When pushback comes to shove

There is a post on the Food Safe message board that talks of "industry pushback" relative to possible food safety reform, and particularly the idea that industry believes that traceback was not the problem in the outbreak investigation. From the board Roy wrote:


It does not take long for the spin doctors and lobbyists to go to work when Congress is considering mandating traceability. Of course traceback is critically important in an outbreak.


I followed on several comments on Roy's post by posting the column that Bryan Silbermann and Tom Stenzel co-wrote for this week's Packer. I noted that I don't see "pushback" in their words as much as a desire by industry leaders to have a say in how they are regulated. An excerpt from that opinion piece from Stenzel and Silbermann:



Long term, we all must accept the reality that our industry's days of "business as usual" are over. After the spinach outbreak in 2006, some said we were just one big outbreak away from mandatory food safety laws being passed by Congress. And now, that outbreak is here. In part because of its flaws, some very important stakeholders -- legislators, regulators and consumers -- have found our food safety efforts to be lacking and are demanding change. Thunder can already be heard from Capitol Hill to FDA headquarters. Hearings are being scheduled, bills are being introduced, regulations are being drafted. Meanwhile, consumers are showing their displeasure with their wallets. The Food Marketing Institute reports that 84% of surveyed consumers said they stopped buying some produce in 2007. While food safety brings added costs to our business, losing consumers is a cost none of us can bear. Our industry's key focus now should be to exert as much control as possible over our destiny moving forward. We are, after all, in the best position to lead the task at hand.


You want industry pushback? As one industry leader told me in a recent email about upcoming Congressional hearings....

"Still...the type of guy that needs to be heard is the shipper's salesman who had every load in gas room inventory sold on June 4, didn't pick after that date, then had them all given back to them by the 9th, and they rotted in the room.

Or the repacker who had (operators) empty their houses in reverse, sending every tomato they had back to the guy that sold it to them. In effect, 'take these back or we'll never do business again'.