The organization should also be prepared to demonstrate that not only has the responsibility been assigned, but that the individual or individuals have in fact acted in this role on behalf of the company.
Second, Section 1.908 (a)(6) of the Rule requires that every entity subject to the Rule respond appropriately after becoming aware of a food safety issue. This provision provides –
If a shipper, loader, carrier, or receiver becomes aware of an indication of a possible material failure of temperature control or other conditions that may render the food unsafe during transportation, the food shall not be sold or otherwise distributed, and these persons must take appropriate action including, as necessary, communication with other parties to ensure that the food is not sold or otherwise distributed unless a determination is made by a qualified individual that the temperature deviation or other condition did not render the food unsafe.
The application of this provision is perhaps best illustrated with a nonproduce example. Imagine a shipper, carrier, or receiver discovers that a shipment of frozen dinners has thawed during a cross-country trip. This provision makes it illegal for the driver or receiving personnel, for example, to simply refreeze and distribute the product without the approval of a “qualified individual.”
Chris Burroughs, senior director for government affairs for the Alexandria, VA-based Transportation Intermediaries Association or TIA, explains that the “term ‘qualified individual’ was not used in the proposed rule of the Sanitary Transportation of Food, but was used in the Final Rule.”
For a definition of this term (which does not appear in the Sanitary Transportation Rule) both Burroughs and John Husk, a partner at the law firm Seaton & Husk, LP in Vienna, VA, look to a separate rule, the Preventive Controls for Human and Animal Food Rule, which like the Sanitary Trans-portation Rule was promulgated under the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), and defines a “preventative controls qualified individual” as “a qualified individual who has successfully completed certain training in the development and application of risk-based preventative controls or is otherwise qualified through job experience to develop and apply a food safety system.”
Burroughs adds, “The Sanitary Trans-portation of Food final rule does not set training requirements or standards for shippers (brokers), so one can only assume that a qualified individual is someone who has the necessary job experience to ensure the sanitary condition of the food product.”
And while food safety issues resulting from temperature abuse may by more obvious with frozen dinners and meat products than fresh produce, the FDA’s training materials suggest they are viewing temperature abuse affecting fresh-cut product to be a food safety issue, and not just a spoilage issue outside the purview of the Rule.
