1. 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

2. 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?

3. 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

4. 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?

5. 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

6. 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

7. How Can you Contact Us?
California Department of Public Health (CDPH) Food and Drug Branch (FDB)
During normal business hours
(916)
After hours
FDB Duty Officer (916) or
CDPH Duty Officer (916)
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

8. 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

9. 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)

10. QUESTIONS?? Jane Marie Reick, M.P.H.
Chief, Food Safety Inspection Unit
CDPH – Food and Drug Branch
(714)
Jane.