How do you know that the food you are eating is safe?
In the wake of prominent outbreaks of e.coli and salmonella in the United States and Canada, many families are no longer taking it for granted that the food they purchase is completely safe to eat.
Fortunately, the outbreaks in 2018 and 2019 have been relatively contained. But there is no guarantee that the next outbreak won’t be worse, in which case hundreds of thousands of people could be unknowingly exposed to deadly pathogens in their food.
This isn’t just an issue with produce and meat. With the rise of medical cannabis as a way of treating chronic pain, there has been an explosion of cannabis edibles designed for people who want to be able to benefit from the medicinal properties of THC without the carcinogenic dangers of smoke inhalation.
How can individuals whose immune systems are already compromised be sure that the edible cannabis medication they are taking for pain relief doesn’t contain harmful bacteria?
Product Tracking Essential to Keeping Edibles Safe
One of the reasons why the latest salmonella outbreak in the U.S. was so hard to contain was because it was difficult to track.
The Center for Disease Control was eventually able to report that the outbreak was caused by papayas imported from Mexico, but not before twenty-seven individuals were hospitalized.
The origin of harmful bacteria can be difficult to pin-point, which is why medical cannabis producers need to be extremely careful about testing and tracking their product so that there is a paper trail showing where each gramoriginates.
While cannabis itself has not been linked to outbreaks of e.coli or salmonella, the popularity of edibles means that cannabis is often mixed with other food products which can be vectors for disease.
For this reason, it has been essential for producers of medical cannabis to use tracking software that allows them to trace every cannabis plant from seed to sale so they know exactly where their product has come from, and where it has gone.
The Software Solutions Making Recalls Faster
But it isn’t just important to be able to track edible cannabis products. Cannabis businesses also need to be able to recall compromised products in the case of an outbreak.
This is why cannabis software platforms like Ample Organics include advanced batch tracking so that allows them to determine immediately which patients received products from a compromised batch, and to send batch recalls targeted directly to the patients who have received them.
This means that even if cannabis products do need to be recalled, affected patients will receive the recall information immediately. Not only does this make it much easier to stop contamination outbreaks, but it also helps build patients’ confidence in the safety of their medical cannabis products.
As has been widely reported in the media, foodborne illness outbreaks are currently on the rise. While it is the responsibility of regulators and governments to ensure that all food is safe to eat, it is especially important to guarantee that medicinal products are not going to make patients even sicker.
Fortunately, new cannabis software is making it easier than ever for cannabis producers to track their products and enact recalls should an outbreak occur.