Pundit’s Mailbag —
Another Despicable Marketing Attempt
We’ve already started a “Despicable Marketing Program” department in the Pundit with our article on how Fit, a produce wash, immediately started sending press releases the instant the spinach crisis broke implying the wash could do something about the problem at hand. Now we have an example of marketing that is both despicable and dangerous. […]
Pundit’s Pulse Of The Industry
We previously ran a Pundit’s Retail Pulse in which we featured a guest panel consisting of Robert DiPiazza and Jerry Hull of Sam’s Club, Bob Harding of Westborn Markets, Don Harris of Wild Oats, Jeff Lyons of Costco, and Mike O’Brien of Schnuck Markets, and we explored their reaction at retail to the initial recall. […]
Deconstructing FDA
It began with a bang, a shocking, unprecedented request that nobody eat fresh spinach, but it is ending with a muddled whimper. FDA issued a press release, but let us deconstruct some of it here: FDA is announcing today that all spinach implicated in the current outbreak has traced back to Natural Selection Foods LLC […]
Needless Recalls
Since Pacific Coast Fruit Company initiated its voluntary recall on September 22, 2006, we have been able to count up to five separate companies that did voluntary recalls. If it is correct, as the actual testing seems to be indicating, that the bad spinach was a batch packed under the Dole brand, then virtually all […]
The FDA Needs To Reexamine
Its Methodology
As the FDA has so far explained it, this whole outbreak has never made much sense. As we asked in a previous article, how was it possible for so many brands to be implicated? These things typically come in the form of a “bad batch,” so the notion that all these wildly divergent brands packed […]
Oh No! Another Outbreak
From the FDA: FDA Warns Consumers Not To Drink Bolthouse Farms Carrot Juice Due to Botulism Concerns In response to a fourth case of botulism being linked to Bolthouse Farms, Bakersfield, California brand carrot juice, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is warning consumers not to drink Bolthouse Farms Carrot Juice, 450 ml and 1 […]
Spinach Crisis Summary Rewind V
With so much having been written in so short a time, thought it would be helpful to publish a sort of round-up of available material to help people understand the whole situation regarding spinach and this E. coli breakout: The Perishable Pundit itself has dealt extensively with the subject in several major pieces. On September […]
Is Whole Foods’ Stock Worth The Price?
Mark Hulbert, who won his fame by holding financial newsletters accountable for their performance, wrote an interesting piece on the stock prospects for Whole Foods. He noted an anomaly in that this rapidly growing, high P/E multiple stock is eschewed by most of the well known growth-oriented investor newsletters he monitors but is praised by […]
New York’s Ban On Trans Fat
Example Of Petty Tyranny
The New York City government would like to ban the use of trans fat in all the restaurants in all five boroughs of New York City. It is a mistake on many levels. The typical argument against the proposal is health-based. Elizabeth M. Whelan of the American Council on Science and Health wrote a column […]
Lies, Damned Lies And Statistics
Our piece exploring the subject Is Salinas Getting a Bum Rap On Food Safety raised the question of whether the math and methodology used to study foodborne illness outbreaks biases the results against larger producers — such as the Salinas Valley. You can read the piece right here. We got a lot of feedback on […]
