Senator Urges FMCSA to Boost Food Oversight

This story appears in the Dec. 2 print edition of Transport Topics.

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown last week said he wants the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration to take a more active role in overseeing the movement of food in refrigerated vans and tank trucks.

Refrigerated carrier executives responded by saying they are already heavily regulated, both by the government and their customers, namely shippers and receivers.

Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, said Nov. 22 that he asked FMCSA Administrator Anne Ferro to update him on “the number and frequency of FMCSA inspections in Ohio and nationally, and the number of reports by DOT inspectors to the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service.”

FMCSA, a part of the Department of Transportation, was created by Congress to regulate interstate truck and bus safety.

Food safety is traditionally the province of the Agriculture Department’s FSIS and the Food and Drug Administration, said Jon Samson, executive director of the Agriculture and Food Transporters Conference of American Trucking Associations. He also said FDA’s responsibilities in this area are increasing and that some state governments are also involved in inspections.

Brown said he was moved to write Ferro after a Columbus, Ohio, television station reported on food safety problems on trucks in Ohio.

“It is my belief that our food safety security net — a partnership between the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Food and Drug Administration, and the State of Ohio — also requires the guidance and participation of the FMCSA,” Brown wrote to Ferro.

FMCSA did not respond to requests for comment before press time.

ATA’s Samson said he anticipates FDA will release in January a proposal on the sanitary transportation of food that will give that agency more oversight on the industry.

At the federation’s annual Management Conference & Exhibition in October, fleet executives were briefed on the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, which President Obama signed in January 2011.

The FDA said the legislation “aims to ensure the U.S. food supply is safe by shifting the focus from responding to contamination to preventing it.”

“Sherrod Brown says we need more laws, but we already have the Food Safety Modernization Act, and if that’s ever enforced, it’ll make it almost impossible to deal with the paper trail that needs to be created on cleanliness and temperature control,” said Jim Subler, president of Classic Carriers in Versailles, Ohio.

“It will be a massive undertaking for us [carriers], shippers and receivers,” added Subler, who also is chairman of the refrigerated division of the Truckload Carriers Association.

At C.R. England Inc., North America’s largest for-hire refrigerated carrier, drivers monitor the temperatures of their loads three ways, said Mark Stapley, England’s director of freight claims.

Sensors within the trailer report problems to the home office. Drivers check in-cab readouts — green lights for proper function, red lights for problems.

“For added protection, we tell the drivers to get out of the truck at least every four hours, and looking at the trailer is the first thing they should do,” Stapley said.

Each load is secured with a seal, and the instructions from the shipper on the bill of lading are strictly followed, he added.

State law enforcement in Indiana recently added food safety, said Barry Miller, safety director of the Indiana Motor Truck Association. He said the governor signed a law empowering the state police to detain trucks thought to be carrying improperly stored food until state board of health officials can inspect the truck’s contents.

Miller said the state had found problems with trucks supplying food to restaurants. If a truck were pulled over for a safety inspection and an officer suspected food problems, he or she did not have the power to act, but now law enforcement officers can request health department action.

Miller gave an example of what might cause an officer to make such a request. “If the outside temperature gauge reads 55 to 60 degrees,” far above the normal temperature of a freezer or refrigerator, then the officer would look inside, Miller said.

Subler, of Classic Carriers, said at least 70% of his food loads are sealed and that breaking them is expensive. His driver once broke seals to install equipment to stabilize a load of turkeys as required by the bill of lading.

“The driver didn’t reseal, though, so when the load arrived it was rejected, so I bought a load of turkeys,” Subler said.