take years to implement.

You’d be hard pressed to find a sliced tomato on a sandwich this week. Recalls have been swift and extensive. That said, all consumer-facing companies (retail, restaurant, consumer packaged goods) know that responding to a food safety recall incident is a painful, inefficient and expensive proposition.

The key message from this is two-fold. First companies cannot rely on the government to control product safety risk for them. They need to implement their own structured, comprehensive, data-rich supplier performance management systems to help identify risks early on and isolate problems when they occur. Second, hold the tomatoes on your burger til you hear otherwise.

Kris Colby, a Director in Ariba’s Spend Management Services group, recently authored a white paper on the subject of minimizing risk - An Ounce of Prevention: Steps Your Organization Can Take Now to Reduce the Risk of a Product Safety Incident.

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