When it comes to food safety, the government’s ability to inform consumers fast with word of recalls due to contamination can make the difference between life and death.
To that end, the Agriculture Department’s Food Safety and Inspection Service is harnessing the power of technology and social media.
Before, food alerts were issued to traditional newspapers and radio stations and nationally on FSIS’s twitter feed.
This month, the agency began leveraging Twitter’s ability to target affected consumers by state, a more specific method of getting the word out regarding tainted meat, poultry or processed egg products.
“We want to reach as many consumers as possible,” FSIS spokesman Dirk Fillpot told Breaking Gov. “The more people we can reach through these Twitter feeds, the more likely it is that we can prevent food borne illnesses.”
The feeds are located at www.twitter.com followed by the postal code for each state, then underscore, then “FSISAlert.” For example, California’s Twitter alert feed is at www.twitter.com/CA_FSISAlert and New York’s feed is at www.twitter.com/NY_FSISAlert.
“These new Twitter feeds provide yet another mechanism for us to provide consumers with critical updates and relevant information they need to protect their families from food borne illnesses,” said USDA Under Secretary for Food Safety Dr. Elisabeth Hagen. “The immediacy of information-sharing through social media is unparalleled, and we believe these timely, targeted updates will better protect public health.”
FSIS is able to distribute the state tweets as soon as they distribute news releases about food recalls, no matter the time of day or night. In just a month, the number of feeds followers has been slowly building, and FSIS has received positive feedback.
“The ultimate result we are after is being able to prevent foodborne illnesses by providing information immediately to affected consumers. Our ability to achieve that goal will improve as more people follow these feeds,” Fillpot said.
FSIS previously distributed tweets about food recalls over its primary Twitter feed, @USDAFoodSafety. Although they now manage more than 50 Twitter feeds, not every recall will be tweeted over each feed. Recalls will now only be tweeted to the feeds corresponding to the states where the recalled product was distributed. With these new micro-tweets, the agency will be able to reach consumers most likely to be affected by a food recall – giving them the important information they need quickly.