FOOD SAFETY HITS THE BUSINESS NEWS

I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when reading the stock market news on the CNBC website – as I always do, usually at least twice a day. For once they actually covered the latest food recalls among all the talk of earnings, forecasts, bank frauds and so on. This was unusual. Analysts almost always ignore such events. Why not, if it doesn’t affect stock prices?

And, oddly enough, even the announcement of huge recalls never DO seem to impact the recalling company’s stock price. In all the years that I have been following both food recalls and the stock market, I have always found this hard to understand.

After all, recalls can be very expensive. Not only do the companies involved have to spend a lot of money on tracing where their food went, and getting it back, but it even costs them to safely dispose of it. Over the longer term, they often suffer in terms of a damaged brand and may lose customers. Food producer frequently have to spend a great deal of money overhauling or replacing their equipment and facilities and even close them down for a period of time. Many small and medium size companies or food growers or distributors never recover and go under.

I have often felt sorry for many good safety-conscious family enterprises and caught in this type of very unpleasant situation, especially if their products were contaminated through no fault of their own. This can happen when their ingredients suppliers were to blame, and they simply had no way of knowing. Even now, I remember the owner of one such small company weeping over the phone to me as the FDA inspectors were crawling over his business, and I also remember several small women-owned food production companies, where I knew how hard the owners had worked and how conscientious they were about food safety, but I doubted they would survive.

So back to CNBC. What suddenly prompted their attention to the hummus, walnut and sprouts recalls? It probably had something to do with the fact that we suddenly had three recalls in close proximity, although that is not at all unusual. But their attention was also caught by another event that happened recently. A few weeks ago WalMart Stores settled lawsuits with the families of 23 people who had died from having eaten the Listeria-contaminated cantaloupes sold by the retailer in 2011. Of course, the terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but I would guess it was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

To your good health

TSF

THERE ARE SUPERBUGS IN OUR MEAT

It is always nice to know you are right. But, there are times I wish I wasn't. When writing The Safe Food Handbook : How to Make Smart Choices about Risky Food, I tried to be ahead of the issues in food safety - not behind. It has been the same in this blog (as in the case of the Japan - Daichii nuclear tragedy leading to radiation in food, the case of "bird flu" which is once again an issue, and the Listeria bacteria threat in our food plants).

One of the issues I stressed was the presence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in our food - particularly in meat. This was several years ago. At that point it was an emerging and very frightening problem about which I was - and still am - particularly concerned. I also strongly oppose the U.S. practice of sub-therapeutic (preventive) use of antibiotics in industrialized livestock production for that reason, even though I am aware that it helps to keep our meat prices down.

Today, CNBC has an article by Mark Koba titled : Antibiotic-Resistant "Super-Bugs" Creep into Nation's Food Supply. This article seems to have been triggered by secondary analysis of data from the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System ( published in February) by the Environmental Working Group (EWG).

The EWG concluded that that antibiotic-resistant bacteria are turning up very, very frequently in meat sold in the U.S. It was found in 81 percent of raw ground turkey, 69 percent of raw pork chops, 55 percent of raw ground beef and 39 percent of raw chicken bought over the counter in 2011. Even if this is an overestimation of our exposure in 2011, it is likely to be that much or even more in 2013. Our food regulators, and some of our politicians are aware of the problem, and trying to do something about it, but only small steps have been taken so far.

The data is scary, to say the least. If nothing else convinces you to give up eating meat, this well might. The CNBC on-line article quotes Lance B. Price, a professor of environmental and occupational health at George Washington University: "I think this is one of the greatest threats to us as a nation and the planet." I agree.

The Safe Food Handbook has more information on this food threat, particularly in the Meat and Poultry chapter, under the section "The Superbug Issue." Yes, I wish I wasn't right on this issue. But I was. I will also bet that we'll be hearing more about it in the future.

To your good health,
TSF