Miller Magazine Issue: 144 December 2021

58 COVER STORY MILLER / december 2021 they eat is safe and correctly labeled, producers that the commodity they process and trade is not adulterated or subject to fraud, and legislators to demonstrate that food safety and quality parameters are met. Traceability reduces contamination, disease, and spoilage in the food supply by identifying hazards be- fore affected products make it to end consumer markets. When unsafe foods slip through the cracks and enter the system, these systems allow market actors to identify and isolate the source quickly in order to mitigate the consequences. In the event of a product recall, trace- ability enables a targeted withdrawal of the foods most likely to have been affected, thereby minimizing waste and market distortions. Employing a traceability system, tracing food from ‘farm to fork’, has been embraced by the food industries and governments as an important tool to restore and in- crease consumers confidence in food safety. Traceability is a critical tool for operationalizing standards and regu- lations through increasing transparency across food sup- ply chains. Well-functioning traceability systems improve food safety control by allowing both public and private sector actors to verify that products meet market and regulatory requirements. End-to-end traceability systems are challenging and expensive to implement. The private sector is the main driver of traceability, and investments are typically moti- vated by consumer demands, risk mitigation, standards compliance, efficiency gains, or some combination of these incentives. Blockchain and other distributed ledger technologies (DLTs) are attracting interest across sectors for their ca- pacity to transform how transactions are made and re- corded. Blockchain is a decentralized digital ledger in which data are inputted, verified by consensus, and up- dated in real-time across a network of actors. Once a piece of information is added, it is permanently and unal- terably stored in the blockchain. As consumers become more aware of food safe- ty issues, actors all along food value chains must be equipped with the ability to meet consumer demands and comply with standards and regulations. A critical component of administering food safety standards and regulations is the ability to trace products from their or- igin through the supply chain, isolate threats, and recall contaminated products when needed. Well-designed and administered traceability systems, regardless of the platform used, can advance producer access to markets and improve food safety for consumers. FOOD SAFETY THREATS IN A MILL The main food safety threats in the milling industry are foreign materials, bacteria, mycotoxins and allergens. To produce safe milled products, it is essential to have con- trol on grains purchasing, storage, cleaning, condition- ing, milling and finished product packaging. The tech- nique such as surface cleaning, colour sorting, density separator, etc. of grains before milling have shown po- tential to reduce contaminants. Flour milling company’s intent should be to produce under conditions that will lead to safe and quality products. The process is designed to ensure that no product leaves the facility and enters commerce that is unsafe or adulterated. The flour mills can through their use of inspections of product, the cleaning process they expose to the incom- ing wheat, the use of their scourers, roll stands, magnet and metal detection devices throughout the mill, numer- ous sifters and the fact that they have an enclosed sys- tem with their piping conveyance of wheat and/or flour can be confident that they produce a safe and high qual- ity flour product.