Election Day

It is that time of year. Leaves are turning and the air is getting chilly. And politicians are coming out of the woodwork. Yes, boys and girls, it is election season! While trolling the net for some interesting food safety tidbits, I ran across an article relating to food safety and politics. It seems that Frank Guinta, the Republican candidate for Congress from New Hampshire’s first congressional district, would like a smaller government. In a recent appearance, Mr. Guinta told the audience that he could buy fresh farm food from a local New Hampshire farm, therefore, “I don’t need the FDA to make that transaction.” Politics aside, I see a glaring misunderstanding contained in that statement. Contrary to what many people believe, buying food directly from a local farm does not guarantee that it is safe! As this 2008 Newsweek article points out, when the FDA advised consumers that homegrown tomatoes were not affected by an outbreak of salmonella, it was easy for consumers to assume that locally grown produce would also be safe. The Newsweek article addressed some of the reasons that locally grown produce may be safer, but pointed out that contamination with food borne disease can happen at any point in the food production process.

A few weeks ago I addressed S.510, the FDA Food Safety and Modernization Act. One of the criticisms of the bill is that it unfairly penalizes small farms and producers, and all but outlaws growing and selling produce from small farms and gardens. While that assertion may be an exaggeration, there is some legitimate concern that S.510 applies a “one size fits all” approach to food safety regulation. Consumers' Union points to a Michigan law which exempts very small producers and sellers from stringent governmental regulation as an example of wisely balancing the need to protect the public with the need and desire to buy and sell locally produced food. As the Senate prepares to vote on S.510 sometime in November, debate rages about the so-called Tester amendment to the bill. The amendment would exempt small farms and processors which have less than $500,000 in annual sales and that primarily sell products directly to consumers, restaurants or stores within the same state or within 400 miles of the farm or processing facility.

  

While at first glance the amendment seems reasonable, there may be cause for concern from a consumer standpoint. The Make Our Food Safe (MOFS) Coalition, which includes the American Public Health Association, Consumers Union and victims of food borne disease, is concerned that the amendment would have unforeseen consequences and pose risks to the public health. On the opposite side of the debate is the National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition (NCAS) which believes the Tester Amendment would improve food safety by creating regulatory alternatives based on the size of the food producer/growers. NCAS is composed of grassroots agricultural groups and growers, which explains its staunch support for the Tester amendment. While both groups want safe food, they don’t agree on the best way to make that happen. A lot of the debate raging about the Tester amendment deals with the language: MOFS feels the language is too broad and sweeping and will include producers outside of the intended scope of the amendment. As you can see, the issue of food safety legislation is a complex, far-reaching issue. The question of what we eat should not be a political issue, but it obviously is. So, as with any other political issue of import, we need to educate ourselves and make sure our senators know where we stand. You don’t need to be part of a coalition or organized voice to have a say! And don’t forget to vote!

What's in Your Cart?

People refer to the “food safety net,” but it seems to me more like a huge puzzle. If even one piece is missing, the picture is incomplete-or in the case of food safety, the food can be dangerous. A large part of the puzzle is the myriad of agencies responsible for the safety of food products. Another major component is the food production and manufacturing sector. This week we will be exploring an important yet often overlooked part of the puzzle: retailers. Just this past week the FDA called for certified food protection managers to become a presence in retail outlets. The recommendation is based on the results of a ten-year study which showed that establishments which used certified food protection managers had higher rates of compliance with food safety regulations.

Retail food safety is governed not by federal code or regulations, but by state, local, and tribal regulations. The FDA has a “model food code” which provides guidance to regulatory agencies at all levels of government to assist with the administration of food safety as it relates to the retail sector. The ten-year study mentioned above looked at compliance rates with a variety of guidelines designed to optimize food safety at the retail level. There are a lot of so-called “risk factors” which the FDA looked at in the study: contaminated equipment, food from unsafe source, improper holding time or temperature, and poor personal hygiene. I think it is the last item that causes me the greatest concern-personal hygiene. The FDA study shows that in 2008, only 48% of observations of employee hand washing were in compliance with guidelines. This means that employees did not properly wash their hands as required 52% of the time! The statistic is particularly disturbing given the fact that the employees were being observed.

It seems that consumer confidence in the safety of food purchased at the grocery store is a bit shaky. In a 2008 survey conducted by the Food Market Institute, only 11% of shoppers were “completely confident” and 71% said they were “somewhat confident” in the safety of food purchased at a grocery store. If your supermarket is like mine, there are plenty of opportunities for food borne illness to get into the food supply: produce department, deli counter, meat and poultry cases, fish counter, and the bakery all provide the greatest risk of contamination from that culprit “poor personal hygiene” and others. So, what can you do? This article written by Dr. Oz provides a couple of ways you can make sure you don’t bring home more than you paid for from the grocery store. But what can you do about the risk factors over which you have no control? I’m quickly coming to the conclusion that we are at the mercy of others when it comes to food borne illnesses, and the only way to assess your risk is to ask the right questions. I was able to locate information about my preferred grocery chain’s food safety program, so I know that all store managers are “certified food safety managers. But is that enough?

Has Food Safety Come Far Enough?

Food safety is not a new concept. In the 1880s, women in New York protested against the conditions in slaughterhouses. The advent of a wide-spread outcry about the safety of the food supply can be traced to Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle,” which was published in 1906. Sinclair had spent several weeks in a Chicago meat-packing plant before penning a scathing portrayal of the conditions under which the animals were kept and the meat was produced. After reading an advance copy of the book, President Theodore Roosevelt prompted congress to create the Food and Drug Administration. The outcry over conditions described in the novel resulted in the issuance of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 and the Meat Inspection Act of 1906. These laws were the first attempts at regulating the food industry on a federal level.

The next major step in the history of food safety was the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938, which passed only after a five year legislative battle. The FD&C Act authorized standards for the identity and quality of foods along with factory inspections. In 1938 the first food standards were issued which covered canned tomatoes, tomato puree and tomato paste. As you can see, progress was slow and painstaking when it came to food safety legislation. Have you ever noticed that food products never carry a label stating that the food is safe and in compliance with FDA regulations? There was only one time when the FDA allowed such a label: in 1959, the U.S. cranberry crop was recalled right before Thanksgiving to check for a weedkiller which caused cancer in laboratory animals. Berries which were inspected and cleared were allowed to be labeled with a statement that they had been tested and had passed FDA standards.

After outbreaks of botulism tied to low-acid canned foods, the FDA issued low-acid food processing regulations. It wasn’t until 1990 that some standards for food, nutrition labeling, and health claims for food were regulated and made consistent through the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act.Before that Act, there was no standard meaning for terms such as “low fat,” or “light.” As you can see, food safety has been on the public agenda for a very long time. One has to wonder why, with the technological and scientific advances we have made since Upton Sinclair’s time, we are still fighting for a safe food supply. What will it take?

What Cost Safety?

For the past couple weeks, we have explored information about the food safety program in the United States and some of the myriad of food-safety laws and regulations administered by a virtual labyrinth of governmental agencies. We have also taken a look at what can go wrong when the safety of the food supply is compromised through a variety of methods. This week I will be examining what companies can do to ensure the safety of the food we eat. HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points) is part of the food-safety program administered by the FDA designed to ensure that food producers develop effective internal programs to both protect from and discover food-borne diseases before the food makes its way to our tables. While HACCP is mandatory for some industries, companies have a great deal of leeway in how they implement the program.

As I mentioned, HACCP is only part of a food-safety program which responsible companies should enact. To give you an idea of how challenging it can be for a company to develop and implement a comprehensive and effective food-safety program, here are the five fundamental and five ancillary programs recommended in an article in Food Safety Magazine:

 

1.         Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs)

2.         Sanitation

3.         Regulatory Compliance

4.         Quality Control

5.         HACCP

6.         Allergen Control

7.         Testing & Verification

8.         Auditing

9.         Employee Training & Education

10.       Biosecurity

As you can see, implementing an effective food-safety program is no small task. And of course there is a price tag attached to all these “best practices.” How much? The Produce Marketing Association estimates that a large company would pay approximately .6% (yes, less than 1%!) of its annual sales in order to implement a food-safety program. The same article which computes an estimate of the cost also recommends that companies consider the cost of such a program as an investment in the business, which makes perfect sense. By enacting a good food-safety program a company is investing to protect sales and to secure future customers. As the article points out, the costs of a recall or food-borne disease outbreak to a company can be catastrophic.

A study by the Produce Safety Project puts the total cost of food-borne disease in the U.S. at $152 billion annually. The study looked at the cost of emergency and ongoing health care, pain and suffering, and death attributable to food-borne illnesses, even those from an unverified source. The cost to companies involved in a food-borne disease outbreak is not included in the $152 billion figure! There is no way to know how much financial damage a food-borne disease will cause a company until after it happens, but some recent examples are informative. During the first quarter of 2009, Kellogg’s spent $27 million on recalls; a 2006 recall cost Hershey’s $14.5 million; and in 2009, voluntary food recalls cost General Mills $24 million. One way that companies can mitigate losses from an outbreak of food-borne disease linked to their products is through insurance. But how can a company protect from the bad press and loss of customer loyalty? This is one instance where an ounce of prevention is definitely worth a pound of cure!

Profit v. Safety

Since 1994, shortly after four children died from eating Jack in the Box burgers tainted with E. coli 0157:H7, it has been illegal to sell meat “adulterated” with that particular strain of E. coli. Unfortunately, just because it is against the law doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Just ask 22-year-old Stephanie Smith, a children’s dance instructor who fell ill after eating a grilled hamburger at her parents’ house in late 2007. The burger Stephanie ate was a frozen, pre-formed patty made by Cargill (one of America's largest AgriBusinesses) and marketed under the label “American Chef’s Selection Angus Beef Patties.” Which sounds pretty good, doesn’t it? Words such as “Chef’s Selection” and “Angus” sound solid and reliable, yet give very little information about the product. You probably know that ground beef is not a single chunk of meat put through a grinder. It is meat from more than one animal, more than one cut of meat, and even more than one slaughterhouse. All of this increases the risk of contamination with a food-borne disease. So why would a company like Cargill make ground beef this way? It is all about the profit.

Let’s take a look at how meat from numerous sources makes its way into ground beef patties. In Cargill’s case, the company bought “beef trimmings” and a “mash-like product” that came from a plant in Wisconsin. The meat in the “mash” came from slaughterhouses in Nebraska, Texas, and Uruguay (so much for “American” on the label!) and from a North Dakota company that takes fatty trimmings, grinds them up, and processes them with ammonia to kill the bacteria. There is no requirement that the suppliers of meat trimmings or mash test their products for E. coli or any other contamination. So, after Cargill (and other companies) grinds the meat, trimmings, and mash together to make ground beef they do the testing, right? Well, sort of. The USDA program for food safety inspections, HACCP (Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Points) is actually conducted by the companies who produce the ground beef. The program is designed to be preventative in nature, with companies evaluating the processes it uses and identifying where and how contaminants are likely to enter the food chain.

Companies are encouraged to require suppliers to test their products prior to selling them, but many suppliers are hesitant to do so for fear that word of a contamination would damage business with other companies to whom the grinder sold their products. This just adds to the difficulty with tracing-back the initial source of contamination when there is an outbreak of a food-borne disease. If suppliers were willing to test their products before shipping them to the companies that produce the final product, it would probably reduce the incidence of food-borne disease from the consumption of ground beef. We know what was in the burger Stephanie Smith ate, but it is not clear where the E. coli 0157:H7 which shattered her life entered the food product. Ms. Smith recently reached a settlement with Cargill for an undisclosed sum which includes care for the rest of her life. You have to wonder if Cargill thinks that the 25 percent it saves on every pound of ground beef sold is worth it. I would bet that Stephanie Smith doesn’t think so.