How Memento Answers Questions about FSMA

Editor’s Note: Marie Clapper is executive producer for “Focus on Suppliers.”

Remember “Memento,” the psycho-thriller movie from 2000? It has a non-linear narrative — which means the drama plays backward, scene by scene. In order to figure out what happened, the main character, suffering from an exotic amnesia, had to examine his life in reverse. The hero and the viewers made sense of it all by piecing things together in this reverse-order chronology.

Those of us in retail often deal with this sort of de-coding. Take the topic of the Food Safety Modernization Act, for example.

Mike Bentel was in our 8th & Walton studio in Bentonville recently to tape an interview on “Focus on Suppliers,” because the topic of FSMA is a hot one. Last year, the Food and Drug Administration began changing things around. Instead of reacting to food safety problems, they now focus on the prevention of such problems. FSMA has seven regulations for food suppliers, and the expected compliance deadlines for them start this September.

Bentel is vice president of food safety at Berry Fresh LLC in Bentonville.

In his FOS interview (scheduled for the episode that debuts on Aug. 6 and focuses on the food category), he is informative and straightforward in his comments on the subject of food safety:

“The consumer perceives fresh as a brand of the store.”

“Food safety is impacted by workers, wildlife and water.”

“The produce customer has expectations of both the supplier and of the retailer.”

Bentel doesn’t shy away from the seriousness of FSMA. “Suppliers need to develop a plan that analyses all their hazards — the supply chain, the process, allergens, sanitation — it all has to be addressed. Plus they need a written recall plan in place in case something goes wrong,” he said.

He closes his interview with host Neile Jones by encouraging suppliers to integrate food safety into their culture now and to work toward sanitary — remembering that sanitation preserves shelf life.

Bentel is teaching classes on FSMA at 8th & Walton and can be contacted at [email protected].

 

FSMA seems drastic. How did we get here?

After the taping, Bentel and I chatted about food safety and its rise to prominence. I asked when the sharper focus on it began, and he said it had been evolving every year — “ever since the early ’90s.”

When I followed up by asking what happened in the ‘90s, Bentel immediately said, “Jack in the Box.”

1993 was a seminal moment in food safety. The most infamous food poisoning outbreak in recent history took place at 73 restaurants in the West and South. The E. coli outbreak, originating from undercooked beef patties, affected over 700 people and resulted in several deaths.

Although this was not the first incident of E.coli, the wide media coverage and scale of the outbreak were responsible for bringing food safety into the public consciousness.

It was that event that moved us further along the road of food safety. There were many improvements at that time (including Jack in the Box completely overhauling and restructuring its corporate operations around food safety priorities, setting new standards across the entire fast food industry), and there have been many more since then. And so, playing this forward to today, we have FSMA.

The “Memento” model — starting where we are and working backward in order to make sense of things — works, even in dramas as complex as retail.  

 

July 9: How Suppliers Benefit by
Co-Branding with Entertainment Properties*

Compass Partnership Marketing – Stu Todd

Dreamworks – Sarah Boyer

FLO – Marcus Johnson

Nickelodeon – Tara Gartman Shaw

Saatchi & Saatchi X – Jessica Hendrix

Startup Junkie – Jeff Amerine

Walmart Radio – Russell Bloodworth

*Currently scheduled guests and episodes
are subject to change.

In case you missed it:
Walmart Commits to Convenience

For the weekend of Walmart’s Shareholders Meeting, “Focus on Suppliers” invited industry leaders to explore several of Walmart’s key initiatives. Topics included Walmart’s commitment to convenience for customers, associate development, diversity and inclusion.

Guests included:

The ALS Association – Jennifer Necessary,
Brian Graham (Sam’s Club)

CaseStack – Colby Beland

Hudson Windsor – Ron Sassine

Mars Inc. – Tracey Wood, Michelle Thomas

Network of Executive Women – Karen Stuckey

Saatchi & Saatchi X – Jessica Hendrix

The Walmart Museum – Alan Dranow

Full episodes and extended interviews can be
found online at YouTube.com/c/8thandWalton
and Vimeo.com/FocusOnSuppliers.