Food Safety Bill S 510 is about ready to go (PR)

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Sen. Harkin, noted at an appropriations agriculture subcommittee hearing earlier this week, the bill is now "about ready to go." He ventured that food safety legislation would be "on the President's desk by May".

www.foodsafetynews.com/2010/03/key-senator-food-safety-bill-could-be-signed-by-may/

Timelines for FDA Food Safety Modernization Act S. 510 Provisions:

Some will go into effect immediately at the time of signing by the President.

The most significant one is electronic records.

There is not much time left for the food and feed industry to get started, as the New Food Safety Bill will Reform FDA 2002 Bioterrorism Regulations. The significantchanges are from one-up/one down traceability to all-up/all-down traceback and thefines for violations as already set in H.R. 2749 SEC. 134. CRIMINAL PENALTIESand SEC. 135. CIVIL PENALTIES FOR VIOLATIONS RELATING TO FOOD.http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-2749

Our satisfied customers tell us for many years, ScoringAg is easy to use and it is an inexpensive recordkeeping and traceback system.

How much does it cost?

ScoringAg is the only system, where you can sign in on the website and see the cost. Go to www.ScoringAg.com and click on the button Open an Account  

You can fill in the amount of locations you have in your operation and also how many entities you handle and the system will calculate the price for you automatically. An entity can be an animal, a field with crops, or boxes you are handling in one single day.

Every foodhandler in the supply chain will need from their suppliers electronic records with documentation for the products they handle. That’s easy to do with ScoringAg.

If it’s a small farmer with e.g. 3 locations (farmhouse, 2 other buildings) 5 different field of crops, 3 goats, 3 sheep, 1 flock of chicken and 5 pigs, the price is $ 11.00 for a whole year.

If you want some pictures with the product, they can be uploaded right into the record page and cost $ 0.25 per picture.

A small operation can sign up right on the internet and we can help over the phone with no extra cost. Traceback codes are generated in the database and are included in the record price. They can be printed on a label or the traceback code can be inserted into a rubber stamp.

For a midsize operation, handling about 350 cases a day or about 10.000 a year, the cost for the records with traceback codes will be $ 192.50. If you would need a barcode scanner, 20.000 traceback labels (2 for each case), set-up fee and training, then the total cost would be about $ 3,400.00.

Larger operations, handling 5.200 cases a day or about 1.15 Million cases a year,would need besides the traceback records 10 barcode scanners, label printers, 2.3 Million labels (2 per case), set-up fee and training. The costs are about $ 40,000.00. You may need one or two people to enter data and print out labels.  These numbers in comparison to the price of PMA/PTI-GS1 as reported in the IFT recommendations to FDA, saves you about $ 300,000.00 in start-up cost and about $ 150.000.00 annual cost. For the PMA/PTI-GS1 system you will need computer experts as you have to run your own server and maintain them 24/7. You have to figure out how to get the field records and all shipping records with the product to match the code and have a whole-chain traceback. 

All our record prices include all activities records from every foodhandler with date and time stamps as needed to comply with the new food safety regulations.

Why is ScoringAg’s traceback system different from traceability systems offered to the different industries?

ScoringAg is the only complete whole-chain traceback and trace-up system covering all agriculture commodities, ingredients and food products raw andprocessed, repacked or commingled.

The record as documentation moves with the product in the webbased system no matter where it comes from or goes to in real-time as an audit trail.

ScoringAg has an internal Move-out and Move-in interoperable data exchange system that is patented. Records move securely at 128-bit encryption in the system to the next owner; no printing, copying, faxing or emailing.

ScoringAg’s interoperable database can integrate information of any other database including the QR code in Japan. ScoringAg records start on the field and ends at the retail store with an automatically created traceback code as an unique identifier.These unique SSI-EID traceback codes stay with the product from birth/planting throughout any processing and comingling process without loosing its identity.

This makes it easier for handling a recall as this can be done in minutes. One change in the new law will be mandatory recall by FDA.  As we have almost every day a recall the cost gets out of hand for the industry, the consumer and the health care. You may have seen in the press already the new report on food poisoning related health cost. Here are some links:

Quote from the story below:

The food safety bill that passed the House in July would give the FDA authority to recall products, require more frequent FDA inspections of food processing plants and better recordkeeping by food companies so contaminated products could be more easily traced.

Washington Wire

Political Insight and Analysis From The Wall Street Journal's Capital Bureau:

blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/03/03/a-jumpstart-for-the-food-safety-bill/

Putting a Price Tag on the Cost of Human Suffering from Food Borne Illness

www.emaxhealth.com/1506/75/35910/putting-price-tag-cost-human-suffering-food-borne-illness.html

Inform your contacts about our low cost system, so their operation will not be jeopardized when the bill is signed. It takes a while for our Professionals to set-up a mid-size or large operation.

William Kanitz

President

Site-Specific Recordkeeping®

Point-to-Point Traceback™

www.ScoringAg.com

+ 941-792-6405

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ScoringSystem, Inc.10607 Riverbank Terrace, Bradenton, FL 34212, USA