Tracing Of Foodborne Illnesses
Falls Under A Patchwork Of Poorly-run, Under-resourced State Labs
We’ve been writing about it for years, but finally The New York Times has picked up on the food safety problem caused by incompetent and under-resourced state labs. Gardiner Harris wrote a piece titled, Ill From Food? Investigations Vary By State: In just about every major contaminated food scare, Minnesotans become sick by the dozens […]
End Of An Era At Wal-Mart
Fresh from Bentonville, here is a piece of news… Ron McCormick, longtime Vice President/DMM of Produce & Floral at Wal-Mart, has been reassigned to a new position focusing on local purchasing and sustainability. We are not precisely sure what this new job will entail and no replacement has been named yet, though Wal-Mart has been […]
Pundit’s Mailbag —
Guest Worker Programs
We have written a great deal about immigration. Our recent piece, Will US Citizens Harvest Crops? brought some interesting mail: Regarding your piece on immigration and the more specific question of what the AFL/Change to Win Coalition position is on AgJOBS. As Co-chair for the Agricultural Coalition for Immigration Reform (ACIR), which represents the diversity […]
DMA’s Philanthropic
Anniversary Celebration
A few years ago, we received word that Dan’l Mackey Almy, already well known in the industry from her time as director of marketing at Standard Fruit & Vegetable and for overseeing almost a quarter billion dollars annually in Wal-Mart business for Fresh Del Monte, was going to start her own company. We thought we […]
More Confusion Pours From
Press Reports Of Pistachio Recall
One of the things that makes following the FDA pronouncements on foodborne pathogens so infuriating is that FDA’s officials tend to say things without clarifying their meaning or significance. Reporters then report what they are told, and it leaves a kind of innuendo without actually saying anything. So Jane Zhang over at The Wall Street […]
FDA Should Look At Auto
Industry When Setting Risk Policy
One wonders if the folks at FDA read The New York Times. If they do, we hope they go beyond the food and drug articles because a recent piece, titled Study Says Minicar Buyers Sacrifice Safety, should prompt many at the FDA to rethink their approach to food safety. The gist of the article was […]
Will US Citizens Harvest Crops?
Immigration is in the news again as the two largest US labor federations have announced agreement on a framework for immigration reform: The agreement, supported by the AFL-CIO and the Change to Win federation, supports the legalization of the nation’s 12 million undocumented immigrants and the formation of an independent commission to analyze the labor […]
A Video For Businesspeople…
And Husbands Too
What is surely the most important business video of the year has been getting millions of views on the Internet. It’s the video of Susan Boyle, a 47-year-old unemployed Scottish woman who says she has never been kissed. She doesn’t look or dress like a diva, and when she appeared on “Britain’s Got Talent 2009” […]
Retail Exec Defends Setton
And Lambasts FDA’s Actions
Here at the Pundit, we experience the horror of the way the FDA behaves in a very specific manner. We learn that FDA agents have intimidated everyone who could credibly speak up against the way the FDA behaves. The importance of this subject goes well beyond food safety. If the government is free to act […]
Is FDA Guarding Against Ulterior Motives In Accepting Test Results From Unrelated Private Companies?
One issue raised by the actions of FDA in the Setton Farm pistachio recall is the appropriateness of FDA’s reliance on tests done by third parties. If a company turns over its own test results, that is unobjectionable and, of course, FDA and USDA and state authorities do their own tests. In this case, though, […]
