Food Safety Today
Producers Today
Professionals in the food industry handle the food you buy with care, using various
technologies to minimize the risk of contamination. Packaging protects food from
contamination and creates a barrier which helps to prevent spoilage. Some farms
are bio‑controlled to avoid infection of their livestock — visitors must actually wear
bio‑suits in areas housing animals.
The food industry has many ways of processing foods. For example, processors may
pasteurize, preserve, irradiate, freeze, can, refrigerate, dehydrate, salt, or pickle foods
before sending them to retailers.
Cheese Sampler, ca. 1940
Artifact no. 1979.0273
Before cheese was pressed into a mold, cheesemakers tested how the curd was forming. This tool was used to draw a sample of unripened cheese from the cheese vat.
Meat Inspection Hammer,
ca. 1940
Ketchum Manufacturing,
Ottawa, Ontario
Artifact no. 2000.0262
Meat inspectors must examine all animal carcasses at an abattoir to ensure that they are safe for human consumption. This hammer, with the inspector's 'signature' 241, was used to assign a grade to a side of beef.
A government inspector examining lamb carcasses, 1989
Archives of Ontario 89-B190
Each farm uses government-regulated ear tags on cattle, so that the animal can be traced back to their farm if a food safety issue should arise in the future.
Courtesy of the Ontario Farm Animal Council
Ear tags
.pdf document (224 Kb)
(external link: Statistics Canada)
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please click on the following link Adobe Reader
to download it from the Adobe® Web site.
In Canada, cheese made from unpasteurized milk has to be aged for 60 days (until all the harmful bacteria die), and cannot be sold until then.
Archives of Ontario 87-B766
Special clothing and restricted access are some of the measures used to keep farm animals free from contamination.
Courtesy of the Ontario Farm Animal Council
Sorting tomatoes at a Campbell's Soup
Company factory,
Toronto, Ontario 1987
Archives of Ontario 87-B801
