Tag Archives: recall

USDA strengthens procedures for detecting and removing unsafe ground beef

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced new procedures that will allow the agency to trace contaminated ground beef back to its source more quickly, remove it from commerce, and find the root cause of the incident to prevent it from recurring. The changes being announced today build on other initiatives the agency has instituted this summer to improve the safety of ground beef, including a proposed requirement that retailers keep records of their ground beef source suppliers and new laboratory methods the agency is using to test these products for multiple pathogens at one time. 

hamburger.grind“A critical component of preventing foodborne illness is quickly identifying sources of contamination and removing unsafe products from store shelves,” said Brian Ronholm, Deputy Under Secretary for Food Safety.  “The expedited traceback procedures being announced today will allow FSIS to take action more quickly, which will make a significant difference in food safety investigations and in preventing foodborne illnesses.”

Under the new traceback procedures, FSIS will conduct immediate investigations at businesses whose ground beef tests positive for E. coli O157:H7 during initial testing and at suppliers that provided source materials. These traceback investigations will begin as soon as FSIS receives a presumptive positive result and the grinding facility can provide supplier information. Previously, FSIS began investigations at the grinding facility only after a presumptive positive test result was confirmed, which can take two days. A similar investigation of the grinding facility’s suppliers would have taken place 30 days later, and more intensive investigations of suppliers will now also begin immediately. Beginning investigations at the point of a presumptive positive test result can save FSIS valuable time.  

As part of the traceback investigation, FSIS will review establishment records to determine whether the grinding or supplying establishment’s food safety system experienced a breakdown. The agency will also determine whether the supplying establishment shipped product that may be contaminated to other grinding facilities or further processors. If so, FSIS will take steps to have that product removed from commerce.

FSIS estimates that dozens more recalls may occur once these new protections are in place. By expediting investigations and more quickly removing unsafe product from commerce, FSIS is taking another step to strengthen public health protections and prevent foodborne illnesses.

The improved traceback procedures will be fully implemented 60 days after publication in the Federal Register on October 14, 2014. The Federal Register Notice is available at http://www.fsis.usda.gov/wps/wcm/connect/a054fc30-2af6-4ea5-a9e9-468c2df788e8/2011-0009.pdf?MOD=AJPERES.  

Costco calls customers to let them know of recalled fruit

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While it might make data conspiracy folks antsy Costco continues to put purchase tracking to good use (sorta, as this Listeria/stone fruit situation may not be that much of a public health risk). According to bustle.com  Costco has been directly calling members who purchased recalled Wawona Packing Co. fruit based on a real-time database of purchases.Unknown-2

Craig Wilson, vice president of quality assurance and food safety at Costco, told HuffPo that the company keeps a log of every single item customers purchase.

We know every item that everybody purchases every day. If there’s an issue with an item — be it ground beef, peaches, socks or tires — we can contact the members that purchased the item, because we have a record of that purchase.

So, seems all that creepy data collecting can be put to good use once in a while. In fact, this isn’t the first time Costco has used its consumer data to help in cases related to foodborne illness: The company teamed up with the Centers For Disease Control and Prevention and local investigators to help track the source of a salmonella outbreak in 2010.

According to Wilson, Costco even mailed follow-up letters to consumers after the initial phone calls. If only our roommates could be this thorough when warning us the milk has gone bad.

Identifying and connecting with customers that have purchased recalled items is a good strategy. That’s the kind of action that demonstrates the food safety culture of a business. Telling customers how this incident changes Costco’s supplier specifications/verification (at all) and how internal decisions are made are a next step in pulling back the curtain on food safety for the public.

(This is satire): FDA recalls food, out of an abundance of caution

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Saying it was vitally important that citizens avoid consuming any of the affected items, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a nationwide recall of all food Wednesday. “We are asking all Americans to return any edible products they own to the store where these items were purchased or to discard such items immediately,” margaret_hamburgsaid FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg at a morning press conference, specifying that under no circumstances should Americans eat grains, meats, produce, nuts, dairy products, processed foodstuffs, sweets, spices, or any other source of sustenance, nor should they feed any of these foods to animals or leave them within the reach of children.

“If you are eating something right now, please discontinue doing so. We will let you know when it is okay to consume food again.” Hamburg noted that salt, baking soda, and all foods manufactured before 2002 were unaffected by the recall.

Aussie recall guide available on-line

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The Food Industry Recall Protocol (Protocol) provides information on recalling food in Australia and guidance for food businesses on developing a written food recall plan.

xray. total.recallA food recall is action taken to remove from distribution, sale and consumption, food which is unsafe. This means food that may cause illness or other physical harm to a person the food.

The three primary objectives of a food recall are to:

Stop the distribution and sale of the product as soon as possible

Inform the government, the food businesses that have received the recalled food and the public (consumer level recalls only) of the problem

Effectively and efficiently remove unsafe product from the market place.

This Protocol provides guidance only and is not legally binding; however it outlines legal requirements relating to food recalls that are enforceable by the state and territory governments. Food Standards Australia New Zealand (FSANZ) developed the Protocol in consultation with Australian state and territory governments and the food industry.

Recall systems should be tailored to the individual needs of a food business. A business may seek independent advice (including legal advice) about the system it develops for food recalls.

This Protocol does not apply to recalls conducted in New Zealand. The New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (NZ MPI) coordinates recalls in New Zealand. FSANZ and the NZ MPI liaise regularly on food recalls to establish whether any food subject to a recall has been exported to Australia or New Zealand.

Florida producer recalls curly parsley due to Salmonella; suggests FDA mandated recall

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Parsley (the flat leaf kind) is the herb I most often mistake for cilantro while shopping the produce aisle. I’m not sure if I’ve ever purchased curly parsley, a fresh herb often used in Mediterranean and Lebanese salads (and as a plate garnish).  Parsley_Curled

According to the Packer, Roth Farms says that FDA required them to conduct a recall after a sample of their curly parsley tested positive for Salmonella.

A Florida grower says the Food and Drug Administration is mandating a recall of curly parsley five weeks after it was harvested — and long after its shelf life had expired — after a positive test for Salmonella.

However, FDA spokeswoman Theresa Eisenman said the recall is voluntary.

Rick Roth, owner of Roth Farms Inc., Belle Glade, Fla., said he is cooperating with the agency, but the recall was not voluntary. No illnesses have been reported in connection with the Roth Farms parsley.

“We were told it was required,” Roth said Feb. 13.

Roth Farms harvested the parsley Jan. 7. The company’s agent said FDA notified Roth Farms of the positive test result on Feb. 11.

Managing and recovering from a recall is tough enough without the added he said/she said rhetoric. A better message would be that Roth Farms recalled product to protect the folks who eat parsley, and, that they are investigating the source of contamination while evaluating their systems.

Crisis? What Crisis: Texas meat company remains silent on E. coli-related beef recall

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I don’t know why a little-known Fort Worth meat company that recalled nearly 16,000 pounds of beef would want to hurt its image, but saying nothing is a bad strategy – one that even big firms do routinely.

Sometimes it makes sense, because there’s nothing to say, and platitudes make things worse, but when you’re listed as the PR contact as PFP Enterprises President Jim Piep is, 96_supertramp_crisisdeclining to comment just raises suspicion.

It’s OK to say you don’t know. It’s a simple playbook: this is what we know, this is what we don’t know, this is what we’re doing to find out more.

According to a report in the Star-Ledger, USDA cannot compel a private company to respond to media requests for information.

PFP’s registered agent is Lucas Melott, who is chief financial officer of a Dallas meat company named Patterson Food Processors. Melott declined to say whether the two firms are related or answer other questions.

Charles Sanger of Charleston\Orwig, said in a recent report that companies too often “default to a bunker mentality” to wait out the media storm.

“This can be a critical, if not fatal, error, particularly in the 21st century communications landscape in which we all operate,” he said. “This all is magnified in the food system, where issues often are related to food safety and take the form of recalls of food products, at times with associated risks to human health,” Sanger wrote.

Wholesale Co linked to horsemeat bankrupt; bid to halt mass meat recall fails

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A Dutch court has rejected a meat wholesaler’s bid to quash an order recalling 50,000 tonnes of beef potentially contaminated with horsemeat.

“The court rejects the request for a preliminary injunction,” on Dutch food authority NVWA’s recall of meat handled by Willy Selten, judge Reinier van Zutphen said at the commercial court in The Hague on Thursday.

Businessman Selten, allegedly a key player in Europe’s horsemeat scandal, had sought to overturn the NVWA’s order to recall all meat sold by the horse.meat.09company over the past two years.

The watchdog recalled 50,000 tonnes of beef suspected to have been contaminated with horse, asking hundreds of companies across Europe supplied by Selten to check their products.

Selten’s company was on Tuesday declared bankrupt and placed under curatorship.

Lawyer Peters had argued on Tuesday that the recall was “disproportionate” and “bizarre and bordering on the mass hysteria gripping the whole of Europe”.

He said there had never been a complaint in the 22 years in which Selten’s company distributed meat from the small Dutch town of Oss, stressing: “All his meat comes from within the European Union.”

The NVWA said it had sent a letter to 130 Dutch companies who were supplied with possible horse-contaminated beef from the Selten company, asking them to “take it off the market as a precautionary measure” and “verify all products.”

Yup, I said that: ‘porn industry more responsible than food industry’ here’s why

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Who doesn’t like to wake up to porn.

Food porn.

Someone over at Food Production Daily, a web news service that seems to have an alarmingly more number of readers than I do, decided to watch a doug.braun.sorenne.capitalsvideo of a talk I posted last week and recorded three weeks ago.

 “… I would argue the porn industry is more responsible than the food industry, ‘cos the food industry says, ‘well you have got to cook your pot pies’ or ‘you have to cook your hamburger.’

“The porn industry says ‘just use a condom’ and they shut down if they get a positive [indicator of a fault], just like that.”

Not quite, but transcribing can be challenging.

To the food industry types who e-mailed me with outrage, here’s what I did say, with surrounding context:

“Bacteria don’t care; there are outbreaks at big places, there are outbreaks at small places, there are outbreaks in local food, there’s outbreaks in food from around the globe. People either know about bacteria and take steps to reduce the risk, or they don’t. And what I want to be able to do is buy from the people that take those steps, and let me know about it, because at the supermarket, it’s all faith-based (safety).

“In fact, I would argue the porn industry is more responsible than the food industry. Because the food industry says, you have to cook your pot pies, or you have to cook your hamburger, or you have to cook your eggs. That’d be like the porn industry saying, use a condom, when, they shut down when they get a positive just like that. The whole food safety message is sorta lost in the overwhelming amount of messages involving food porn.

“What do we learn from all these outbreaks? Food safety begins on the farm and goes all the way through the systems; these are biological systems, not conspiracies; any system is only as good as its weakest link; and, stop blaming consumers.”

(I’m much more efficient with words when writing than babbling at a computer in the early morning).

I also compared food safety to coaching girls’ hockey, and wondered why is it I needed 30-something hours of training to coach a travel team of 9-year-old girls, but needed nothing to prepare food in Ontario, Canada?

My food industry critics didn’t mention that comparison.

While still awakening to the love letters about 4 a.m., another arrived, via Gustavo Arellano of OC Weekly, that I had nothing to do with.

“Kansas State professor Doug Powell is a legend in the food safety industry, and not just because his blog is called barfblog. He’s someone who always criticizes anyone in food–whether celebrity chefs, food producers, government inspectors, and others–who dismiss bacteria as harmless microorganisms, who doesn’t have safety on the top of their list.

“And in a video he recorded last week, Powell took it further: he stated that the porn industry is “more responsible” than the food industry. …

“For those of you who don’t know your porn: producers in California always immediately shut down all productions whenever there’s a report of a performer with HIV–no exceptions. Powell’s argument was that the food industry, when confronted with outbreaks, puts the blame on the consumers, not themselves, while porn does the opposite. …

“This isn’t the first time the profe has stated his golden quote. Back in 2010, he said the same on his blog. Powell’s blurb starts at around 21:17, but listen to the whole thing: not only is it informative, it’s HILARIOUS!”

Writing in all caps and with exclamation marks scares me. But as an obituary, Gustavo’s got it pretty much right, although Amy pointed out I’m not just that way with food safety types, it’s with everyone, and the real reason we don’t get invited to dinner (Journey sucks).

I tried to be reflective and said, “the problem with legends is they usually die young.”

Amy said,”You’re not young.”

It’s poop: E. coli found on Taylor Farms organic spinach; recall launched

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When did press release writing drones come up with the phrase, “out of an abundance of caution?” It seems to be appearing in every recall release.

How about, “in the course of doing our job to provide safe food, we found dangerous E. coli on our raw spinach and decided it would be a good idea to warn
org_traysal_bbyspnpeople.”

But I don’t get paid the big bucks.

Taylor Farms Retail, Inc. is initiating a voluntary recall of select Organic Baby Spinach products with the potential to be contaminated with (EHEC) Enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli.

(That’s the nasty kind)

The company is cooperating with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and California Department of Public Health (CDPH) regarding this recall. There have been no reported illnesses attributed to the recalled items.

How was this positive picked up, through internal or random testing? What is the strain of E. coli? Where did it come from?

And who knew what when?