More Tesco

Tesco is not waiting long to exceed expectations. Here is a report on BizJouranls.com that speaks to the U.K. chain's latest upsize in plans. From the story:

Four dozen new Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores have been added to the list of locations in Southern California by Tesco plc, the British supermarket giant making its American debut this fall.
These locations in Riverside and San Bernardino counties will be added to about 50 previously announced stores in other parts of Southern California, as well as the Las Vegas and Phoenix metropolitan areas. The stores should begin opening by November.
Tesco officials, whose American headquarters are in El Segundo, have said they also plan to expand their Fresh & Easy chain into the Bay Area and Northern California, possibly as early as next year.

Other Tesco coverage in the news:

U.K. retailer Tesco plans Inland invasion

British retailer Tesco rolled out plans Tuesday to open 48 Inland locations of its Fresh & Easy Neighborhood Market stores by the end of 2009.
Its first two Inland stores are slated to open by year's end in Hemet and Upland, said Tim Mason, CEO of Tesco's U.S. operations. Another 17 Inland locations will open in 2008, followed by 29 in 2009.

Later....

Mason said Tesco's key goal has been reaching "underserved" areas in all types of neighborhoods, regardless of demographics. "Tesco hasn't grown big in this business by being a niche (retailer)," Mason said. "Our success is in serving everybody."

TK: A produce supplier I talked to today said Tesco will have a U.S. version of Nature's Choice in place, though it may not necessarily be called "Nature's Choice." It will be interesting to see more details on Tesco's relationship with suppliers.

Crisis and consensus

Crisis and Consensus: Modernizing U.S. Food Safety Law was the title for the testimony delivered by Caroline Smith DeWaal, director of food safety for the Center for Science in the Public Interest, yesterday to the House Appropriations subcommittee on Agriculture and the FDA. I put the pdf of her speech in the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group here.

Smith DeWaal brings up some interesting comparisons between the USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service and the FDA, and the comparisons reflect negatively on FDA. Here's a quote:

"While USDA has a fairly intensive program for ensuring the safety of imported meat and poultry products, the FDA program is anything but comprehensive. FDA's procedures are much less stringent and much less effective." she said. "FDA does not evaluate national programs to determine equivalence or visit foreign countries to verify compliance with food safety procedures.

While 15% of imports under USDA's domain were sampled or inspected, Smith DeWaal said FDA inspects only 1%.

In the end, Smith DeWaal nods to introduction of bills on Capitol Hill that seek to retool the FDA, including the Food and Drug Import Safety Act of 2007 and Imported Food Security Act of 2007. Those bills, introduced in the House and the Senate respectively, direct FDA to create and implement more rigorous controls and create a user fee program to expand import inspections.

While praising aspects of those bills, Smith DeWaal predictably calls for passage of the Safe Food Act and creation of a single food safety agency.

What Smith DeWaal is saying has appeal to U.S. growers who may feel that FDA's oversight of produce imports is less then robust.

Hass market check

DeLauro opening statement

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn, chairwoman of the House Agriculture – FDA Appropriations Subcommittee, delivered the following opening statement during the Sept. 25 subcommittee hearing: “Ensuring the Safety of Food Imports.”

“Today, this subcommittee convenes its second hearing examining food safety issues. The committee held its first in February and focused on the GAO’s report designating the federal oversight of our food safety system as a high-risk area in need of reform. Since that first hearing, numerous threats have come to light regarding food imports, the most well-known being the recall of pet food due to contaminated ingredients from China. The pet food recall, and many other cases of tainted or dangerous food entering the United States from abroad have exposed major problems that our nation must face together as it tries to ensure the safety of its food imports. That our entire system is at risk at a time of accelerated threats must become a call to action in the Congress – that is why we are meeting today.

“Our government has an obligation to its citizens. When the mechanisms in place to protect public health and safety begin to fail, we have a responsibility to figure out why. That is what this hearing is about. We are not here to make speeches -- we are here to ask some hard questions about the safety of our food.

“How safe are the imported foods that Americans are eating?

“Is the U.S. government doing its job to ensure the safety of imported foods?

“Are U.S. businesses meeting their responsibility to ensure the safety of food products they import?

“What should the FDA do differently to improve the safety of foods that are imported into the U.S.?

“The amount of food imported to the U.S. has increased considerably in recent years, to approximately 13 percent of the annual American diet. More than ¼ of all fruit, ½ of all tree nuts, and 2/3 of all fish and shellfish consumed in the U.S. are imports. The average American will consume more than 260 pounds of imported food each year.

“More than 75 percent of all seafood is imported, and the Center for Disease Control estimates that contaminated seafood accounts for 15 percent of all documented food-borne illness outbreaks – a greater percentage than either meat or poultry, even though meat and poultry are consumed at 8 and 6 times the rate of seafood, respectively.

“Canada, Mexico, Italy, Australia and Ireland are the top five agricultural exporters to the U.S. by value. But China which exported $4.2 billion worth of food and agriculture products to the U.S. is sixth, when seafood values are combined with agricultural products, China was 3rd after Canada and Mexico, but its exports grew almost twice as fast as any of the top five producers in 2006, meaning that if current trends persist, China could become the largest exporter by value in less than a decade. With so much pressure in China for company executives and government officials to toe the line to authority it is important, therefore, that we shine the spotlight here.

“These rapid changes mean our government must change the way it responds as well. Mr. Acheson from the FDA, who we will hear from later, has often stated that we will not be able to inspect our way out of this problem. And I agree. There is no system that could physically handle the entire ever-increasing volume of food imports that continues to enter our borders every year.

“Significant reform requires more than just superficial remedies, increased funding, and increased inspections. Too often, in the face of change, the FDA has been passive and reactive. Too often, it seems as if this administration is more focused on trade relations than consumer safety, more on public relations than public health. Even in the face of recent industry interest in seeking more of a formal regulatory scheme and inspections, the FDA would not -- or did not have the institutional clout to -- allow for it. Increased trade with China and other developing countries should never require us to compromise our standards of health and safety. At the core of this hearing is whether the FDA is so compromised that it cannot act in the public interest, even when facing such threats.

“Yet, consumers have reason to worry that the system they count on to protect them is no longer working, and the food they feed their families is not as safe as it should be. That must change.

“Many argue that the FDA desperately needs additional funds to perform its duties and that the funding level provided in the House-passed bill is not enough.

“But let us be clear: if the funding level for the FDA in the House bill becomes law, the agency will have received an additional $231 million since FY 2006. Clearly the FDA is receiving additional funds – the real question should be where are the funds going and how are they being spent? Are there leaders and a culture in this agency that are passionate about protecting the public interest?

“With this year’s spending bill, we have directed the FDA to submit a plan to begin changing its approach to food safety with the fiscal year 2009 budget. This will give the Committee time to review the plan before the funds to implement it become available on July 1, 2008.

“At the same time, in order to restore consumer confidence and maintain our trading relationship with China nations like it, we must establish genuine transparency and equivalent food safety regulations between our two governments.

“But what we need most is to reexamine the agency’s culture – to assess the FDA’s priorities and look at the way the agency approaches its own duty to protect the public health. New resources are essential, but they are not sufficient. There also needs to be a commitment to serve the public’s interest, not the special interests.

“That is what this hearing is about. We are not here to relive this past year’s failures. We are here to find out, exactly and in detail, what the government is doing to make sure those failures do not occur again.

“Earlier this month, the administration’s Interagency Working Group on Import Safety offered a so-called strategic report for continual improvement in import safety. But what that really meant were vague discussions of quote “building blocks” and “frameworks”. There is NO mention of the GAO’s own comprehensive report -- which identified our federal food safety system as a high risk area. And there is NO mention of any action plan ensuring the safety of imported food.

“The report says details are forthcoming, but with public health at stake, we cannot afford to wait. We cannot afford anymore foot-dragging. With an increasingly global food supply system, consumers have reason to worry that the system they count on to protect them can no longer keep up, and the food they feed their families is not as safe as it should be.

“We are here to listen. We are going to ask a lot of questions today and I look forward to getting some answers."

Acheson testimony

Here is a link to yesterday's testimony from David Acheson, Assistant Commissioner for Food Protection Food and Drug Administration, before the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration. I don't see here how these remarks translate into FDA asking for more authority; I have a call into the FDA for clarification.

A couple of excerpts:

Despite our progress in the areas of food safety and food defense, recent outbreaks of foodborne illness and the discovery of contaminated food and feed underscore the need to continually improve and adapt to a rapidly growing and changing global economy. Further, these events demonstrate the need to expand our risk based approach to product safety for imported products, expand the use of common information sharing mechanisms, such as the ITDS screening and tracking system maintained by the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), and widen information gathering to improve the ability of CBP’s National Targeting Center to focus FDA and CBP prevention and intervention efforts.

Each year, approximately $2 trillion of imported products enter the United States. Experts project that import volume will triple by 2015. In the case of products that FDA regulates, between 2002 and 2006 total imports grew at an average annual rate of 16 percent per year, with foods for human consumption growing by 14 percent.

At FDA, prevention, intervention, and response represent a strategic framework for the safety of food and feed imports as well as the safety of processed foods produced within our borders. Moreover, they serve as a framework for not only food safety, but also food defense.
Prevention is the cornerstone of an effective, proactive food defense and food safety strategy. The implementation of preventive control measures by industry is essential to prevent intentional or unintentional contamination of the food supply. In the prevention arm of FDA’s strategy, FDA will develop scientific and analytical tools to better identify and understand risks and the effectiveness of control measures used to protect the food supply.
Risk-based intervention supplements the prevention arm of FDA’s strategy. Intervention includes monitoring the success of, and identifying weaknesses in, preventive measures. Intervention augments prevention through inspection and sampling techniques that use modern detection technology. Intervention relies on information technology systems to improve FDA’s ability to target and conduct inspection and surveillance, perform laboratory analysis, and achieve reliable 24/7 operations.

The response arm of the FDA strategy reduces the time between detecting and containing foodborne illness. FDA’s recent experience with spinach and leafy greens, melamine, peanut butter, and other contaminated products demonstrates the need for more effective response strategies. FDA must respond faster, communicate more effectively to consumers and FDA food safety partners, and limit economic hardship to the affected industries. FDA must also further integrate response systems with state, local, federal, and international agencies.
Using these three principles, FDA is designing a food safety strategy that better protects the American public and the U.S. economy from food safety and food defense threats.

Macro profile of Asian consumers

I just added a 100-page pdf file of a presentation at the AsiaFruit Congress. The Macro to Micro profile of the Asian consumer by David Fell of TSN World Panel is well worth a look if you do business in Asia.

Some nuggets:

Asia is home to 60% of world population. In 2050 it is predicted that their will be a further 1.7 billion people in Asia

Shanghai alone has a GDP which is almost equal to that of the Philippines.

India’s population will overtake that of China in 2030.


Asia is a set of lonely consumers in the affluent Asian countries – and poor large families in others.

Changes at FDA

The Wall Street Journal has this article detailing how the FDA is now ready to ask more authority. From the story;

The Food and Drug Administration, following a series of recent food scares, for the first time in years will likely seek additional powers to police food safety.
Assistant FDA Commissioner David Acheson told a House subcommittee that his agency lacks the needed authority now and may request such power in a new food-safety proposal. An FDA spokesman declined to elaborate what the new authorities will be, but says the plan will be announced in four to six weeks.
In his testimony, Dr. Acheson, the FDA's point man to draft the plan, said it will include three pieces: a proactive approach to prevent contamination, a risk-based inspection system to focus on troublesome products and a faster response system to contamination. The plan, if enacted, would reflect a strategic shift inside the agency away from the FDA's traditional method of reacting to crises.
Later...
The Democratic majority has proposed to fix the system, instead, through overhauls such as establishing a single-food agency, giving the FDA new recall authority and allowing the agency to charge importers user fees to fund food inspection. A House Energy and Commerce subcommittee will hold a hearing on the user-fee legislation today.
Later....
There are signs of a shift. While the FDA's parent agency, Department of Health and Human Services, rebuked the agency's proposal to regulate produce this year, the HHS Secretary Mike Leavitt now heads the White House's panel on imports. His recent proposal to overhaul the import system is similar in many respects to Dr. Acheson's food-safety plan. The food industry also came out to support such a risk-based, preventive approach.


TK: The three elements of the FDA plan bear some further explanation. What is a proactive approach to prevent contamination? What is a risk based inspection system to focus on "troublesome products"? How will the FDA deliver a faster response to contamination? How will Congress respond to the request for more authority?

Besides this story, the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group also brings this stories to the board this morning:

Customs brokers voice concerns at annual meeting Luis writes:At their annual meeting, custom brokers have voiced concern about proposed food import safety legislation like Rep. John Dingell's Food and Drug Import Safety Act of 2007 and Department of Homeland Security Global Data Exchange initiative. FOOD IMPORT SAFETY: The Need For A Practical Risk-Based Approach http://www.ncbfaa.org/About/content.cfm?ItemNumber=2168
DHS' Proposed Data Warehouse: The Global Trade Data Exchange (GTX) http://www.ncbfaa.org/About/content.cfm?ItemNumber=2360


Child's kidneys fail as E. coli outbreak continues Big Apple posts this link to story of Indiana E. coli outbreak.