Tag Archives: chicago

Grown in greenhouse or garden, produce must be safe to serve

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Ariz.-based Eurofresh Farms has, according to The Packer, developed a new food safety system, EnviroLock, that requires workers, and anyone entering produce-producing greenhouses, to pass through a sanitation facility before entering, wash and disinfect their hands and forearms, and don color-coded hospital-style scrubs, shoes, hairnets and gloves through the duration of their shift of stay.

That’s because anything that comes into contact with fresh produce has the potential to contaminate, is difficult to wash off, and outbreaks of foodborne illness are disastrous.

In Chicago, the Public School gardens are full of chubby tomatoes, heavy squash and fragrant basil but none of the produce ever finds its way into CPS lunchrooms. Instead, because of rules set by the district and its meal provider, the food is sold or given away.

The Chicago Tribune reports that the policies are in place despite the high obesity rate among Illinois children and experts’ concerns that young people are eating few fresh vegetables.

And that’s the problem with these stories, playing safety off against local and little kids.

Why not teach kids about food safety; instead of complaining that local is magically immune to microorganisms, embrace and market the food safety advantages of local markets – but only if it can be backed up with data.

Put the rhetoric aside and combine microbiologically safe with local – that means answering the same questions the big, controlled access greenhouses have to answer to sell their produce to Walmart and Costco and others: know and test the source of irrigation water, pay attention to the quality of soil amendments, let kids know the importance of handwashing and how dangerous bugs move around.

Big or small, be the bug, and be safe.
 

It’s the medium and the message: rapid reliable relevant repeated messages to combat recall fatigue

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Until three years ago, Kenneth Maxwell enjoyed Banquet chicken and turkey pot pies so much he ate them three or four times a week. They were easy to prepare, and Maxwell could eat one for lunch and quickly return to work as an electrician.

When cases of salmonella poisoning led the pies’ manufacturer, ConAgra Foods, to issue a product recall in the fall of 2007, Maxwell did not hear about it and continued to eat them. He bought several pot pies about two weeks after the recall was launched, when they should have been pulled from store shelves, and became violently ill, he said.

Steve Mills of the Chicago Tribune reports this morning that Maxwell’s experience reflects common problems with food recalls: They routinely fail to recover all of the product they seek and, according to experts, sometimes even leave tainted foods in stores, putting consumers at risk of becoming ill from potentially deadly foodborne pathogens.

If consumers are suffering from recall fatigue, what about retailers who are supposed to get potentially contaminated product off the shelves?

Communications about recalls with both the public and retailers, must be rapid, reliable, repeated and relevant, and that the produce outbreaks of 2006 marked significant changes in how recall stories were being told on Internet-based networking like YouTube, wikipedia, and blogs.

The Tribune story says a spokesman for Jewel-Osco’s corporate parent said relying on the media, posting shelf notices and making sure store employees are prepared to answer customers’ questions all have worked with recalls in the past.

Safeway, the parent of Dominick’s food stores, contacts shoppers directly in some recalls — typically smaller ones, said spokesman Brian Dowling. But in larger recalls, he said the company’s stores rely on other methods to get the word out, such as notices on store shelves and stories in newspapers and on TV and radio.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture recently released the Government’s Products Recall app for the Android smartphone at USA.gov website.

And it will be the same boring message. Marshall McLuhan famously said “The medium is the message” (that’s him above, right, in a scene from the movie, Annie Hall). With food safety recalls, it’s the medium and the message, if you want to get people’s attention.

The Maxwells said they have not eaten a Banquet pot pie since the recall.
 

Toronto is officially worst original 6 hockey team; Chicago wins Cup

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There’s no food safety here – other than the Stan Mikita Donuts used in the movie Wayne’s World, written by and starring Mike Myers of Toronto (Canada), riffing on Tim Hortons donuts.

With Chicago winning Lord Stanley’s Cup this evening for the first time since 1961, Toronto officially becomes the worst hockey franchise, probably ever. They haven’t won the Cup since 1967, and have gone the longest of the original six hockey teams that have not won the Cup.

But good for Tony Esposito, Chicago Blackhawks goodwill ambassador and best NHL goalie ever.

Chicago-area Subway shop shut after link to Shigella cases

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At least eight people are sick with Shigella and the common source appears to be a Subway restaurant in Lombard which has now been closed by the DuPage County Health Department.

Maryann O’Neill, principal of nearby Montini Catholic High School in Lombard, told the Chicago Tribune two students called in sick Wednesday with what she said was diagnosed as food poisoning, and it was her understanding they had eaten at Subway. One of the students was taken to a hospital emergency room.