University’s ‘Foodology’ includes traceability lecture

09/04/2012 5:13:46 PM
Tom Karst

Gary Fleming will speak about a familiar industry topic to an unfamiliar crowd in late September.

Fleming, vice president for strategic services for Santa Clara, Calif.-based Redline Solutions, is scheduled to speak on tracing and tracking practices in the food industry Sept. 27. The speech is sponsored by Fontbonne University, St. Louis.

Fleming Fleming said he will describe the role food traceability has in limiting damage from foodborne illness.

“In the event a product becomes implicated, how fast can we trace it back and get it out of the supply chain before more consumers get sick?” he said.

Consumers are tiring of foodborne illness outbreaks and the government’s inability to control them, Fleming said. He said despite 32 deaths from the Jensen Farms outbreak linked to listeria in cantaloupe last year, government progress on the Food Safety Modernization Act is at a standstill.

The off-campus event, called “Serving up Foodology” kicks off a “dedicated semester” focusing on food, said Lauren Sauer, director of development events and constituency relations at Fontbonne University. Other events include food tastings, films related to food and other lectures at the university. The school has total enrollment near 2,500, she said.

Charles Gallagher Sr., chairman of the board of St. Louis-based United Fruit & Produce Co., and his wife June Gallagher are the co-chairs of the event, Sauer said.

Gallagher helped provide the funds to bring Fleming for the lecture, she said.

The event will be at the Third Degree Glass Factory, St. Louis, from 6 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. The cost of the event is $35 each, with heavy appetizers and cocktails provided. For more information, contact Sauer at lsauer@fontbonne.edu.

Comments (1) Leave a comment 

should retailers keep tabs on who's buying what and divulging statistics only in case and as a preventive or reactionary measure when a food borne illness sprout occurs?

We as consumers are not well versed in the practice of keeping tabs on what we eat exactly or what labels we ate our Washington apples, or pears from, or keeping receipts and or PLU's.

Just the notion that we may have eaten something and the FDA making an assumption that the most noted brand of that probable commodity may be the root cause based solely on the premises that 'it is the most common' brand any given time on market day is not enough to identify without any doubt that it was the culprit less alone alleviate the problem in case their theory does not hold true.

I am a firm believer and supporter that retailers & restaurants drive PTI and guarantee that what they are offering to the public is SAFE.