Pundit’s Mailbag — Aligned Supply Chains And Statistical Quirks
There are few people we enjoy hearing more from than Alan Siger of Consumers Produce Co. of Pittsburgh. Alan kicked off our coverage of the spinach/E. coli crisis with his letter pointing out the food safety challenges of fresh-cuts. He contributed to our conversation again, when Alan pointed out that the Centers for Disease Control […]
A Little Food Safety Irony
Even the Food Administrators have to eat… and some get sick.
New Meaning Of A Value Meal: Cultural Change Needed To Factor In Food Safety
We’ve been looking at old Taco Bell commercials. You know, the ones with the little Chihuahua, Yo Quiero Taco Bell and all that. Simultaneously we’ve been thinking about the food safety crises we’ve experienced both with spinach and with scallions. The commercials and the food safety issues lead us to think about the organic community. […]
California Slow To Action
On Taco Bell/Green Onion Case
It is 100% true that we cannot definitively state that green onions were the culprit that transmitted E. coli 0157:H7 to restaurant patrons. It is a fluke that we even have anything more that a vague suspicion: On Monday, December 4, 2006, a Taco Bell team, along with the Suffolk County Department of Health, went […]
Taco Bell Makes Ready Pac Its Scapegoat
Taco Bell announced that it has dropped its produce supplier in the Northeast, which was Ready Pac. In its press release, the company said: The company also switched produce suppliers in the region even though it has no indication they were associated with the illness. “We are not willing to take any risk with the […]
Posh Nosh And Premium Food
Lately the chatter across the pond has been about the “posh nosh” or the move among British retailers to sell more upscale items: While “value” and “low-price guaranteed” tags can still boost sales of basic household items like flour and soap, in Britain today it’s the Finest, Taste the Difference or Extra Special labels that […]
Pundit Rewind XLII
The Pundit originally ran the Pundit Rewind on September 21, 2006. We continuously update it in order to keep everyone organized with respect to reference material on this subject; we have updated it with new items and run it again today. Spinach Crisis Summary With so much having been written in so short a time, […]
Botulism And Carrot Juice Summary XXXII
We’ve been asked to make available in one place our coverage of the recall by Wm. Bolthouse Farms of certain 100% carrot juice products and the broader implications of this issue for food safety. This piece is updated regularly and will be re-run to include new coverage of this outbreak and issue. We initiated our […]
Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative Recap XIV
There is an ad-hoc group that started it all, the National Restaurant Association has its group working on a program and the Food Marketing Institute has a conference planned. All these buyer-led initiatives can get confusing, so to assist the trade in keeping track of them all, we are publishing this recap of coverage all […]
Pundit’s Mailbag —
Trapping Stations And Food Safety Costs
Our article, FMI Meeting On Food Safety: More Questions To Be Answered, sought to find the substantial issues raised by a retailer’s take on the meeting. One of the issues was that of increased costs. Here is what we wrote: The constant reiteration by grower groups that retailers (read as the consumer) must be prepared […]
