FreshBuzz at Subway with stoner Phelps
Subway has figured out that people who partake of marijuana get the munchies.
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Kellogg’s, at the height of the Salmonella-in-peanut-thingies outbreak caused by the recklessness of Peanut Corporation of America, dropped Phelps cause of his bong-using ways. For a company that has a talking tiger pushing sugar-coated flakes of corn, hires the Rolling Stones in 1963 to write a jingle about three elves that push rice, and a talking toucan to peddle Froot Loops, such a move seems, uh, narrow-minded.
This picture, below, is from the website, TMZ. Subway says it’s pure coincidence and the FreshBuzz campaign has been around for three years. Subway knows its customers.
Nestle says Peanut Corp. sucked; Kellogg's says, how the hell could we know?
David Mackay doesn’t look like Kevin McDonald of Kids in the Hall fame.
But Kellogg’s CEO Mackay did an outstanding impersonation of McDonald’s, “How the hell should I know” skit (below) in front of a U.S. Congressional committee today.
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“When you look at Kellogg, we have 3,000 ingredients and 1,000 suppliers, I think it’s common industry practice to use a third party.”
Not common enough for Nestle North America, which rejected Peanut Corporation of America’s Blakely plant as a supplier in 2002 after it found the plant had no plans to address hazards like salmonella.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that in January 2006, Nestle also rejected the company’s Plainview, Texas, plant after finding dozens of dead mice rotting in and around the plant, dead pigeons near a peanut receiving door and live birds roosting inside the plant.
Congressional types also heard today that auditors AIB -- also known as the American Institute of Baking based in Manhattan (sigh, Kansas) -- were hired and paid by Peanut Corp. of America, notified the company in advance when they were coming, how to prepare for inspections and then gave its plants glowing reviews.
An inspector with AIB wrote to the manager of Peanut Corp.’s Blakely, Ga., in a December 2008 e-mail produced today by the committee that,
“You lucky guy. I am your AIB auditor. So we need to get your plant set up for any audit.”
Mackay told the committee a version of, “how the hell could we know?” and that AIB is the most commonly used inspector by food companies in America.
Not for long. And for a company to say it meets industry standards ain’t so great when 700 are sick and nine dead.
Kellogg's sells poop; asks taxpayers to wipe up
Kellogg CEO David Mackay is planning to grunt out a giant turd in Washington tomorrow.
To see how his assertions would be, uh, swallowed, Mackay’s comments were leaked to an uncritical press this afternoon, just like in the financial meltdown. Both AP and Reuters proclaimed that Kellogg’s “is urging lawmakers to overhaul the nation's food safety system.”
Mackay (right, exactly as shown) wants food safety placed under a new leader in the Health and Human Services department. He also called for new requirements that all food companies have written safety plans, annual federal inspections of facilities that make high-risk foods, and other reforms.
Mackay whined that Kellogg's had to recall more than 7 million cases of crackers and cookies, at a cost of $65 million to $70 million, and that "Audit findings reported no concerns that the facility may have had any pathogen-related issues or any potential contamination.”
Kellogg’s is a multi-billion dollar company asking for a government handout to do what Kellogg’s should be doing – selling a safe product. Kellogg’s helped create the paper albatross that is third-party audits instead of having its own people at plants that supply product which Kellogg’s resells at a substantial profit. And now this crapmeister is going to tell Washington how to strengthen food safety when he can’t keep shit out of his own company’s peanut cracker thingies. Must be a day of dicks.
Technology in the classroom - anything goes
Every year I provide an intro food safety culture/stuff lecture to the veterinary students at Kansas State University. Always a good time in Pat Payne’s class, and the students have usually worked in food service and have stories to tell. This morning, the students even applauded when I trashed Chipotle for advertizing about the hypothetical risks associated with hormones rather than the things that make people barf – E. coli, salmonella, hepatitis A and norovirus.
The students all have computers, wireless access, cell phones, blackberries – there is no way to BS anyone; they are checking in real time.
I put up the slide below that Ben made a few weeks ago, to illustrate where food safety ranks in overall food culture concerns, and a student came up to me after class and said,
“I called the number. They don’t have anything about Phelps anymore. Your slide is out of date.”
Well played, sir.
At least they seemed to get a kick out of my line,
“Subway didn’t drop Phelps cause they know a lot of stoners eat subs.”
