In the past few months, reported increases in incidents of foodborne illnesses have forced the food industry and the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to examine safety practices. Investigations have revealed a large number of issues that contributed to foodborne illnesses outbreaks, from growing practices to transportation and storage. The CDC estimates that 1 in 6 Americans fall ill with food-borne pathogens each year, and approximately 3,000 US citizens die of these illnesses in that same year. Awareness of these issues is the most important and first step to bettering food safety practices. At Minnesota Freezer Warehouse Company, re committed to improving our standards for high-quality climate-controlled storage in the Upper Midwest every day.
MFWC has worked in cold storage for over 100 years, with roots going back to the 1915 Newell Family Creamery and produce storage warehouse. Since then, we have worked one step ahead of drastically changing food safety regulations and climate-control technology to promote the best food storage practices for our local households and businesses as well as communities across the country.
Food safety is a complex issue that can be compromised at any step in a food product’s journey from the farm to the plate, and the horror stories of foodborne illnesses affecting children, newly-emerging pathogens, and food recalls tell us just how difficult it is to prevent problems from occurring.
While it may be hard to fix problems in the food industry that compromise food safety, we can all work to do better in our own roles, as growers, harvesters, packers, shippers, storers, processors, grocers, and chefs.
What Can We Do?
With our climate-controlled storage warehouses, MFWC works to eliminate the potential for foodborne illnesses to activate and spread in the food products we store. When it comes to frozen, refrigerated, and dry foods, our warehouse systems and skilled employees work to continually preserve the temperature and humidity of our storage facilities. Because bacteria, molds, viruses, and parasites all operate at temperatures above 40º F, we keep our warehouses within strict temperature ranges. This ensures that these microorganisms won’t have the opportunity to reproduce and infect food further if they’re present, and if they aren’t present, it guarantees they will not have the means to be introduced. Our facilities are AIB and MNSHARP certified, USDA-inspected, and protected with Agility Recovery backup power systems. All products stored in our warehouses are kept under strict inventory with our own systems as well as our partnership IT systems with TallyWorks WMS.
Our goal as a climate-controlled industrial food warehouse provider is to always place our primary focus on food safety and food security. It might not be possible for MFWC to solve every problem with food safety, but we will always strive to do our part in bettering the industry and keeping our communities safe.
To learn more about our full services for climate-controlled storage in the Upper Midwest, contact MFWC at (844) 373-1477 today.