The EU Court of Justice has made three rulings that set a precedent requiring Member States to consider more modern, comprehensive scientific literature in their pesticide safety assessments.

The Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) recently reaffirmed a “not specified” acceptable daily intake (ADI) for titanium dioxide, as well as concluded that there is no safety concern for and established the specifications for 21 flavoring agents. 

In December, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) will host a technical meeting on the gut microbiome in food safety risk assessment.

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has introduced TKPlate, a new platform that can model and predict the toxicity and toxicokinetics of chemicals used in foods, which will help reduce the amount of animal testing used in food safety assessments.

In this Food Safety Insights column, we continue to explore processors' near-term priorities for food safety programs, as well as the regulations and issues they are watching that will have the most impact on their programs in the future. Food safety culture, microbiological control (including environmental monitoring), and sanitation and hygiene are three of processors' indicated top priorities for the near term.

The Arizona and California Leafy Greens Marketing Association (LGMA) recently made available a new food safety tool to help growers and shippers assess risk in the crop production environment.

To inform the European Commission’s decision on whether to establish maximum levels for mineral oil hydrocarbons (MOH) in certain foods, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) recently published an update of its risk assessment on dietary exposure to the chemicals.

The August/September Food Safety Insights column continues with our survey asking food processors about their top issues and priorities. In this issue, we explore processors' "to-do" lists of projects for the next 1–2 years and the regulations or requirements that will have the biggest impacts on their programs in the near future.

The UK Food Standards Agency (FSA) and Food Standards Scotland (FSS) are requesting data on the levels of T-2 and HT-2 mycotoxins present in food.

What does it take to have an extremely effective Food Safety and Quality Assurance (FSQA) technician team on the production floor? This article shares practiced perspective on "what it takes." Attributes for success are identified and explained. How they are integrated within a FSQA team on the floor will go a long way to galvanizing the success of that team. For food and beverage companies, "success" means effective risk identification and management, protection of public health, reduced costs of poor quality, and the manufacture and sale of high-quality food and beverage ingredients and products.