One Connecticut company is working to help protect our food supply chain from future bacteria outbreaks. They gave us an inside look into how it all works.
At least 48 million people in the United States get sick from foodborne diseases each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC also says more than 100,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 die from these diseases.
“That’s unacceptable,” said congresswoman Rosa DeLauro. “This is all preventable.”
Recent food recalls ranging from salmonella, listeria and e-coli outbreaks have drawn questions about food safety and regulations.
“I’ve been for years very, very concerned about food safety,” said DeLauro. “We need to have a process that safeguards people.”
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Ancera, a tech company based in Branford, is working to assist food producers in preventing these outbreaks through what it calls a food defense system.
“The end goal is the American food supply being very robust, being safe and being affordable,” said Ancera CEO and founder Arjun Ganesan. “We look at the microbes in the entire supply chain and we really see what you can do to mitigate the risk by lowering those pathogenic microbes before they hit the food supply.”
On Tuesday, Ganesan gave the congresswoman a tour of the company’s labs to help her further understand the process.
“What we’re hoping the congresswoman can really take back to D.C. is that having regulations is one way of doing it,” he said. “What we’re doing is we’re building the infrastructure to really achieve the same end goals.”
He says the company currently have 55 employees and plans to further expand in Connecticut.
