Project aims to quickly track poisonous food to source

Updated Mon. Nov. 24 2008 8:57 PM ET
The Canadian Press

WINNIPEG -- A pilot project in Manitoba has shown that is possible to
track food backward from the store to the farm -- something that could
be invaluable in the event of another food-borne disease outbreak. 

The project was a joint effort between the province, computer company
IBM and 16 farmers, processing plants, truckers and retail stores. 

Dr. Wayne Lees, Manitoba's chief veterinary officer, explained Monday
that expanding on the success of the pilot project would require a move
away from a paper trail toward a computerized one. 

Currently, a cow can go through dozens of hands on its way to the
slaughterhouse, butcher and grocery store, and everyone along the way
may have a different system of record-keeping. 

It can be even more complicated for other foods such as vegetables,
which are not individually tagged. 

Officials are aiming to make the new tracking system precise enough to
follow a piece of broccoli, a carrot or other item between the store
where it is sold and the farm where it originated. 

"The problem is, a lot of the information in the food supply chain
currently is being kept, unfortunately, (with) paper and pen, and
therefore not accessible in an emergency and also subject to error and
loss," said Susan Wilkinson of IBM. 

For the new system to work, everyone in the food supply chain would have
to agree to store and share key information by computer. 

Federal or provincial food agencies responding to a disease outbreak
could then instantly access the data, determine what other food products
might be tainted, and quickly have them pulled off store shelves. 

Such a system would be valuable in a case such as the listeriosis
outbreak traced to a Maple Leaf Foods processing plant in Toronto. The
outbreak was linked to 20 deaths across Canada last summer. 

The planned tracing system would not only track foods back to plants,
but would also quickly reveal the various producers, truckers and others
who handled the food. 

However, getting farmers, truckers, storekeepers and other to agree on a
common system may take time. 

"I liken traceability to building the national railway system," Lees
said. 

"It had to go across all kinds of different terrain and it had to go
across all kinds of different jurisdictions ... but with collective
will, you can do it."