FDA’s Food Defense Program

PA EDEN Food Protection Conference

October 28, 2009

LeeAnne Jackson, Ph.D.

Health Science Policy Advisor
Food Defense Oversight Team
Office of Food Defense, Communication, and Emergency Response
Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition
Food and Drug Administration
LeeAnne.Jackson@fda.hhs.gov

1
Raising Food Defense
Awareness

2
 FDA’s ALERT Initiative
• Intended to raise awareness of food defense
• Applies to all aspects of the farm-to-table
continuum
• Identifies 5 key food defense points:
– Assure
– Look
– Employees
– Report
– Threat

3
 ALERT

See http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodDefense/Training/ALERT/default.htm
for more information

4
 FDA’s ALERT Initiative

ALERT materials are available in PDF and multiple

languages

• Wallet Card: English, Chinese, French, Korean,

Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese
• Brochure: English, Chinese, French, Korean,
Portuguese, Spanish, Vietnamese
• Poster: English, French, Portuguese, Spanish

5
 WEB-BASED TRAINING NOW AVAILABLE AT
http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodDefense/Training
/ALERT/default.htm

AVAILABLE IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH

6
FOOD DEFENSE AWARENESS

7
 Employees FIRST

WHO:
Anyone who handles food, steps onto the
production floor while food is being processed or
is involved in making a food product.

8
Employees FIRST
• Follow company food
defense plan and
procedures.
• Inspect your work area and
surroundings areas.
• Recognize anything out of
the ordinary.
• Secure all ingredients,
supplies and finished
product.
• Tell management if you
notice anything unusual or
suspicious.

9
 FIRST Employees Food Defense
Awareness Training

• Training Kit for management to incorporate into

company’s food defense training program for
first-line employees
• 12 minute DVD
• Use images to re-enforce key message

10
 FIRST Educational Publications
• DVD
(Option to choose English
or Spanish)

11
 FIRST Educational Publications
 Posters: English  Spanish

12
FIRST Employees

The Employees FIRST Tool

Kit is free and available for
ordering at :

http://www.fda.gov/Food/FoodDefe
nse/Training/ucm135038.htm

13
 Coming Soon Winter 2009
• FIRST Tool Kit is being translated into
additional languages:
 Chinese (Mandarin)
 Korean
 Vietnamese
 Japanese
 French

14
Food Defense Tools

15
 CARVER + Shock – Overview
• Method of choice for food and agriculture vulnerability
assessments
• Breaks a food system into its smallest pieces (nodes) in
the farm to table continuum via a flow diagram
• Examines public health, economic, and psychological
consequences of an attack
• Identifies nodes that are the most likely targets for
terrorist attack, by applying the analysis to each node
• Leads to the identification of countermeasures to reduce
the risk at those nodes

16
 CARVER + Shock
• Considers seven factors that affect the desirability of a
target:
– Criticality – Public health and economic impacts to
achieve the attacker’s intent
– Accessibility – Physical access to the target
– Recuperability – Ability of the system to recover from
the attack
– Vulnerability – Ease of accomplishing the attack
– Effect – Amount of direct loss from an attack
– Recognizability – Ease of identifying a target
– Shock – Psychological effects of an attack

17
 CARVER + Shock Software
• Version 1 – released June
2007
• Target audiences =
manufacturers and processors
• Identifies vulnerabilities within
your facility using the CARVER
+ Shock Methodology
• Based on company information
entered by the user
• Download at
• Housed on the users’ www.cfsan.fda.gov/fooddefense
computer, no 3rd party access
to data
• Customized results available
only to the user

18
 Version 2

• Coming in Fall 2009

• Extends to pre-harvest and retail
• Increased usability
– Simpler, faster and easier to interpret
• Focus on accessibility and vulnerability
– Out of CARVER categories, industry can
influence/affect “V” and “A” the most

19
 Exercise In A Box
 Food/Agriculture Event Response Activities
Kits

 Five scenarios for discussion-based

exercises that will be compiled into a toolkit

 Distributed via electronic media.

20
 Exercise In A Box
 The toolkit will consist of:
1 Seminar: 3-4 hrs; and discussion based on
introduction to emergency planning
1 Workshop: 3-4 hrs; discussions
encouraging participant interaction
3 Tabletop exercises: 6-7 hrs; scenario based
in-depth discussions by policy or decision
making personnel

21
Preventative Measures

22
 Preventative Measures

• Guidance documents
– Self Assessment Tools
• Food Producers, Processors and Transporters
• Dairy Farms, Bulk Milk Transport, Processors
• Retail Food Stores and Food Service
• Importers and Filers
• Cosmetics Processors and Transporters

23
 Food Defense Mitigation
Strategies Database
• Coming Fall 2009
• Contains a range of preventative measures for
industry to consider
• Searchable
• Current version focuses on manufacturers,
processors and distributors
• Current version contains roughly 60 production
steps (Nodes)

24
 Food Defense Mitigation
Strategies Database
• Mitigations strategies are “tiered”
• Tiers based on cost and complexity of
implementing strategy
• Mitigations compiled from:
– Guidance Documents
– Open Literature
– Industry Input
• Additional nodes being developed including farm
and retail/food service steps

25