Listen up, folks. It’s time to check your refrigerator and cupboards for food that may be contaminated with listeria monocytogenes, a very serious and potentially fatal foodborne pathogen.
This morning, Food Safety News is reporting that Parkers Farm, Inc., a Coon Rapids, Minnesota-based food manufacturer is recalling a variety of products after product sampling conducted
A little over two weeks ago, IBM released the results of a survey that it had conducted among adult grocery shoppers in the ten largest cities in the United States (100 in each city). The survey was intended to gather opinions about food safety issues, and what it found is as disappointing as it is not surprising. For example, less than 20% of consumers trust food companies to develop and sell food products that are self and healthy. Moreover, 60% of consumers are concerned about the safety of the food that they purchase. And the cause of this significant drop in trust? The rise in food recalls linked to contaminated and unsafe food products. According to the survey results, 83% of the people surveyed were able to name a food product that had been recalled in the last years, with nearly half (46%) naming peanut butter as a recently recalled product.
The irony here is that the rise in contamination-related recalls can be explained, in large part, by the drive for greater profits through: the use of cheaper ingredients purchased from suppliers willing to cut-corners (see, e.g. Peanut Corporation of America and its customer Kelloggs); the failure to update and maintain manufacturing facilities to ensure the highest standards of safety (see, e.g., Cargill and its peanut butter plant); insufficient product testing and quality control (see, e.g. Dole baged Spinach); and over-reliance on the consumer to cook the product "properly" as a means of making it safe, when it should have been safe to begin with (see, e.g., Banquet pot pies and Topps-brand and American Chef’s Selection brand frozen ground beef patties). But by putting profits above safety, food manufacturers are trading short term gains for long term losses. If consumers lose trust in manufactured food products, they will stop buying them. Look, for example, at peanut butter sales, which still have not recovered, and may never do so.
To read the full press release discussing the survey results, please click on Continue Reading.Continue Reading Consumer Trust in Food Safety in the U.S. Plummets Because of Rise in Recalls
In a bit of news that is less surprising than it should be, the AP today reports that the FDA has for the last several years failed to perform a large percentage of required audits for inspections being conducted (under contract) by the States. According to today’s report (based on documents recently released to Congress:
State legislators around the US, fed up with the perceived slow response of the federal government to enact stronger food safety laws, have begun sending a clear message to Washington: if you won’t protect our citizens from increasing foodborne illness outbreaks, then we will.
in a Wall Street Journal article by Jane Zhang, she highlights
The outbreak, which started last August and has since sickened close to 300 people, has been linked to a ConAgra plant in Sylvester, Ga. Any jar that includes the code "2111" was made at that plant and should be discarded or returned to the store where it was purchased. Giant stores and Wal-Mart confirm they
Here is an update from the FDA site about the peanut butter salmonella outbreak.
"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has identified 290 people from 39 states who have gotten sick from Salmonella Tennessee, the Salmonella type associated with this outbreak. Forty six (46) patients are known to have been hospitalized and there
Second lawsuit filed by victims of national Salmonella outbreak traced to peanut butter
A New York family filed suit against ConAgra this afternoon in United States District Court for the Western District of New York. The lawsuit was filed by Marler Clark, the Seattle law firm that filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of a
Marler Clark is investigating potential Salmonella claims on behalf of 150 families who have contacted us in regards to the Salmonella outbreak that was traced to contaminated peanut butter (see the Salmonella blog for more information about hte outbreak.
What to do if you became ill with Salmonella food poisoning after eating peanut butter:
1.