Today’s global fresh food supply chain is facing significant challenges in keeping fresh food safe to consume. The general business trend of consolidation has had a significant impact on the fresh food agribusiness industry, leading to mergers and acquisitions, and resulting in the creation of larger organisations operating in the global food supply chain. While these organisations take steps to integrate their supply chains in order to reduce costs and improve competitiveness through the adoption of techniques such as just-in-time management, six sigma and total quality management, the fresh food supply chain runs the risk of becoming too lean and fragile, making it vulnerable to unplanned events.

As a result of the events of September 11, 2001, the risk of maintaining safe fresh food has increased beyond the threat of contamination inherent in the logistical process of getting food from the source of production to the consumer, to include the risk of intentional contamination resulting from a bio-terrorist act. To meet this challenge, organisations operating in the fresh food supply chain have been forced to reconsider their risk management strategies.

Some of the more progressive fresh food businesses are implementing risk mitigation strategies that include business continuity management (BCM) principles, in a proactive effort not only to manage risks, but to effectively and efficiently recover from disasters and unplanned business interruptions, in order to continue providing the public with a safe source of fresh food.

In 2006, Dr Helen Peck of the department for environment and rural affairs in the UK performed a year-long study entitled Resilience in the food chain: a study of business continuity management in the food and drink industry, to assess the resilience of the UK food industry. The study revealed a number of gaps in the adoption of BCM principles in the food industry.

BCM is generally described as a continuous multi-step resiliency strategy that includes: 1) identifying organisational risks; 2) assessing the severity of each risk; 3) developing a mitigation strategy for each risk; 4) designing a continuity plan for the implementation of each risk mitigation strategy; 5) testing the continuity plan; and 6) reviewing and improving the continuity plan.

Peck’s report acknowledged that while the understanding of BCM principles appears to be increasing in the UK food industry, their application was found to be in the early stages, and was being implemented primarily as a reactive crisis management strategy.

In response to concerns over food safety in the US, specifically relating to intentional contamination, two US federal agencies, the US department of food safety and inspection services (USDFSIS) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have developed food-security guidelines. These federal agencies make these guidelines available for free to the fresh food industry, and they can be downloaded at their respective websites.

The guidelines contain a wealth of information on how to develop comprehensive food-safety policies, including how to prepare for the possibility of food contamination, how to screen employees, and how to develop a strategy for allowing access to food operations by customers and visitors, with an emphasis on facility and operations risk mitigation. These guidelines are useful in developing frameworks for food business continuity strategies, and are helpful in identifying steps that can be taken by a food organisation to mitigate certain food-safety risks.

Another useful BCM tool available to the fresh food industry for addressing the issue of food safety is an enterprise vulnerability assessment software program sponsored by and made available for free at the FDA website, known as CARVER+ Shock. This software program enables fresh food companies to perform vulnerability assessments on their operations. While the CARVER+ Shock methodology is adopted primarily as a form of defence against bio-terrorism, it can also lead to a better understanding of all food-safety issues.

While some people may argue that the global food supply chain is so vast, terrorists would be challenged to inflict widespread damage, it is safe to assert that one incident of a terrorist contaminating food would likely cause such fear among consumers that they would question the safety and integrity of the entire fresh food supply chain, resulting in huge losses to the industry.

Because of the public’s interest in the safety of the fresh food supply chain, and the need for a region or community to have its fresh food supply safely restored as quickly as possible should it fall victim to a natural or man-made disaster, it would seem an easy argument that at least some basic principles of BCM should be considered mandatory if an organisation is going to participate in the fresh food industry.

Food safety is a need, not just a want. We all depend on our fresh food supply chain being resilient when faced with a natural or man-made disaster, and the time required for recovery will impact on a community or region’s ability to survive.

The time is ripe for governments, food industry leaders and associations, along with food supply chain participants, to develop BCM best practices specifically addressing food industry and public concerns, and to integrate these practices into the global fresh food supply chain.