Building Technologies for Safety

BTSafety LLC

BTSafety’s mission is to develop tools for government and industry that enhance their ability to respond rapidly and effectively to food safety and food defense incidents.

Working in collaboration with industry and government BTSafety has developed software systems to help the food industry and government stakeholders understand, plan for, and react to the consequences of predictable “food Katrina” or unpredictable “food 9/11” contaminations of the food supply with the aim of preventing or minimizing the impact of events. 

BTSafety’s patented software technologies (Consequence Management System and the Crisis Management and Response System) are user-friendly tools that graphically and visually illustrate dynamic, realistic, real-world models of food contamination events based on actual distribution information provided by the food industry. Examples of how BTSafety’s software systems are being used by government, academia and industry include:

  • A food consequence modeling system for the Department of Homeland Security’s National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center Integrated Chemical, Biological, Radiologic/Nuclear Risk Assessment conducted for the White House


  • A PC-based “farm to mortality” simulation model for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration which can be used for risk assessment, priority setting, and policy development


  • Meat-based scenarios for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Pork Board to inform meat processors of the threats, vulnerabilities and consequences of intentional contamination of the meat supply with bioterrorism agents


  • Tabletop exercise for the State of Georgia to explore the capabilities of over 20 federal and state agencies to understand their roles, actions and interactions and ability to respond to a major local intentional food bioterrorism event


  • An educational version of the CMS tailored to meet the specific educational objectives for academic units responsible for training the business leaders, food scientists, public health epidemiologists and medical practitioners who will be responsible for dealing with catastrophic events in the future


  • Scenarios used by the Institute of Food Technologists and the Food and Drug Administration in 18 Food Defense training sessions for food industry professionals

 
The Challenge:
In the event of a food safety or defense incident, involved parties must have meaningful and timely information on which to base decisions.
BTSafety systems address:

  • Event recognition
  • Agent identification
  • Product attribution
  • Intervention choice and effectiveness
  • Containment (recall and holds)
  • Event remediation (disposal and restoration)
Food Safety Facts:


No one imagined peanut butter, pot pies and pizza were vulnerable to a food safety event.

Misidentification of a Salmonella Saintpaul outbreak in tomatoes has cost the tomato industry more than $200 million to date in Florida alone.

The spinach industry still hasn’t recovered from the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak in 2006.

Food safety has emerged as a major issue and there is considerable pressure by Congress and the public to deal with what appears to be a continual barrage of food-related issues.