Pot calling the kettle

Wait a sec, PP. I can't believe you are actually unloading on Fresh & Easy for a product recall relating to PCA peanut butter. In the PP's March 12 post, Jim puts Fresh & Easy under the bus over the issue. This long rant (how many more electrons must die in Jim's dogged criticism of Fresh & Easy?) calls Fresh & Easy "sanctimonious" because, well. here is an excerpt:

And this tone has not diminished even as it has become perfectly clear that Fresh & Easy is a colossal failure. In its recent newsletter, Tesco’s Fresh & Easy headlines its newsletter:

Budget prices. Quality you can trust. Why compromise?

Once again, Tesco highlights this idea that you can “trust” Tesco’s Fresh & Easy as opposed, one supposes, to American retailers whose product cannot be trusted.

Yet, as we suspected from the beginning, it is all hyperbole, smoke and mirrors. The latest case in point is seen in this recall notice:

Later...

Now we don’t particularly fault Fresh & Easy for getting caught up in this Peanut Corporation of America recall; most US retailers did. We fault them for being sanctimonious.

The mighty Tesco didn’t send its crack food safety squad down to vet the plant or if it did, they found no more than anyone else.

What he doesn't say is that there have been over 2,000 products recalled relating to PCA peanut butter. Find retailers like Wegmans, Wal-Mart, Kroger, Hy-Vee, etc. on the recall list. If Jim wants Fresh & Easy to bear the brunt of ferreting out problems at the manufacturer of an ingredient in its private label chewy sweet and salty granola bar, well, I guess the British are guilty as charged. In fact, it's an outrage; why are Tesco execs not being called to the carpet before Congress for their inability to fix theU.S. food safety system?


Later, Jim suggests:

There are two things about this release that make us ask if it is not possible that Tesco’s Fresh & Easy has actually been putting its own commercial interests ahead of the health and safety of its consumers.

TK: Don't go there, Jim. In a way, I want PP to stop the Tesco bashing and give it a well deserved rest. In another respect, it's an incredibly compelling grudge match that is impossible to ignore.



The PCA peanut butter linked foodborne illness outbreak may well be the one that pushes food safety legislation over the top. Coverage from Web Md today referred to talk of a new consumer poll:
The poll shows that most participants, 93 percent, had heard about peanut product recalls linked to the salmonella outbreak. But when half of those aware participants were asked about the extent of those recalls, there were a lot of wrong answers. For instance, out of 609 people who said they were aware of the peanut product recalls, 60 percent didn't know ice cream was involved, 47 percent didn't know candy was involved, and 25 percent said they thought major national brands of peanut butter were involved. But in fact, major national brands of peanut butter sold in grocery stores aren't linked to the outbreak and haven't been recalled.