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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Confidence erodes in U.S. food supply
  • Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2009 12:03:27 -0700



Confidence erodes in U.S. food supply
http://www.startribune.com/opinion/editorials/40003407.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQ

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February 21, 2009

The conclusions of a pioneering survey from the University of Minnesota's
Food Industry Center and Louisiana State University's AgCenter should come
as a surprise to no one.

The deadly salmonella outbreak tied to peanut butter made at a filthy
Georgia processing plant has caused consumer confidence in the food supply
to plummet. Just one in five Americans now believe the food supply is safer
than it was a year ago, according to findings from the latest Continuous
Consumer Food Safety/Defense Tracking Study (CFST). The study, funded by
the National Center for Food Protection and Defense at the U, provides a
valuable ongoing look at consumer concerns, expectations and perceptions.
It's updated weekly -- unlike other surveys that swoop in occasionally on
food issues.

Consumer confidence dipped last year with the outbreak of salmonella first
linked to tomatoes but later tied to peppers. Confidence rebounded, the
CFST found, only to nosedive to a new low with the peanut butter salmonella
outbreak that has sickened at least 500 and killed eight people, three of
whom were Minnesotans. The findings should give the industry some food for
thought. It's hard evidence that the peanut butter outbreak isn't simply
the problem of one Georgia company. It has damaged the reputation of the
entire food industry. Action is needed, lest the precipitous drop in peanut
butter sales plague other products.

Recent developments in the peanut butter outbreak have pointed to critical
areas for industry improvement. A New York Times story published earlier
this month suggested major problems with the independent safety audit
systems that the industry uses. Basically, companies providing audit
services act as private inspectors. The president of the company that
inspected the Georgia peanut plant -- AIB International -- told the paper
that one of its inspectors gave the plant a "superior" rating. Another
inspector said the plant met or exceeded expectations. Investigators since
have documented slime, mold and roaches at the plant and ongoing problems
with salmonella; the plant may have knowingly shipped product that tested
positive for the bacteria. Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar recently called for
criminal prosecution of the plant's owners, and she's entirely correct. At
the same time, the entire food industry needs to rapidly evaluate what went
wrong with the auditing system and make changes so it doesn't happen again.
Making audit reports public is one potential solution to improve
accountability.

Another area that needs to be addressed is traceability. One reason that
the peanut butter recall seems never-ending is that it's difficult to trace
where commodity foods -- like large tubs of peanut butter used as
ingredients in other foods -- have gone. Ideally, food safety officials
would have issued one list of all affected foods and had stores and
consumers clear them from shelves and pantries. They couldn't do that under
the current system. Instead, officials have issued multiple updates as
they've gone through the slow, laborious process of tracking the product's
distribution. That's kept peanut butter recalls in the news, reinforcing
consumers' negative attitudes about food safety. As the CFST data shows,
the industry as a whole has a business interest in being able to quickly
announce a complete, comprehensive list of affected foods. More important,
there's a critical public health advantage to this. Quickly identifying
dangerous products and pulling them from shelves saves lives. The industry
has to do better.








  • [Livingontheland] Confidence erodes in U.S. food supply, Tradingpost, 02/22/2009

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