California Department of Public Health Food and Drug Branch May 2013 What to Do When You Experience an Emergency or Disaster at Your Food Processing Facility – The State’s Perspective California Department of Public Health Food and Drug Branch May 2013

What Can Go Wrong? Earthquake Fire Flood Landslide Power Outage Facility Damage (e.g., leaking roof) Sewage spill or overflow Equipment failure Severe injury / fatality Gas or ammonia leak Chemical spill Loss of Potable Water Others?

Factors to Consider Employee health and safety Structural stability of the facility Functionality of the food processing equipment Duration and severity of the incident How quickly you found out about the incident Immediately After impacted food had been shipped Safety of the food

Some Questions to Ask Yourself Were you processing at the time of the incident? Which specific food product(s) were impacted? Unpackaged / unprotected food Packaged / protected food What was the nature of the impact on the food product? Have you segregated and clearly identified impacted food products? Can the impacted food product be re-worked? Does food product need to be destroyed? Is a recall necessary?

Notify Us When Food Has Been Impacted By… Non-potable water Sewage Filth, mud, dirt, debris Blood or other body tissues Loss of Temperature or Other Critical Control Chemicals Gasses Smoke Any other contamination that may lead to unsafe food

How Quickly Should You Notify Us? As soon as possible after learning about the incident Before you distribute food product Before you destroy food product Before you re-initiate food processing operations

How Can you Contact Us? California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Food and Drug Branch (FDB) During normal business hours (916) 650-6500 After hours FDB Duty Officer (916) 650-6625 or CDPH Duty Officer (916) 328-3605 Please provide the following information: Name & phone number of the person we should call Your company’s name and address A brief description of the incident / problem

When You Notify Us, We Will Call You And Ask … For information / details about the incident and the food impacted What you have already done What agencies have already responded to the incident (fire department, Cal OSHA, etc.) When you plan to resume food processing operations

We May Deploy Staff to Your Facility To… Assist you to evaluate the safety of impacted food products Ensure that impacted food products have been properly identified and segregated Witness voluntary destruction of impacted food products Conduct an inspection to determine whether it is OK to resume food processing Assist you to draft a recall notice (if necessary) Collect additional information (if necessary)

QUESTIONS?? Jane Marie Reick, M.P.H. Chief, Food Safety Inspection Unit CDPH – Food and Drug Branch (714) 558-4595 Jane. Reick@cdph.ca.gov