As UK police made arrests at the two food plants raided jointly with the Food Standards Agency on Tues., the uber-witty Economist says “big retailers and producers have brands to protect, so they are vigilant.”
Hilarious.
An audit by Tesco of its suppliers “is one of the most feared and respected things in the industry,” says Michael Walker, a food-safety consultant. “How come it didn’t pick this up?”
The story is dominating local news: illicit activity, selling something not as advertised, possible links with organized crime.
Footy in Australia is under intense scrutiny as government types realize, there may be a problem. Like cycling and the Tour de France.
Like horse meat substituting for other meat apparently throughout the EU.
Doug Powell, a Kansas State University food safety expert, told the Toronto Star, “It isn’t really a food safety story at this point. It is food fraud. How could
someone not have known? Now you’ll get a lot of finger pointing.”
What I also said was that food fraud is centuries old, and that only now is technology available to provide data to support all kinds of food hucksterism.
I also mentioned that companies marketing stuff they don’t know about are the primary villains here; government and regulatory complacency is to be expected.
Ed Bedington, editor of Meat Trades Journal, told the BBC the Findus horse meat case has brought into question the security of supply chains.
“Retailers make great play about the audits they do and the robustness of the supply chain. But as a long-term observer of the sector, it calls all that into question.”
But rest assured Canadians, home of the Walkerton E. coli-in-water outbreak, 23 deaths from listeria-in-deli meats, and the 2003 downer-cattle-slaughtered-after-hours at Aylmer Meats: rapid DNA tests of 15 hamburgers by University of Guelph types has concluded they were all beef.
The New Seaway Fish Market, a fixture in Toronto’s Kensington Market, will reopen its doors Friday morning with new inventory after a rat infestation closed the fishmonger for several days.
“I’m really shocked,” proprietor Kim Chou told the Globe and Mail.
“This building is at least 100 years old, and gradually it got damaged. I have to say I didn’t really pay attention – that’s why the rats found entry 
to my store.”
The intruders were Norway rats, brown and sleek, and there were probably dozens of them on or around the premises, said Jim Chan, who manages the food safety program for Toronto Public Health.
In recent weeks, Mr. Chan’s staff have closed three other rodent-plagued food outlets downtown – one in Kensington, another on Spadina Avenue and a third on Gerrard Street – and he explains that what’s going on is no great mystery. It’s the rapidly changing weather, coupled with rats’ talent for crawling through extremely small holes. “When it’s cold, rodents such as rats like to burrow into structures, to wherever it’s warm.”
Then, when things warm up, they’re on the move again. “It all makes them mobile.”
ABC Action News reports that beginning Jan. 1, 2013, Florida’s Division of Hotels and Restaurants is implementing the new 2009 Food Code from the 2001 version. The agency claims it will make the inspection process easier to understand.
It includes a new three-tiered safety and sanitation system of high priority, intermediate and basic violations. This replaces the current 
critical and non-critical violation system.
“Either it was critical or non-critical but that put a lot of minor violations into the critical category,” said Chef Clyde Tanner. Tanner is the Academic Director at the Art Institute of Tampa’s Culinary School and he already teaches the new rules. He says they better evaluate a kitchen’s conditions.
“The high priority items are critical violations that will most likely lead to a foodborne illness. The intermediate is for violations that could potentially lead, if not corrected. And the bottom tier is just for minor violations,” Tanner explained.
The new 2009 Food Code will also prohibit serving raw or undercooked foods on a children’s menu and Tanner says that’s important as kids are more susceptible to pathogens.
“This is just for their safety and it decreases the liabilities against restaurants and does protect our children,” Tanner said.
My introduction to the real food and agriculture world was driving around Ontario with Doug and Amber Bailey. In the summer of 2001, we went on a trip to Leamington, Ontario to spend some time in greenhouses where Amber was collecting wash water and tomato samples for analysis and talking to the growers about risks. These trips were part of a program that Doug, Amber and Denton Hoffman, then General Manager of the Ontario Greenhouse Vegetable Growers, had created to protect the industry.
On that trip, Denton told me that what kept him up at night was the thought of a customer in Pittsburgh or Cleveland getting sick from one of his industry’s 200+ members products.
That one incident could close the border to the hundreds of thousands of pounds of tomatoes and cucumbers that were being shipped all over the Eastern U.S.
Trade matters in food safety – but making any customer sick isn’t great business.
The XL Foods/CFIA saga continues with drama that rivals an episode of Jersey Shore. According to the Toronto Star, CTV news obtained a set of memos from 2008, 2010 and 2011 that directed CFIA inspectors at XL Foods to focus their attention on beef that would be shipped to Japan.
The memo says, “Our number 1 priority is to ensure this standard is met with Japan eligible carcasses.Ensure that non-Japan-eligible carcasses are not inspected for spinal cord/dura mater, OCD (other carcass defects) and minor ingesta, Ignore them.”
CFIA has responded that the memo’s content has been taken out of context and that the memo had more to do with the division of inspection labor and who inspected for what and where.
On November 28, 2012, CTV reported on a four-year-old memo sent to inspectors at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). The union, which represents inspectors, has recently alleged the memo directed inspection staff at XL Foods Inc. to perform certain tasks for meat destined for export to Japan, while ignoring food safety controls for domestic meat. This is categorically false.
This information was clarified with the union and front line inspection staff over three weeks ago when the union first brought their allegations to the CFIA’s attention. It was also explained in detail on two occasions to CTV. What the union and CTV fail to mention is that every carcass processed in Canada must meet Canada’s high food safety standards. This is required by law. There is zero tolerance for any form of contamination, and critical control points to detect problems are in place at multiple points throughout the inspection process. If at any time during inspection a potential risk to food safety is detected – regardless of the product’s destination – the line is stopped and product is held until the concern is resolved and product is in compliance.
Lost in this whole mess is the dogmatic belief that people can magically see pathogens.
As we prepare to flee the summer stank of Brisbane for the Florida coast on the longest commercial flight in the world – Brisbane to Dallas — I’m comforted by my friend Roy Costa’s comments about airline food: it’s a time bomb.
ABC News 20/20 obtained lists of recent health violation records from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Over almost four years, the industry counted more than 1,500 health violations. “Significant” problems were found at a much higher rate than in other industries the 
FDA inspects, the agency said.
“You put that all together, and you have a time bomb,” said Roy Costa, a food-industry consultant and former health inspector (right, not exactly as shown).
FDA reported evidence of mice on Delta Airlines planes. In a statement, the airline said, “This clearly was an isolated incident and we cooperated with the FDA immediately to resolve it immediately after it was brought to our attention.”
For LSG Sky Chefs, the industry giant that provides food to many airlines, records showed company food facilities infested with ants crawling over discarded food, flies both dead and alive — and roaches all over.
If insects are in the room, they’re probably in the food, Costa said.
“You can’t have insect remains and feces of rodents and dead flies [in these areas],” Costa said.
In a statement, LSG Sky Chefs said, “Our facilities are inspected by several internal and external agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). As with any FDA inspection, documented observations are indicated on a 483 form and if observations are cited at our facilities we immediately review and correct. In two cases, the FDA 483 forms led to the issuing of warning letters that were immediately addressed by us to ensure complete FDA compliance.”
At company after company, the FDA saw things like dirty cooking areas, old or moldy products and employees not washing their hands.
And those who fly business or first class and think the curtain protects them from the risk of contaminated food should think again, Costa warned.
“Fancy food isn’t safe food. The bacteria really don’t care.”
Costa addressed the report in his own blog, writing, “The comments by industry are predictable. The “we didn’t do it” philosophy, “head in the sand” approach is 
apparent, in spite of spin doctor statements. When you get caught with these types of issues, the public is not going to listen to the rhetoric about how great your food safety programs are, quite the contrary. Not one of these spokespersons would admit that their company had a problem or offer solutions, its all about denial. We see this again and again, especially after outbreaks.
“I lay much of the blame at the feet of FDA. This agency has the authority to stop such conditions and they opt time and again to walk away from problems and not take the tough stand that as consumers we expect, except in the most egregious of cases. … Taking a tough stand by inspectors is personally costly, it means confrontation, its perilous to careers and even to ones personal safety. I know this only too well, so I am very grateful to have an opportunity to again stand some ground against the food industry representatives who want to claim all is well in the face of mounting sanitation and health code violations and deceive themselves and the public.
“This type of public confrontation is what we need to dispel the false sense of security the food industry and FDA has created for itself.”
The complete post is available here.
Roy, see you in Florida.
Traditional food safety messages don’t work: that’s why some 18 enforcement orders were served on businesses for breaches of food safety legislation last month in Ireland, the highest number served in any month in a decade.
The Food Safety Authority of Ireland said 12 closure orders and six prohibition orders were served on food businesses by environmental health officers or veterinary 
inspectors in October.
Four businesses were also successfully prosecuted by the Health Service Executive.
FSAI chief executive Prof Alan Reilly expressed his concern at the “high level” of non compliance with food safety regulations by some food businesses in October.
“The inspectors found illegal, unhygienic or unsafe foods, with significant breaches of food safety legislation that put people’s health at serious risk,” he said.
“There’s absolutely no justification for negligence in this area. The legal onus is on food businesses to act responsibly and ensure that the food they serve and sell is safe for consumption.
“This requires putting appropriate food safety management procedures in place and making sure they are adhered to at all times.”
Audits and inspections have problems – so the feds should leverage resources in other countries to monitor the safety of U.S. food imports.
I see problems there as well.
A new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office concludes the U.S. Food and Drug Administration should use comparability assessments that can enable the agency to 
leverage other countries’ oversight capacity and enforcement authority. This could result in some of the same advantages as the equivalence approach used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) and the European Union (EU) before specific food products can be imported.
Unless, like USDA, they just stop doing the equivalency audits.
Or, as argued by FDA-types, the agency expects few countries to seek comparability with the United States because, in part, most countries will not meet the FDA requirement that a foreign government’s domestic and export food safety systems be comparable to the U.S. system for food products under FDA’s jurisdiction. According to FDA documents, some countries have robust export certification programs for a specific food product, but their overall food safety systems, including domestic production systems, may not be comparable with those of the United States. Consequently, FDA would be unable to leverage the resources of countries with comparable systems for just one food product, such as seafood, which FDA has experience in assessing through its foreign country assessments.
I’m a fan of transparency for all things food, so when a Marin, California restaurant called the heath department to report a massive cockroach infestation – at its own restaurant, I thought, yeah.
Inside Scoop SF cites CBS which reports that Mill Valley’s Cafe del Soul — which describes itself as “a natural and organic cafe” — discovered “horrible” cockroach nests 
in between the walls of the restaurant and a neighboring business that happened to be remodeling.
The story gets weirder. Instead of closing (yes, they’re still open during said massive infestation) or keeping the problem hush-hush, they’re acting with full disclosure. In fact, they’re almost advertising it. To make matters stranger, even though Cafe del Soul called the health department on themselves, they are still allowed to stay open; per CBS, inspectors haven’t even inspected the restaurant yet.
Here’s the note that the owners of Cafe del Soul posted online and at the store:
To our Community,I feel I need to inform you of a situation that is out of our hands. Despite our best efforts to do and continue to do everything we can to keep our café and the surrounding areas as clean as possible, we feel we are fighting a losing battle because from what we have seen and experienced (been told by outside contractors) the building we are located in is infested with German cockroaches.
We are working with outside contractors and the building owner to eradicate the problem and will continue to do so, but because of the size of the problem a simple solution is not easy to find.
Thank you for your understanding and please talk to us about any questions and concerns that you have. Our hope is this information supports you in seeing what and how we do things to the best of our ability and trying to be as true and honest as we can.
All Staff & Supporters of Café del Soul.
After 23 people died linked to Maple Leaf cold-cuts in 2008, and 16 now sickened with E. coli O157 linked to the XL plant in Alberta, the person who is still, inexplicitly, the Canadian Minister of Agriculture, responsible for food safety activities, Gerry Ritz, has made his most revealing statement yet:
Government inspectors could have been “more hard-nosed.”
I’m not sure hard-nosed is a science- or evidence-based term that would be valued by a science-based organization like the Canadian Food 
Inspection Agency, which reports to Ritz.
Sarah Schmidt reports that while speaking to parliamentarians Ritz said,“Looking back, what would we have done different? I think CFIA would have been a lot harder-nosed on getting the material from XL rather than being nice, and going the format with the letter and so on. You stand banging at the door until you got it. But we weren’t seeing any illness spikes to drive us to decertification. That wasn’t happening,” while characterizing license decertification as a “nuclear strike.”
Compare that with getting E. coli O157.
On Sept. 6, CFIA verbally requested distribution information and testing results for all products produced on Aug. 24 and Aug. 28, the days when the affected products were made. The agency followed up a day later with a written request to provide the documents by Sept. 8.
The documents were provided over a two-day period, Sept. 10 and Sept. 11, and Ritz testified Thursday the company “was not that forthcoming.” And when the records rolled in, there were “boxes of paper work that then had to be analyzed.”
Ritz added: “I don’t think they were intentionally trying to hide anything,” but rather “giving voluminous paperwork to cover off the bases.”