Cottage Bakery Director of Human Resources, Bart Spence, explains the changes it took to turn a once public road into a private road for security reasons. (Whitney Ramirez/News-Sentinel)

Homeland Security requires Lodi food plants to take precautions

Cottage Bakery's manufacturing area is filled with baking bread and surveillance cameras.

A security gate and tall fence with barbed wire at the top serve to discourage uninvited visitors from stopping by the south Lodi complex.

It didn't use to be that way. The public was free to pretty much come and go as they please — that is, until the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In 2004, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security required food manufacturers to register with the federal government, complete a self-assessment on how susceptible they are to having their food poisoned and what steps they are taking to make their products safe for consumers.

"The government has mandated our kind of companies to have a terrorism program on file," said Cecil McKie, controller at Alpine Meats, which makes hot dogs and sausages in north Stockton.

Food manufacturers must have a security system and make sure that all packaging is sealed, McKie said.

The post-9/11 regulations came to a head in Lodi recently when Lodi Nut Co. announced it was closing its gift shop on South Fairmont Avenue. Company President Kelly Suess said that federal regulations would have required customers to register at the front office and wear a guest badge just to buy some nuts. The gift shop closed on Friday.

Cottage Bakery has a small retail store at the corner of South Stockton Street and Neuharth Drive, but unlike Lodi Nut's store, the store is outside the security gate that leads to the factory, said Bart Spence, human resources director at Cottage Bakery.

"Retail is not required to provide bioterrorism protection," Spence said.

The reason, he said, is that few people would be affected by someone putting anthrax or another form of germ warfare into food at the small store at Cottage Bakery. Society would be harmed greatly, however, if someone attacked the flour silos, Spence said.

In addition to the 2004 requirements, Homeland Security also wants to know each firm's hiring practices and how background checks are conducted, Spence said. Food plants must also get a copy of the driver's license of each of its vendors.

Cottage Bakery's self-assessment showed a major problem — it has six buildings on both sides of Neuharth Drive.

"We had a public street right through our operation," Spence said. "How do you secure that?"

The answer was to ask the Lodi City Council to convert Neuharth Drive into a private street — essentially keeping the public off the street.

The firm received the City Council's permission in 2004 to take over the street. However, that required Cottage Bakery to install a security gate with a guard on duty 24 hours a day. Anyone entering the plant who is not pre-approved must first go to the administration building, register and get a badge.

The administration building is outside the security gate and open to the public. The buildings where Cottage Bakery's pastry and other foods are manufactured are inside the gate.

Surveillance cameras have been installed on each of the six buildings, a $70,000 investment, Spence said.

And with Neuharth Drive shaped like a horseshoe, giving it two accesses to South Stockton Street, Cottage Bakery installed a 12-foot-high chain-link fence with barbed wire at the top to separate the north end of the horseshoe from the factory, Spence said.

All employees and visitors must check in and out as they enter the factory section of Cottage Bakery. The bakery, along with food manufacturers nationwide, had to meet a number of different regulations after the terrorist acts of Sept. 11, 2001. (Whitney Ramirez/News-Sentinel)

At Miller Packing Co. on Industrial Way, every truck driver making a delivery must sign in and give his driver's license number, said Staige DeBenedetti, who wrote the company's bioterrorism plan.

"You have to maintain a sign-in book with identification badges," said DeBenedetti, whose husband, Michael, owns the company.

Providers delivering raw meat to Miller Packing must show a certificate that they're providing a non-tainted product, DeBenedetti said.

Providers are inspected before they deliver the raw meat, spices and boxes to Miller, she said.

"Fifteen years ago, we were very casual about these things," DeBenedetti said.

Not any more.

Contact reporter Ross Farrow at rossf@lodinews.com.

First published: Tuesday, March 13, 2007