Issue #52 | New Listeria species found | ESG as an indicator for food safety risk | Economic losses quantified |
Issue #52 | New Listeria species found | ESG as an indicator for food safety risk | Economic losses quantified |
2022-08-22
Welcome to The Rotten Apple, an inside view of food integrity for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors. Subscribe for weekly insights, latest news and emerging trends in food safety, food authenticity and sustainable supply chains.
How much does a food safety incident cost society
ESG: an indicator of food safety risks?
Science is amazing but we barely know anything (a new Listeria species is discovered)
News and Resources Roundup (Now Bigger and Better!)
Food fraud incidents, updates and emerging issues
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Hello, Happy Monday,
A warm welcome to new subscribers and – as always – a big thank you to those of you who have chosen a paid subscription (find out more about paid subscriptions here).
I get to meet the most interesting people! Last week I met two wonderful experts, Leanne and Joana. Leanne is a food safety expert working on food waste reduction (more on that in coming weeks) and Joana is developing new technology for low-cost continuous monitoring of wheat grains for multiple parameters, using optical fibre technology. With aflatoxin contamination and geographical origin concerns getting worse every day for wheat, this tech could be a game-changer for grain handlers. If you want to know more, just reply to this email.
Last week my new food fraud column in Food Safety Tech hit the newsstands. I wrote about eel fraud, which is - surprisingly - quite a big deal, both with respect to the massive $$$$ involved and for the serious conservation impacts. While researching the article I discovered that there is a thing called 🐍The Eel Manual 🐍 (bless!)... I also discovered that there are no eel emojis! 😢
🐍 Read my Food Fraud Quick Bite on Eel Fraud at Food Safety Tech magazine 🐍
In this week’s issue of The Rotten Apple, I share how one contaminated water reservoir on one farm cost America hundreds of millions of dollars, and consider the intriguing idea that environmental, social and governance scores (ESG) could indicate food safety risks.
Plus, science is amazing but there is still so much we have yet to discover: microbiologists just found a brand new species of Listeria in cheese.
Our news section was relaunched last week with more content. It can be accessed by clicking the link in this email. This week’s news includes a warning about the safety of turmeric supplements - not food fraud this time, for a change!
And as always, this issue ends with the week’s food fraud incidents and horizon scanning news, below the paywall. Sorry, not sorry, this girl’s gotta eat!
Enjoy your week,
Karen
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Cover image credit: National Cancer Institute via Unsplash
Analysis
How much does a food safety incident cost?
Just published, agricultural economists have shared their analysis of the E. coli Romaine lettuce incident in North America in November 2018.
Why is this interesting?
It is rare for a food safety incident to receive a complete economic analysis and this one was only possible because a large shipper-processor shared its cost and price data and supplied retail scanner data, information that is not usually available to researchers.
Background
In November 2018, government health agencies in the U.S. and Canada issued a food safety advisory that warned consumers, retailers and food service outlets, to avoid romaine lettuce after a number of people became sick and were hospitalised from infections with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7.
Note this is the second of two multi-state (U.S.A.) outbreaks from E. coli O157:H7 in romaine in 2018.
The October to December 2018 outbreak resulted in 25 hospitalisations including two people who developed haemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure.
The affected product was traced back to a single farm, and a recall of produce from that farm was commenced in December. A sandwich company also had to recall products.
The outbreak was declared officially over in January 2019.
🍏🍏🍏 Next week: Root cause analysis | E. coli in leafy greens 🍏🍏🍏
Economic fallout
Interestingly, it was NOT the growers, or the retailers who incurred the greatest economic losses, but the processors. Processors are the companies that wash, pack, chill, store and distribute the lettuce.
According to the researchers, “contract growers were largely insulated from the economic fallout created by the incident”, because much of the lettuce was planted under contracts that specify a fixed price per acre or per pound for the farmer.
The processors suffered because of unsaleable harvests and acres that were planted but not harvested during the advisory period and the 12 weeks after the incident was officially declared to be over. Processors have fixed contract pricing with retailers, so they did not receive higher prices when they sold the lettuces.
Retailers’ losses were mostly related to the cost of pulling products from shelves and distribution channels. Food service operators were also affected by non-saleable product they had under ownership when the advisory occurred, as well as by price fluctuations afterwards. The prices of iceberg lettuce increased significantly, as consumers and businesses switched to alternative lettuces, leading to higher costs for food service operators. Consumers’ losses were considered to be low.
Cost to victims
This paper did not address - or even mention! - the costs borne by people who became ill. Ongoing kidney damage from haemolytic uremic syndrome can result in the need for lifetime dialysis that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Total costs and losses
The net economic loss to society, including consumers and industry was estimated at $276–$343 million.
What is being done to prevent future occurrences?
A significant component of the costs was incurred because the initial government advisory warned against eating romaine from all U.S. growing regions, exposing all production regions to economic losses.
To limit the damage to the whole country, it is necessary for faster tracing of the source of the contaminated food, so that only food from the affected region or farm is affected by an advisory or recall.
The US FDA announced a plan in 2020 that includes better traceability for fresh produce, including digital traceability systems. This could help limit the “fallout” for future outbreaks. There are also new rules about the microbiological characteristics of agricultural water, although these have not been fully enforced.
Industry and consumer groups continue to call for better on-farm contamination prevention systems.
In short: 🍏 A foodborne illness outbreak caused by pathogenic E. coli contamination of romaine lettuce on a single farm caused widespread damage to industry and consumers 🍏 The net economic loss was estimated at $276–$343 million 🍏 The cost to victims was not considered in this analysis 🍏 Faster traceability and better on-farm preventions will help reduce losses from future incidents 🍏
Sources
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/ajae.12341
https://www.cdc.gov/ecoli/2018/o157h7-11-18/index.html
Find more on the FDA’s leafy greens traceability rules in Issue #8
🍏🍏🍏 Next week: Root cause analysis | E. coli in leafy greens 🍏🍏🍏
Insight
ESG As An Indicator Of Food Safety Risks
ESG stands for Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance. Companies that work towards best practices in ESG have policies in place for
environmental responsibilities, such as reducing their greenhouse gas emissions;
social responsibility, which includes issues such as human rights, supply chain transparency and gender equality in the workforce, as well as
corporate governance issues such as how the company deals with fraud, corruption, bribery, tax strategies and ethics and values.
Investors use ESG assessments, which score companies on their ESG performance, as part of their investment risk strategy, on the understanding that companies with higher ESG scores will be ‘better’ investments.
Investments, yes, but what about food safety? Could ESG assessments also work for food safety risk assessments? It sounds crazy, but at least one expert, Dr Darin Detwiler, thinks they could. Dr Detwiler started his career in food safety after his son died in the infamous Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 outbreak 30 years ago. He is now an assistant teaching professor, expert in food regulatory affairs, food policy and food governance. He believes that ESG indicators can also be indicators of food safety risk.
Dr Detwiler points out that many of the companies behind America’s big food safety incidents were violating their corporate ethical responsibilities, and that such violations made their food safety incidents worse. For example, the Department of Justice charges that were brought against senior directors of the Peanut Corporation of America were related to fraud, conspiracy and the obstruction of justice, rather than being directly related to the handling of food (see Issue #40).
The ex-CEO of Blue Bell Creameries, who is also facing fraud charges, after being accused of covering up Listeria contamination (see Issue #51), was also acting in a way that does not meet ESG best practices. Blue Bell’s fines are the second biggest (USA) on record.
The largest penalty for food safety violations was levied against Chipotle for a series of foodborne illness outbreaks. They were also fined for breaching child labour laws, which is evidence of a problem with the ethics and values of their corporate governance systems.
The Abbott infant formula investigation by the FDA (see Issue #31) seems to reveal similar unethical practices.
The company [Abbott] did not follow their own procedures for investigating consumer complaints, which include the need to test retained samples for microbial pathogens. The FDA said they treated infant death and infant illness ‘the same’… and … ‘closed’ a complaint investigation without testing any product from the batch in question.
Dr Detwiler believes there is a pattern: companies whose corporate officers make unethical decisions are more likely to be part of food safety outbreaks. In fact, he even believes that a review of ESG scores could be part of a supplier approvals process for food companies.
It makes sense that companies with strong ethical values would be more likely to do the right thing when making food safety decisions. For example, such companies would be more likely to devote enough resources to food safety expertise and to act quickly and cooperate fully with authorities when a problem is identified. However, there is no scientific evidence (yet) that a strong ESG score correlates with a lower risk for food safety violations.
While we wait for the evidence, the possible links between poor corporate governance practices and food safety risks are definitely worth keeping in mind, especially when sourcing new suppliers.
In short: 🍏 Some of the largest and most concerning food safety outbreaks (USA) in the past two decades have been attributed, in part, to poor corporate governance 🍏 Corporate governance is an aspect of ESG measurements 🍏 Low ESG scores can be an indicator of unethical business practices 🍏 Companies with lower ESG scores could be more likely to be involved in large food safety incidents which can occur when companies are slow to respond to problems or cover up food safety problems 🍏
This piece was inspired by an interview conducted with Dr Detwiler by Food Safety Tech in June 2022.
Related stories in The Rotten Apple
When food safety choices turn criminal (the Peanut Co of America story) - May 2022
The Baby Formula Cronobacter Recall: What the FDA Found - March 2022
Science Is Amazing But We Barely Know Anything About Anything. Here’s A Brand New Species Of Listeria
Listeria. It’s a word that strikes fear into the hearts of food experts. Listeria is a genus of bacteria with less than ten species, two of which are pathogenic: Listeria monocytogenes and Listeria ivanovii.
L. ivanovii predominantly infects animals such as cows, while L. monocytogenes is a human pathogen. It can cause extreme illness, death and miscarriage in vulnerable populations and it grows in the fridge. Yep, it’s the only common human foodborne pathogen that will multiply in foods that are stored in the refrigerator.
Scientists in Nigeria who were performing microbiological tests on cows milk cheese found a new species of Listeria this year. They have named the new species L. ilorinensis. Its genetic pattern does not include known pathogenic characteristics, so they think that it is not pathogenic to humans or animals.
🍏 https://www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/journal/ijsem/10.1099/ijsem.0.005437 🍏
News and Resources
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What you missed in last week’s email
· Blue Bell Creameries: Dead consumers, Cover-ups and Food Safety Failings
· Reader Survey Results
· A Breakthrough in Cleaning Low-Moisture Environments
· News and Resources Roundup (Now Bigger and Better!)
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