A voluntary market withdrawal involves removing products from the supply chain, where the food has not reached the consumer and effectively notifying consumers of the risk.
The installation of a robust market withdrawal system could significantly reduce the overall costs of a recall.
These events can be planned for through contingency and crisis management strategies, which facilitate the speed with which a recall or market withdrawal can be completed.
A withdrawal system that is routinely tested allows the manufacturer to quickly identify the implicated products’ location in the marketing chain and permits immediate quarantine of the suspect product from the market before it reaches retail distribution.
Thus, a well-rehearsed market withdrawal system would reduce the major costs of damage to manufacturers’ reputations and reimbursements to consumers. In defining the scope of a food withdrawal, food manufacturers must be able to demonstrate the reasons for limiting the withdrawal/recall to certain batches and that other batches are not unsafe.
Market withdrawal is required if one of the following situations occurs:
• A manufacturer or distributor discovers a food safety issue and contacts FDA directly
• Inspection of a manufacturing facility by FDA reveals a potential cause for recall
• A beer, or brewer fails testing carried out through FDA
• In the case of illness associated with a specific product, individual state health departments will contact the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), which in turn contacts FDA.
Market Withdrawal
