From Cold Brew Safety to Food Waste Solutions: Highlights from the Conference for Food Protection

By Heather Latino, Clinical Instructor

Every two years, hundreds of representatives from the food industry, regulatory agencies, and academia come together at a biennial meeting of the Conference for Food Protection to discuss emerging food safety issues and to provide input on needed updates to food safety guidance. This input is then taken back to federal, state, and local regulators to be incorporated into the food safety laws and regulations under their purview. A 23-page instruction manual guides the process of getting an issue before the Conference. If an issue makes its way through the submission process and is accepted for consideration by the Conference, issue submitters are strongly encouraged to attend the Conference’s biennial meeting to present the issue and participate in deliberations. During the week-long biennial meeting, experts in food safety debate cutting-edge food safety issues like best practices for complex vending machine units (think hot soup on demand), mushroom cooking temperatures, and my favorite, cold brew coffee safety and compliance.  

This is how I found myself in Denver, Colorado, in March, surrounded by scientists and food safety experts discussing food waste. Until 2022, the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Food Code contained no mention of food donation, leaving food businesses and safety inspectors uncertain whether and under what circumstances restaurants and retailers could donate unsold, surplus food. The FDA Food Code is a model food safety code that states, local, and tribal jurisdictions can adopt, and all states, except California, have adopted some version of the FDA Food Code.

In the lead-up to the 2022 FDA Food Code, the Food Law and Policy Clinic (FLPC) successfully made the case that the code should include food donations. A 2018 survey by the FLPC had found that most state food safety officials believed that model language from the FDA would help ensure food safety for donations. Some suggested it be included in an annex or guidance document, revealing a lack of awareness about the Comprehensive Resource for Food Recovery Programs. Now there is one sentence in the FDA Food Code stating that food may be donated when it is properly stored, prepared, packaged, displayed and labeled and a link to food donation resources in the annex. This seemingly small change signaled important regulatory support for food donations but left room for more precise and stronger guidance.  

As you might imagine, in the three years since the 2022 Food Code was published, much has changed in the world of food waste. Federal law now provides stronger liability protections for food donation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has updated its guidance on donating meat, poultry, and egg products, and there is new data and information on the detrimental impacts of food waste and the benefits of food recovery. To better support food donors and food recovery organizations that want food to go to feeding people, not landfills, the regulatory guidance that food businesses and regulators rely on needs to reflect these developments.

Amidst rapidly rising grocery prices that make it even harder to put food on the table and increasing levels of food insecurity — 1 in 7 Americans don’t have the resources to get the food they need — FLPC asked the Conference to recommend additional changes to the FDA Food Code, as well as updates to the Conference’s Comprehensive Resource for Food Recovery Programs. After deliberation, the council that considered FLPC’s request agreed to recommend that the FDA update key information on food donation, making it easier to donate safe food that restaurants and retailers did not sell. Coming out of the Conference, a Committee to Reduce Barriers to Food Donation is being formed. It will be charged with updating resources on food recovery, reviewing the FDA Food Code for additional opportunities to encourage food donation and reduce food waste, and translating the guidance into an easily accessible quick guide on food donation for those handling food on the ground.

FLPC looks forward to continuing to be at table expanding the discussions on food safety to ensure that the broader public health implications of sending perfectly good food to landfills rather than redirecting it to people in need are front and center.