Stalking a killer in our greens

The Los Angeles Times published a long feature today with the headline, "Stalking a killer in our greens," written by Marla Cone. The story focuses on Earthbound Farm.
It begins...

SAN JUAN BAUTISTA, CALIF. -- San Juan Bautista, Calif.On a hot, bone-dry afternoon -- not unlike the one last summer when something went horribly wrong here -- Will Daniels stands on the edge of a field, its neat rows of seeded soil stretching toward the horizon. Any day now, the first glossy leaves of a new crop will sprout, and within weeks, tons of fresh salad greens will be harvested, processed and sent to market.Daniels wishes he could rewind the clock to Aug. 15, 2006. Stop workers from picking that lethal crop. Shut down his processing lines. Drive the trucks straight to a landfill and dump the entire load. Do something, anything, to avoid sending to market bags of baby spinach that killed three people, including a 2-year-old boy, and sickened at least 200 others, many with kidney failure.Before that outbreak, whenever Daniels visited the fertile fields of the Salinas Valley or watched his production lines, he saw a wholesome, nutritious product he was proud to provide. "We thought we were the best, but clearly that wasn't enough," said Daniels, who oversees food safety at Earthbound Farm.Earthbound, the nation's largest producer of gourmet salad greens, founded and owns Natural Selection Foods, which processed the bagged spinach that caused one of the worst food-poisoning outbreaks in recent years.Days after the tragedy unfolded in mid-September, the company hired food safety microbiologist Mansour Samadpour. Right off the bat, Samadpour told Daniels and Earthbound Farm President Charles Sweat that they were delusional if they thought it wouldn't happen again."Another bullet is coming your way," he warned. "The question you have to answer is, will the processing eliminate the hazard? The answer for this industry is no. You can reduce; you cannot eliminate." Under the scientist's guidance, Earthbound rapidly put in place the most aggressive testing and safety program in the industry. All its greens are now checked for pathogens, from seed to sale. Each lot is tested twice -- upon arrival from a farm, and again when packaged products roll off processing lines. The testing has confirmed what Samadpour already suspected: Inevitably, some crops are still contaminated with disease-causing bacteria. The challenge for the company is to make sure none reaches consumers. Hunting down pathogens in produce has become a personal crusade at Earthbound Farm. In the year since the E. coli outbreak, the company has subjected about 120 million pounds of salad greens to new testing methods at a cost of several million dollars. Other companies have mounted costly safety efforts, but no one else tests all greens.

The story concludes:

Michael Doyle, the industry's most vocal critic, said Earthbound "has made major strides in making products safer.""I believe that Earthbound is now the industry leader in providing food safety interventions to fresh-cut salads," he said. "The rest of the industry would be well-advised to follow Earthbound's lead."Nevertheless, Doyle, who is director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety, still won't eat Earthbound's food, or any pre-cut, bagged fruits and vegetables, because they are more prone to contamination than whole produce."The problem is they don't have a bulletproof intervention," Doyle said. "I still feel they have a ways to go. But I also think they are committed to have a product as safe as pasteurized milk."Sweat's ultimate goal is to make bagged greens so safe that Doyle will accept his invitation to have a salad for lunch. Earthbound employees are motivated -- and still haunted -- by victims of the food poisoning, particularly a 2-year-old Wisconsin boy who died after his mother made him a spinach smoothie."When I got word of that, it took me to my knees. Each one is devastating, but that was absolutely the most heart-wrenching thing I have ever gone through," Sweat said. "For me to sit down at the table with a consumer who is going to eat one of our products, I need to be able to look them in the eye and tell them we are doing everything we can."


TK: I think nearly all people that read this feature have an appreciation for the work that Earthbound Farm has done to prevent another outbreak. Kudos for Earthbound officials to make themselves available to the media.