I’m still waiting for some brave food producer to start marketing food safety at retail because I don’t care if lettuce and spinach are local, natural, sustainable, and was produced without harming any animals: I do care if it has E. coli and I want to know what a brand is doing about it. At the grocery store. Where I decide what brand to buy.

A group of Mexican produce producers is, according to The Packer, planning to invest in the issue with the Eleven Rivers Growers food safety and quality assurance label.

And while starting with the supply chain, the group wants the labels at retail by 2013.

“We believe that we will have 22 or 23 producers (under the label),” said Fernando Mariscal, cooperative representative. “Most important, we are expecting to have production around 40 million 25-pound boxes for this winter season.

"We’ll start the process with weekly inspections that are not going to be announced,” Mariscal said.

The unannounced part is good, but Eleven Rivers is going to rely on third-party auditors like Primus Labs or Scientific Certification Systems, or anyone who can meet the standards, which could be bad. Better to have some in-house expertise to make use of the audits are really create a strong food safety culture, one strong enough and backed up with date to support safety claims at retail.

Grower-shippers pay about five cents a box for the labels. Those who pass the inspections will add Eleven Rivers Growers to their existing labels. Any who fail lose the label until the causes are addressed.

For now, the label will only go as far as the pallet level — basically, a 4-inch tape around pallets.

“It’s our aim to reach the supply chain this year,” Mariscal said.

“Next year we hope to reach the final consumer, label each box and be present at the supermarkets.”

Because of that limit, the cooperative will push to keep pallet quantities together.

“We’re trying to show that pallet has been carefully monitored from crop to distribution, that it’s been well-handled all the way. Because some of the shipments will go to other suppliers, like terminal markets or brokers, we have to be sure it remains within its quality conditions.”

Commodities include a mix of tomatoes, bell peppers, chilies, cucumbers, eggplant, green beans and squash. Plans call for adding more crops over time.

Among the participating members in the nonprofit cooperative are Del Campo y Asociados; Tricar Sales; Triple H; Grupo GR; De La Costa; CAADES Sinaloa; Agroindustrias Tombell; Agricola de Gala; Agricola EPSA; and Agroexportadora del Noreste.

In a new twist to the on-going saga of frozen, not-ready-or-ready-to-eat chicken thingies (below, left), broiled chicken liver products that are linked to a cluster of Salmonellosis illnesses in New Jersey and New York, have been recalled.

No word on how many people are sick.

The illnesses are linked to the consumption of broiled chicken livers which appear to be ready-to-eat, but are in fact partially cooked and need to be fully cooked before consumption. See, it says so on the label (right). Illnesses are also linked to chopped liver made from this product at retail stores. The outbreak strain of Salmonella Heidelberg was isolated by the New York State Department of Agriculture and Market from samples of broiled chicken livers from the establishment, and chopped chicken livers produced at retail from these livers. These products would have been repackaged and will not bear the original packaging information.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said Schreiber Processing Corporation, a Maspeth, N.Y. establishment, is recalling an undetermined amount of broiled chicken liver products.

The outbreak strain PFGE pattern does not match another strain of Salmonella Heidelberg associated with ground turkey recalled earlier this year. It is not known at this time if this outbreak strain has any drug resistance, but any finding of drug resistance will be made public by FSIS once it becomes available.

The products subject to recall include:
• 10 lb. boxes with two, 5 lb. bags of "Meal Mart Broiled Chicken Liver; Made for Further Thermal Processing"
• 10 lb. boxes of loose packed "Chicken Liver Broiled"

A colleague sent me these pictures of fish seasoning purchased in a San Francisco Asian supermarket. The back mentions both HACCP (Hazard Analysis Critical Control Points) and ISO 9001, but doesn’t say what either mean.

In Brisbane, we bought a pint of fresh strawberries from Gowinta Farms, which bills itself as the largest strawberry farm on the sunshine coast, featuring a café, fruit shop, packhouse, transportation and a workshop.

And you can see from the plastic container, it’s all HACCP-certified.

I’m not sure what that means, or if consumers know what it means, but these are further indications of baby-steps to start promoting microbial food safety directly to consumers.
 

The risk may be small, but the failures are tragic.

Governments routinely warn that immunocompromised people, including expectant mothers and the elderly, should refrain from certain ready-to-eat refrigerated foods like deli meats and smoked salmon because of the risk of listeriosis.

Elizabeth Weise writes in today’s USA Today that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been saying for at least 11 years now that people over 50 and especially those over 65 should avoid hot dogs, lunch meats, cold cuts and other deli meats unless they are reheated to 165 degrees — "steaming hot" in CDC's words.

The government also says you shouldn't keep an open package of sliced deli meat more than five days, all to reduce the risk of infection from a bacteria called listeria. But some question whether the country's been paying attention.

Barbara Resnick, incoming president of the American Geriatrics Society and a professor of nursing at the University of Maryland, knows of no one over that age who heats deli meats to that level and says she's never seen a case of listeriosis in a patient.

Neil Gaffney, spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Food Safety Inspection Service said, "When it comes to food safety, we're serious: People at risk for listeriosis should not eat hot dogs, luncheon meats or deli meats unless they are reheated until steaming hot. Thoroughly reheating food can help kill any bacteria that might be present. If you cannot reheat these foods, do not eat them."

Mike Doyle, a professor of food microbiology at the University of Georgia said about 85% of listeriosis cases are linked to cold cuts or deli meats, and that today almost all packaged lunch meats contain either added sodium lactate, an acid formed by fermentation, or potassium lactate, fermented from sugar, as antimicrobials. That's what he looks for when he buys cold cuts.

And based on FSIS risk-assessment data, meats sliced at the store pose a greater risk than meats pre-sliced at federally inspected establishments

Listeria and cold cuts were ranked just last week as the third worst combination of a food and a pathogen in terms of the burden they place on public health, costing $1.1 billion a year in medical costs and lost work days, according to a study by the University of Florida's Emerging Pathogen Institute.

Douglas Powell a professor of food safety at Kansas State University, said, "And you can't see, taste or smell that it's there.”

CDC also says don't keep opened packages of lunch meat, or meat sliced at the local deli, for longer than three to five days. That's another one no one pays attention to, says Kansas' Powell.

"Anecdotally, lots of people keep cold cuts in their refrigerator far longer than they should. People keep them for one to two weeks. That's the key message. If you get it from the deli counter, four days max."

What wasn’t included in the story is evidence of listeria-related tragedies in other countries – countries that may not have approved those listeria-restraining additives.

Twenty-three elderly people died in Canada in 2008 after eating listeria-laden cold-cuts from Maple Leaf Foods. Later that year, listeria in soft cheese in Quebec led to 38 hospitalizations, of which 13 were pregnant and gave birth prematurely. Two adults died and there were 13 perinatal deaths.

The New South Wales Food Authority said last month the Authority provides information on listeria to pregnant women to allow them to make an informed food choice regarding the risk and how to minimize it. It is not to say that every piece of deli meat has Listeria on it, but some foods have a higher potential rate of contamination than others, and it is better to avoid them.

The risk of acquiring listeriosis is low. However the consequences for a pregnant woman contracting listeriosis are dire.

While the Authority may be accused of ‘being over the top’, we may also be accused of neglecting pregnant women if we did not provide this information so pregnant women could make informed choices in what they eat.

Over the last 5 years in Australia there have been between 4 and 14 cases of listeriosis diagnosed in pregnant women or their babies each year. These infections have resulted in the deaths of 8 fetuses or newborn babies.