One of the biggest benefits to the blockchain technology in food production is it helps health officials immediately trace the source of contamination in a food safety problem, said Frank Yiannas, deputy commissioner for food safety and response of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Yiannas spoke during the recent podcast, Food Safety During the Coronavirus, hosted by the USDA and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue.
“Often times when there are these food scares, while they are infrequent, public health officials have a very difficult time tracing back those foods to the source quickly,” said Yiannas.
Yiannas referred to a situation that occurred in 2018, when there was an e Coli outbreak that was linked to romaine lettuce. People across the country were becoming ill, but the FDA and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) couldn’t quickly trace the illnesses back to the source.
“Rightfully so, we did what consumers would expect us to do: a public health advisory,” he said, noting that through the advisory, consumers were cautioned to not eat romaine lettuce.
The problem with doing that was that the agencies knew not all romaine was contaminated.
“So in essence, by doing that overly broad advisory, you damage the livelihoods of hundreds of farmers that probably produced a perfectly safe product,” Yiannas said.
That could have been avoided if the lettuce producers would have used blockchain technology.
Yiannas told of a trial done while he was working in the private sectors. He took a package of sliced mangoes and asked his team to trace those mangoes back to the source farm. It took them six days and 18 hours to do so. Then, they took another package where blockchain was in use, and it took less than three seconds to scan a code on the packaging and trace the product to the source.
“That’s food traceability at the speed of thought,” said Yiannas. “If there’s illnesses, we can pinpoint them quickly, prevent additional consumers from getting ill, but if there’s contaminated product, we can pinpoint the scope of those advisories and recalls and not necessarily damage the livelihood of farmers that are not involved.”
Yiannas was appointed in 2018 to serve in his role with the FDA in 2018. Prior to that, he was the vice president for food safety with Walmart, a position he held for about 10 years. He is also a past speaker for industry events, including the Chicken Marketing Summit and International Poultry Forum China.
Also speaking during the Food Safety During the Coronavirus was U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Under Secretary of Agriculture for Food Safety Mindy Brashears.
Like what you just read? Sign up now for free to receive the Poultry Future Newsletter.
