In honor of the upcoming World Food Safety Day, which takes place annually on June 7, the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets (AGM) and Department of Health (DOH) today highlighted the State’s work to enhance food safety for all New Yorkers. AGM and DOH have teams of dedicated professionals working across the state each day to ensure the safety of the food supply for all New Yorkers. Members of the Departments conduct inspections in food establishments, sample products and evaluate food handling practices and sanitary compliance in retail food stores, food processing facilities, restaurants, and more. Food samples are sent to the New York State Food Laboratory, a state-of-the-art facility that performs analytical testing to help ensure that New York’s’ food supply remains safe. The Departments work together proactively to keep New York at the forefront of food safety nationwide by coordinating on a number of investigations in the past year, including FDA’s multi-state investigation and subsequent recall of some applesauce pouches found to contain high levels of lead.
State Commissioner Richard A. Ball said,“Each year, World Food Safety Day offers us a great opportunity to remind consumers about the importance of food safety in our daily lives. We want New Yorkers to know that there is a dedicated team that is vigilant and proactively watching our food supply to protect public health. The Department works hard every day to help keep New York State 's food supply safe, from on-farm visits to inspections of our retail food stores. We also urge consumers and businesses throughout the State to do their part by handling, storing, and preparing foods with care to help reduce foodborne illness.”
State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald said,“Having access to good, nutritious food is a tenant of good overall health, and practicing food safety both in the home and at food establishments and retail stores is vital to protecting our food supply to prevent foodborne illnesses. The Department of Health works every day to ensure New Yorkers are food-secure and we are proud to work alongside our partners with the State Department of Agriculture and Markets to ensure—from farm to table—the food we eat is safely handled, stored, and prepared and that resources are available to those who need it.”
AGM Food Establishment Inspections and Laboratory Testing
The New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets ' has three divisions that are actively working to monitor and test the food supply. The Divisions of Food Safety and Inspection, Milk Control and Dairy Services, and Food Laboratory work to ensure that New York State's human and animal food supplies are safe to consume through a multi-faceted approach. AGM’s expert staff are responsible for inspecting over 35,000 regulated food establishments in every corner of the State, including grocery stores, food processing plants, craft beverage producers and more. DOH and local health departments across the state are responsible for over 110,000 food service operations such as restaurants, food trucks, and school cafeterias. During inspections, highly trained food inspectors proactively look for issues that could lead to foodborne illness, such as those that involve the food source and condition, food processing and storage temperatures, and sanitary practices of food workers, among others.
In 2023, AGM staff conducted more than 26,700 inspections, collected over 2,400 food products for analysis by AGM’s Food Laboratory, investigated more than 2,100 consumer complaints, and verified product labeling on thousands of products, from fish to baked goods. Additionally, AGM food inspectors executed over 1,927 food seizures, resulting in over 562,000 pounds of food seized. FSI works closely with the Food Laboratory, which is critical to the State’s food safety efforts. The scientists at the Food Laboratory analyzed and tested nearly 20,000 samples and performed approximately 440,000 analytical tests on food and beverage products in 2023. Many of these tests resulted in Class 1, 2 or 3 food recalls, which can be found atagriculture.ny.gov/food-safety-alerts. DOH and local health departments conducted approximately 120,000 inspections, complaint investigations, and other regulatory visits to food service establishments. AGM encourages consumers interested in staying up-to-date regarding food safety efforts in New York State tosign up to receive the Department’s food safety alerts.
Additionally, in late 2023,AGM updated its Food Product Recall Bookto provide New York retail food stores, food manufacturers, and food businesses with an easy-to-follow protocol to use should they need to initiate a product recall at their facility. The new standards for food recalls went into effect on January 1 of this year.
In 2024, AGM began listing all Class I and Class II recalls on its website. A Class I recall is triggered when contamination in the product will cause serious adverse health consequences, while a Class II recall goes into effect when contamination in the product may cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences or where the probability of serious adverse health consequences is remote.
Dairy Products Inspections and Testing
To ensure the safety of New York’s dairy products, AGM also employs dozens of dairy products specialists who, in 2023, conducted over 7,000 inspections of farms and dairy processing plants for compliance with sanitation requirements and standards of identity. In addition, the specialists sampled over 15,000 dairy products that were sent to the Food Laboratory for analysis. Nearly 3,000 dairy farms are inspected by certified milk inspectors who review sanitary conditions of the farm, the health of the cows, and the health of individuals working on the farm.
With 2024 marking the centennial of theGrade "A" Pasteurized Milk Ordinance (PMO), which helps to ensure that Grade “A" milk and dairy products produced in the United States are among the safest products in our nation, and the world, AGM’s dairy inspectors work hard with the goal of ensuring that harmful pathogens do not enter the food system. Pasteurization is a process that heats milk to a specific temperature for a specific amount of time. Pasteurization kills the bacteria responsible for numerous illnesses and diseases such as listeriosis, salmonellosis, campylobacteriosis, typhoid fever, tuberculosis, diphtheria, and brucellosis. Pasteurization of milk is recognized internationally as an effective means of preventing outbreaks of foodborne illnesses, including listeriosis.
National Leadership
Illustrating New York’s national leadership role in the food safety space, AGM and DOH’s food safety teams are routinely called upon by other states, and by the federal government, to assist in investigations occurring outside of New York State. In 2023, both Departments assisted in FDA’s multi-state investigation and subsequent recall of certain applesauce pouches for children that contained high levels of lead, and AGM inspectors visited hundreds of retail stores across New York to verify the products had been removed from the shelves and were no longer being sold in the state.
The state has also been recognized by the FDA for its work on heavy metal testing, as New York Statehas proposed the strictest action levels in the country for the presence of heavy metals in spicesand related recall actions, providing better protection to New York State consumers.
Additionally, many of AGM and DOH’s expert staff serve in leadership positions on organizations dedicated to safeguarding a safe food supply, ensuring that New York State is part of the national conversation surrounding food safety. These include the New York State Association of Food Protection, the Association of Food and Drug Officials, the North East Food and Drug Officials Association, the Conference for Food Protection, the Partnership for Food Protection, the Manufactured Food Regulatory Program Alliance, the Association of American Feed Control Officials, the Association of Public Health Laboratories, the National Conference on Interstate Milk Shipments, the National Association of Dairy Regulatory Officials, the International Association of Milk Control Agencies, the Eastern Milk Seminar Committee, 3-A Sanitary Standards, Inc., and the Dairy Practices Council.
About World Food Safety Day
World Food Safety Day was created by the United Nations General Assembly in 2018 to draw attention and direct educational efforts to reducing the approximately 600 million cases of foodborne illnesses that occur annually across the globe. The annual observance on June 7 aims to draw attention and inspire action to help prevent, detect, and manage foodborne risks, contributing to food security, human health, economic prosperity, agriculture, market access, tourism, and sustainable development. The World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) jointly facilitate the observance of World Food Safety Day, in collaboration with Member States and other relevant organizations. This international day is an opportunity to strengthen efforts to ensure that the food we eat is safe, mainstream food safety in the public agenda, and reduce the burden of foodborne diseases globally.
The CDC estimates that each year in the US alone, 48 million people get sick from a foodborne illness, 128,000 are hospitalized, and 3,000 die. Norovirus and Salmonella are the number one and two germs that cause illnesses from food eaten in the United States. Additionally, CDC reports that food allergies are a growing food safety and public health concern that affect an estimated 4% to 6% of children in the United States. Mislabeled food products, mostly due to undeclared allergens, is one of the leading causes by incident of recalls in the United States.
