Author: Tim Niles

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Organic vs Certified Organic: CPFMs Get The Shocking Truth You Need To Know

CFPM Distinction for Certified Organic

As CFPMs, it’s crucial to understand the regulatory differences between certified organic vs. organic products. This distinction impacts compliance, labeling requirements, and consumer trust in your establishment.

Using Organic Products: The Basics

Products marketed as simply “organic” may follow organic farming principles—avoiding synthetic pesticides, fertilizers, GMOs, antibiotics, and growth hormones. However, without certification, there’s no regulatory verification of these practices. This creates a significant gray area for food safety management and supply chain verification.

CFPMs Considering Certified Organic: The Gold Standard

In contrast, “Certified organic” products have undergone rigorous third-party verification to confirm compliance with established organic standards. In the United States, this means meeting the USDA National Organic Program (NOP) requirements. At the same time, other countries maintain their own certification systems, such as EU Organic in Europe or JAS in Japan.

The certification process involves:

  • Complete documentation of farm inputs and practices
  • Regular on-site inspections
  • Soil and product testing
  • Verification of segregation from non-organic products
  • Chain-of-custody documentation throughout production
certified organic vs. organic is important as a CFPM
Image credit: iqoncept via 123rf

Compliance Implications for Certified Food Protection Managers

For CFPMs, these distinctions create different verification requirements:

  1. Supply Chain Verification: Certified organic products have clear tracking, which makes it easier for you to check them.
  2. Labeling Compliance: Only certified organic products may display the USDA Organic seal or equivalent certifications, with strict regulations on how organic claims appear on packaging.
  3. Risk Management: Certified products carry lower compliance risk, as they’ve gone through routine verification that aligns with HACCP and other food safety protocols.
  4. Audit Readiness: During inspections, certified organic documentation provides clear evidence of compliance with organic claims.

Best Practices for Certified Organic vs. Organic

Finally, when incorporating organic products into your operations:

  • Maintain separate storage for certified organic ingredients
  • Document certification status in your authorized supplier program
  • Train staff on the handling requirements for maintaining organic integrity
  • Check certification documents when you receive items.

By understanding these distinctions, certified food protection managers can ensure regulatory compliance and maintain the integrity of organic claims throughout their operations.

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Strong ServSafe MN Course Advice About Raw Milk Peril

What ServSafe MN Classes Have to Say about Raw Milk

When we prepare a custom ServSafe MN course for local food service managers, we often encounter a question or topic that standard food safety training fails to address. We recently received a question asking what the Minnesota Food Code says about serving customers raw milk. A few different opinions state that pasteurization eradicates certain properties of raw milk. Some groups further speculate that raw milk provides health benefits that the milk on grocery store shelves does not.

ServSafe MN course
Image credit: gunnar3000 via yay images

What ServSafe MN Course Says About Raw Milk

First and foremost, we are concerned with the safety of food produced by restaurants, hospitality outlets, and food processing facilities. We first look to the Minnesota Food Code and state law for a ruling on any subject. According to the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, the law restricts the sale and distribution of unpasteurized milk for human consumption. Consumers wishing to purchase raw milk must purchase it directly from the farmer.

One of the significant reasons that food safety professionals advise against consuming unpasteurized milk and raw dairy products is that there is a high level of risk that it contains a bacterium known as Listeria. We often discuss the symptoms of Listeria poisoning in ServSafe MN courses, including vomiting, diarrhea, high fever, and other flu-like symptoms. These symptoms become serious in a short period and even become life-threatening for those with compromised immune systems.

Some advocates of raw milk consumption claim that pasteurization reduces milk’s nutritional value and may cause lactose intolerance and dairy allergies. According to the FDA, scientific evidence offers no support for these claims, and Listeria poisoning poses too great of a risk to your health to consume raw dairy products.

Your Consumption Vs. Your Restaurant Offering

When it comes to your health and the food you consume, you must judge what you put into your body. Still, as far as your restaurant or food production facility is concerned, both Minnesota law and the FDA agree that raw milk poses too big of a threat to be served to consumers.

Many other food safety risks fly under the radar, and ServSafe MN courses can’t cover all topics. If you have any questions or concerns about any issue, feel free to leave us a comment, and we will attempt to address it in an upcoming article.

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How Cold Plasma Technology Will Impact Future Food Safety

future food safety

Our food safety training sessions in Minnesota focus on preventing foodborne illnesses caused by harmful bacteria. Wash fruits and vegetables thoroughly, handle animal proteins carefully, and follow cooking temperature guidelines for food safety. Even with these precautions, people are becoming more concerned about future food safety because of news reports about outbreaks from contaminated food.

Future food Safety
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How Future Technology May Change Food Safety

Major food processors are taking extra steps to prevent bacteria like Listeria from contaminating their products to ensure future food safety. They do this by adding chemical compounds that can slow or kill the growth of harmful bacteria. While the FDA has approved these additives, recent research suggests they may carry health risks. If you look at the ingredients in most pre-packaged foods, you’ll often find many chemical compounds with long, hard-to-pronounce names.

We know this topic is a bit outside our food safety certification focus, but we sometimes highlight emerging technologies for food preservation. Cold plasma is a novel food processing technology that inactivates harmful bacteria, viruses, parasites, and fungi. High-voltage electricity used to ionize air or specific gas blends generates ions, free electrons, ozone, and other reactive products. This process, effective at room temperature, has been tested on various foods, including fruits, vegetables, meats, cheeses, and nuts.

Cold plasma effectively kills germs like Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria monocytogenes, norovirus, and Cryptosporidium, as well as other harmful pathogens found in food. Many studies have examined how it works on different foods, surfaces that touch food, packaging materials, and other areas important for food safety.

The relevant regulatory authorities must comprehensively review all new food processing technologies, including cold plasma. This must be done for each commodity across various national and international jurisdictions. Regulators in the US are currently examining research developments related to cold plasma. However, they have not yet approved its use as a food safety process.

Additives have been a hot-button issue for some time and we will continue to look for future food safety innovations that may improve how our food is produced. Feel free to leave your thoughts on this issue in the comment section below.

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Timely And Frightening Safe Food Training Christmas Poem

Safe Food Training Christmas Jingle

Twas the week before Christmas
And at the North Pole
Many Elves and dear Santa
Were not feeling whole

It looks like a virus
Shut down the workshop
Making Christmas this year
Start to look like a flop

Safe Food Training Christmas Jingle
Image credit: lopolo/123rf

What happened to us?
Santa wanted to know
As Reindeer and Elves
All threw up in the snow

A new kitchen elf
Was working while sick
and spread Norovirus
to the Elves and St. Nick

In the rush of the season
Good training was skipped
And not knowing the policies
Left our new elf ill-equipped

Luckily Santa
Is Magic you know
So he lifted the virus
With a fresh coat of snow.

This Holiday season
Lets have fun, joy and laugh
The magic you need
Is a highly trained staff

The staff at Safe Food Training wishes you a wonderful holiday season!!!