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InformationConsumer Education
Crisis Communications
Industry Information
Public Policy
Immediate Industry Priorities
Consumer InformationConsumers’ food handling and consumption are the final critical control points in the food safety process. Existing industry and government education programs, and identified information voids lead to a strategy for effectively implementing a two-prong communication effort that creates greater awareness of proper food handling and preparation techniques, and informs consumers of the industry’s efforts in addressing food safety at each segment.
The Council supports a coordinated, proactive, industry-wide food-safety information effort for consumers. The effort should focus on all safe food handling practices in conjunction with beef-specific safety/handling information as a part of that total message. Communication efforts should emphasize the benefits derived by changing food safety behaviors rather than avoiding risk.
The feelings of consumers are paramount to the industry. A comprehensive effort to inform the consumer of the industry’s interest in providing a safe beef experience has never been conducted to communicate the food safety changes taking place in the beef industry en-route to the consumer’s table.
The Council approved the following priorities:
- Communicate the industry-led farm-to-table efforts and their results to facilitate a positive change in consumer attitudes about the safety of beef.
- Be a part of a campaign for consumers on their role as the "last critical control point" to change food handling/safety behavior.
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Crisis CommunicationsCrisis communications to ensure consumer safety establishes a clear plan for the beef industry to communicate rapidly between affected companies, organizations, regulatory agencies, public health officials and health-care professionals. Recent outbreaks emphasize the role and responsibilities for ensuring consumer safety through fair, accurate and timely information from all segments of the industry.
Clear lines of communication between regulatory agencies, companies and their immediate customers provide the consumer an accurate portrayal of the situation and a choice of preventive measures. Health care professionals and public health officials may further these efforts through their communication endeavors. However, the multitude of communication points necessitates the need for a clear plan of action to protect the consuming public.
The Council approved the following priorities:
- A comprehensive communication plan is available to implement during a crisis that ensures a rapid and coordinated response by the affected company, their customers, industry organizations and regulatory agencies to uphold consumer safety as the overarching priority for action.
- Utilize the educational activities of the Beef Industry Food Safety Council’s Consumer and Industry Information efforts to facilitate a collaborative effort between industry segments in reassuring consumers of the safety of the beef supply.
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Industry Information Industry informational programs assist in transferring technologies and establishing strategies that result in safer products and in expanding the good manufacturing procedures utilized by food handlers and producers. To this end, current industry educational programs need to be expanded and coordinated to encompass a prevention-based system that can effectively meet the needs and diversity of beef producing segments from farm to table.
As industry information efforts are considered, effective strategies must factor in the behavior of a network of related segments, each having somewhat different motivations, communications and management models. Despite their differences, these segments share a set of broad-based principles and goals. Previous beef safety efforts have shown a strong consensus on the demands of the marketplace. To capture the complexity of beef safety, the beef industry must provide a multidimensional, industry-wide educational effort.
New expectations, new opportunities and problems, new linkages, changing resources and origins are all features of an informational program that would facilitate the reduction in food borne illness.
The Council identified the following priorities:
- Enhance the dialogue and exchange of food safety information among all segments from farm to table.
- Be a part of educational activities for all segments from preharvest to postharvest to expand and enhance the safety of the beef supply using allied associations and organizations.
- Deliver a clear and substantive message that is consistent between consumer and industry efforts.
Timeline/Budget: Five years at $0.3 million per year.
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Public Policy
(not funded by The Beef Checkoff)
The implementation of HACCP bolsters a meat and poultry inspection system that has served the consumer and industry with an increasingly safe beef supply. But new pathogens, such as E. coli O157:H7 and the prevention of BSE create new challenges not only for present systems of producing, processing and handling, but for the regulatory approach for monitoring the entire process as well.
The current regulatory approach should be a science-based, industry-encompassing effort to meet the ever-changing needs and products that consumers demand. The regulatory effort will be preventative in nature and further assist the industry in transferring and implementing pertinent technologies, monitoring procedures and intervention strategies to protect the consuming public.
The Beef Industry Food Safety Council membership agreed that the industry should speak with one voice in seeking regulatory and legislative solutions to address food safety policies and regulations that provide an environment for enhancing food safety. The following priorities were identified for consideration and implementation:
- Invite the U.S. Department of Agriculture and all others charged with regulating the safety of the beef supply, educating industry or educating consumers to join this industry-wide endeavor to realize the accomplishment of this industry-wide plan.
- Concentrate resources of the government, the scientific community, and industry on preventing or controlling contamination at the earliest possible point in the production process.
- Establish this industry-wide plan as the working outline for discussions with regulatory officials that would lead to new approaches in eliminating the health risk of food borne pathogens.
- Recommend aggressive support of Fight Bac, the government/industry collaborative food safety education campaign.
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Immediate Industry PrioritiesThe Beef Industry Food Safety Council identified areas that deserve immediate industry attention. Priorities to be implemented as soon as possible were clearly identified for research and for crisis communications. Every working area had priorities that should be implemented as soon as possible to continue to improve the safety of the beef supply and enhance efforts to communicate with the industry’s consumers.
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