Victim of their own success

Luis of the Fresh Produce Industry Discussion Group first linked to this AP story reads "Food industry bitten by its lobbying success"


One of the worst outbreaks of foodborne illness in the U.S. is teaching the food industry the truth of the adage, "Be careful what you wish for because you might get it."
The industry pressured the Bush administration years ago to limit the paperwork companies would have to keep to help U.S. health investigators quickly trace produce that sickens consumers, according to interviews and government reports reviewed by The Associated Press.
The White House also killed a plan to require the industry to maintain electronic tracking records that could be reviewed easily during a crisis to search for an outbreak's source. Companies complained the proposals were too burdensome and costly, and warned they could disrupt the availability of consumers' favorite foods.
The apparent but unintended consequences of the lobbying success: a paper record-keeping system that has slowed investigators, with estimated business losses of $250 million. So far, nearly 1,300 people in 43 states, the District of Columbia and Canada have been sickened by salmonella since April.

Later....

The FDA official in charge of the current salmonella investigation, David Acheson, said the agency slowly is reviewing paper records to help trace tainted produce. But Acheson disputed arguments that an electronic records system would necessarily have helped investigators.

TK: One of the intriguing sidebars to the Congressional hearings upcoming will be the debate about traceability and what more needs to be done. Lawmakers will say the industry is "clamoring for regulation" but industry may not agree. Check this story for another report on traceability: "Tracing tomatoes from field to fork" From that AP story:

My impression is that before this tomato-pepper outbreak, the industry really didn't want traceback, because if they had a problem they didn't want it traced to a specific grower," said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia. "Now, seeing that what can happen can shut down the whole industry, I would think it's to their advantage to enable traceback investigations to focus on the source."
Even if the government doesn't require tracing, some major retailers do.
"We like to get back to the dirt, or in the case of tomatoes, the hothouse," said Craig Wilson, assistant vice president for food safety and quality at Costco. Verifying the supply chain is a specification, just as freshness would be. Vendors are required to maintain records, which Costco audits at least annually.

Later in the story....

For Canadian cattle, FoodLogiQ's system works through a radio frequency ID tag put on every calf's ear at birth so its movements can be recorded. The system got its first emergency workout when mad cow disease was discovered in a Canadian cow in 2003, requiring traceback to the farm of origin before U.S. trade could resume, Kennedy said.
For produce, his company would assign an identifying tag to each case or pallet, rather than to an individual tomato or other item. It costs roughly 25 cents a tag, Kennedy said in a cell phone interview this week from a field belonging to Eastern Carolina Organics, a co-op implementing his system.
If the produce case is repacked into different boxes along the way to the grocery store or restaurant, the tag identifier would be added to the new container, much like drug companies today track their ingredients, Kennedy said.