With the shadow of war in the Gulf hanging over the world, companies in the US are more than ever aware of the threat of bioterrorism - the contamination of the food supply by noxious agents.
With this in mind, two US companies, The Belgard Group and Control Risks Group (CRG), have together created Commitment Based Security, a change management process designed to help food manufacturers manage this perceived threat quickly and effectively.
The threat of bioterrorism was highlighted earlier this month with the warning by CIA Director George J. Tenet that terrorist attacks using chemical, biological or radiological weapons were imminent. He listed a number of ways terrorists could strike, including poisoning of food and water supplies using cyanide, botulism or ricin - a castor-based poison recently uncovered in a London-based plot.
Based on these warnings, manufacturers should be especially vigilant, said Jim Brooks, vice president at CRG. "Ricin and other biological and chemical weapons would most likely be spread through the contamination of food or pharmaceutical products and manufacturers need to understand the devastating consequences of not protecting themselves."
"If terrorists were able to gain access to a processing plant and contaminate even one batch of a product the results would be catastrophic. Even if no-one was harmed, the contamination would destroy consumers' faith in that product resulting in the probable destruction of its brand, and it would almost certainly have a long-term financial impact on the parent company."
"This kind of terrorism is a realistic possibility and food manufacturers need to make every effort to guarantee the safety of their people, their products and consumers," added Jim Armstrong, vice president at The Belgard Group. "To defend against terrorists, food and pharmaceutical industry executives must look beyond traditional practices to protect their products."
Brooks claimed that existing security measures were not enough to protect food and pharmaceutical processors from the possibility of bioterrorism, adding that the most effective approach to plant security was through employee participation. "No facility is secure unless every employee, from leadership down to the frontlines, understands there is a real threat and is constantly vigilant."
Brooks and Armstrong said that companies needed to acknowledge that employees know more about how things should work on the plant floor than any executive or hired security guard, and that they are in the best position to ensure that the production line functions as it should.
They added that employees should look out for four things - strangers on the premises who do not have the proper identification or chaperone, co-workers exhibiting unusual behaviour, processes that are not running normally and objects, such as boxes or packages which are out of place or do not belong.
"These are the critical signs that something is wrong and security personnel should be contacted immediately," said Brett Baumann, senior consultant at the Belgard Group.