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.

Peach movement

Buying local is still better, say letter writers

Doug Powell and K-State' s Food Safety Network pass on this link to The New York Times Op-Ed page, where six letters were printed maintaining that buying local is better, notwithstanding some contrary facts brought to light by columnist James McWilliams, covered here in Fresh Talk earlier.

Here is a representative letter:

While I applaud James E. McWilliams’s tacit recognition that the issue of food sustainability is not as trivial as “eat locally,” I believe that he misses an important and fundamental aspect of the transition to any form of environmental, social or economic sustainability.
His argument assumes that our society will be able to maintain our current quality and quantity of consumption in a sustainable future. While this might be a best-of-all-possible-worlds scenario, it is far more likely — if not certain — that our patterns of consumption will be forced to change.
We might not necessarily eat less (though many argue for this on health grounds), but we should anticipate that our diets will conform more to the available foods than to our epicurean whims. As some new food books suggest, a more geographically and temporally local diet can not only be healthier for the body and the environment, but can also be more interesting and flavorful.


TK: I'm not sure what event, or combination of events, will force our patterns of consumption to change. Looking at the recent trends with imported fruits and vegetables, the American diet should continue to grow more diverse than ever. I don't think a heavy tax on food miles is a supportable policy for the American consumer.

Fresh Talk/discussion board roundup

Fresh Talk Poll question - 2 days left: As to the question if United and PMA should merge, 71% of the limited number voting so far say yes. That's higher than I would have suspected, but we'll see what the numbers say at the end of the poll period.

Discussion board threads Monday morning:

USDA announces additional funds to combat light brown apple moth Link to USDA news release by Big Apple

FDA takes action against Iowa dairy High level of antibiotics spur FDA move, link posted by Big Apple

Dengue fever expanding foothold in Texas Big Apple posts story noting: Dengue fever expanding its foothold in Texas. Dengue fever is gaining a firmer foothold in southern Texas, putting residents at risk for the most dangerous form of the disease, dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says. A dengue outbreak in the Brownsville, TX, area in 2005 involved 25 hospital cases, 16 of which were classified as DHF, the CDC says. The 2005 outbreak in the Brownsville area was heralded by a DHF case in a Brownsville woman who fell ill in late June. The CDC says the woman's illness marked the first DHF case in a Texas resident native to the Texas−Mexico border area. A locally acquired DHF case in the area was reported in 2004, but the patient was originally from Southeast Asia and probably had acquired her first dengue infection there. About two months after the Brownsville woman's case, in late August of 2005, Mexican health officials in Tamaulipas state, across the border from Brownsville, told their Texas counterparts that a dengue fever outbreak in the state had grown to 1,251 cases

UK suppliers believe British supermarkets "too powerful"

Well, this is a shock. UK suppliers believe supermarkets there wield too much power. From the BBC report:


The report by Grant Thornton says 25% of suppliers have had an order greatly reduced or cancelled by supermarkets at short notice, without compensation.
Around 80% expect more supply firms to go bust, with over half of those blaming the supermarkets. But the British Retail Consortium says competition and rising costs are also causing hardship among suppliers.
The survey from the accountancy firm reveals 80% of food suppliers say supermarkets are too powerful.
'Unreasonable practices'
It suggests two-thirds of suppliers do not have formal contract terms with supermarkets, which can result in last-minute changes and complications.
A fifth of all suppliers also said supermarkets have extended the time they take to pay up, while almost 80% of suppliers said they had been put under pressure to lower prices.
Grant Thornton says while supermarkets in most cases behave as any reputable business would, unreasonable practices do occur, putting a financial strain on suppliers.
Defending the supermarkets, the British Retail Consortium says the report mentions other factors causing hardship to suppliers.
And it also points to the current Competition Commission investigation into supermarkets, which it says has so far found no evidence of market abuse.

TK: While there has been consolidation resulting from the concentration of retail power, suppliers in the U.S. and the U.K. face other significant challenges beyond supermarket abuse of power. Increasing regulation of food safety, air quality, chemical use, labor law and aspects of the environment at the grower/shipper level may be an equally forceful reason for supplier consolidation in the years ahead.