Government will wield criminal hammer

Over the last three decades, the business of food safety has changed dramatically. The term “food safety” has a prominent role in our national dialogue, the government continuously announces increasingly complex regulations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) oversees a surveillance system that can quickly identify emerging outbreaks and, to adequately protect their brands, corporate executives are continuously forced to develop new interventions to keep contaminated food out of commerce. 

In addition to working to protect their brands from regulatory and civil exposure, however, corporate executives must now also be concerned about protecting themselves from criminal exposure. In addition to strengthening the laws regarding food production, the government is now hardening its enforcement tools as well. In particular, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced that it plans to use criminal sanctions to compel compliance and create a deterrent, and I predict the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) will eventually follow suit.