Tag Archives: Campbell

SpaghettiOs with meatballs recalled due to possible under-processing from plant in Paris, Texas

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Paris, Texas is a great Wim Wenders movie, but slow, depressing with fabulous music by Ry Cooder, whom I want to get to sing my eulogy.
It’s also not the movie to watch the day of a wedding engagement, like me and my ex did in 1984; does not portend well.

Amy and I drove through Paris, Texas, a couple of years ago, but we didn’t get depressed or divorced (we also didn’t watch the movie).

Campbell Soup Company has it’s own Paris, Texas – a plant that makes SpaghettiOs in Paris, Texas – and their meatballs may not be cooked.

So Campbell’s has recalled:

* “SpaghettiOs” with Meatballs in 14.75-ounce cans;
* “SpaghettiOs” A to Z with Meatballs in 14.75-ounce cans; and
* “SpaghettiOs” Fun Shapes with Meatballs (Cars) in 14.75-ounce cans.

Daughter Sorenne likes the pasta/sugary/salt/sauce thingies like SpaghettiOs, and we had a can of the stuff, although not the meatball one. But with Katie finally completing her epic journey to Manhattan (Kansas), and me making lunch for everyone today, I went with whole-wheat rotini, and a sauce of garlic, onion, red pepper, tomatoes, chicken stock, chili sauce, a bunch of basil from our expanding basil patch and shrimp.

The canned stuff can co-exist with the cooked stuff.

There is no information indicating that any under-processed product has reached consumers. In an abundance of caution – favorite new phrase by PRmeisters — the three varieties of “SpaghettiOs” with Meatballs products that may have been under-processed are being retrieved from the marketplace.
 

Campbell’s boss smoking … soup? Calls for Canadian-style food safety regs

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Campbell Soup boss Doug Conant told the Canadian Embassy in Washington last night that the U.S. should abandon its two-regulator format for food and adopt a one-agency model like Canada’s, which would be more effective than product-label laws, adding,

“If the government of Canada can monitor the safety of its food products with one single food-inspection agency, why can’t the United States?”

There are probably other reasons Conant would like to clone the Canadians. If there’s ever an outbreak of foodborne disease, the public will hear about it last from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In last year’s listeria shitfest in which 22 died, the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province of Ontario, Dr. David Williams, complained that CFIA waited nearly a month to inform health officials that contaminated ready-to-eat meats were being distributed to grocery stories — a dangerous delay in issuing a product recall.

But Dr. Brian Evans, executive vice president and Chief Veterinary Officer of Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, wrote in the Ottawa Citizen that CFIA acted promptly once they were informed of a food source associated with two illnesses in a nursing home. Scientific evidence of contaminated meat products was confirmed on the evening of Aug. 16, 2008 and the CFIA issued a public advisory and recall eight hours later in the early morning hours of Aug. 17, 2008.

Apparently, only positive product tests count as real science at CFIA. Epidemiology, dead bodies, these are mere distractions. Is that really what the Campbell’s dude is endorsing?