156 | Global Learnings from the Food Crime Strategic Report | Lettuce Root Cause | Dodgy Doctor's Diet Advice |

Plus, an unusual recall and four free webinars

This is The Rotten Apple, an inside view on food fraud and food safety for professionals, policy-makers and purveyors. Subscribe for insights, latest news and emerging trends straight to your inbox each Monday.

• Global insights from the UK Food Crime Report;

• E. coli in leafy greens - a root cause analysis;

• Food Safety News and Resources;

• Dodgy doctor’s diet advice almost kills baby (not for fun!);

• Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents.

🎧 Listen 🎧

Hello, thank you for joining me,

Welcome to Issue 156 of The Rotten Apple, where I roll my eyes over a doctor who told his pregnant patient to ignore dietary advice about avoiding deli meat when pregnant. She contracted listeriosis in the Boar’s Head outbreak and could have lost her baby 😥.

If you missed the Boar’s Head outbreak, it began in the USA in July, has so far killed 9 people and followed multiple reports of hygiene failures at the manufacturing facility where the contaminated food was made, including a Federal Food Safety Assessment in October 2022 that noted “imminent danger” but resulted in no enforcement action. Sigh.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, a fish processing site in Lithuania has been shut down after it refused entry to food safety officials who were there for an unannounced audit. Because the safety and suitability of the operations could not be assessed, operations were suspended and can only resume after an ‘official control’ (inspection) has been satisfactorily performed.

The difference between the enforcement actions in the two countries is stark. No one died in Lithuania.

Also this week, we revisit pathogenic E. coli in leafy greens, this time from a UK perspective and explore new insights from the just-published Food Crime Strategic Assessment report.

Enjoy.

Karen

P.S. Shout out to Leann, Terhi and Benjamin for upgrading your subscriptions, and to Chancer and Stephen for renewing. You’re the best 👏👏 thank you for your support 👏👏 I couldn’t make this newsletter without you.

---

Food Crime Strategic Report (2024)

In this month’s special supplement for paying subscribers, I unpack the 2024 Food Crime Strategic Report, summarising the notable observations and trends in the report, and adding insights for a global audience. Click the box below to see it.

---

E. coli in leafy greens - an extreme weather event causes an outbreak

Throwback Thursday Monday

In Issue 53 we discussed how pathogens like Escherichia coli get onto leafy greens such as lettuce, and concluded that frequent testing of agricultural water for pathogens such as Shiga toxin producing E. coli (STEC) was an important control.

Much of the research cited in that post was from the USA, which has a history of STEC outbreaks from leafy greens grown close to intensive animal operations such as cattle feed lots.

Now we’ve got a UK perspective. Investigators have published a root cause analysis for an outbreak of E. coli STEC O157:H7 from lettuce in the United Kingdom in 2022.  It was the largest STEC O157:H7 outbreak in the UK with 259 cases and 75 hospitalisations, but fortunately no cases of haemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS) and no deaths.

The food which caused the illnesses is thought to have come from a single lettuce farm.  Food safety officials visited the farm and found a HACCP plan was in place and all legal requirements had been followed.  There were no problems with storage or temperature control - in other words, the farmer had been doing everything correctly.

However, the farmer told investigators that there had been standing water in the lettuce fields after heavy rain and local flooding during the growing period. The rain events had followed a period of very dry weather, and investigators believe that water run-off might have carried STEC from nearby animal faeces into the lettuce field. The farm is near sheep farms and the outbreak strain belongs to a lineage of STEC which has been endemic in the UK sheep population since the 1980s.

Because the heavy rain, standing water and localised flooding appear to have been a significant contributor to the outbreak, the investigation report authors encourage farmers to perform extra monitoring after extreme weather and flooding, including pre- and post-harvest checks for STEC and finished product testing for STEC.

Source:

Cunningham, N., Jenkins, C., Williams, S., Garner, J., Eggen, B., Douglas, A., Potter, T., Wilson, A., Leonardi, G., Larkin, L. and Hopkins, S. (2024). An outbreak of Shiga toxin-producing Escherichia coli (STEC) O157:H7 associated with contaminated lettuce and the cascading risks from climate change, the United Kingdom, August to September 2022. Eurosurveillance, 29(36). doi:https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917.es.2024.29.36.2400161.

Read more🍏 E. coli in leafy greens: new knowledge (Issue 136) 🍏

---

Food Safety News and Resources

My food safety news roundups are a chance for me to share unusual recalls, large outbreaks, new research, guidance papers and free webinars without overloading this email or clogging up your inbox.

This week’s highlights include interesting research about the control of arsenic and cadmium in rice, an unusual margarine recall and four helpful free webinars.

Click the preview box to see all that and more.

---

Doctor’s dodgy diet advice almost kills baby

A pregnant woman in the US who ate deli meats because her doctor told her the “risk was negligible” (far out!), contracted listeriosis in the deadly Boar’s Head outbreak when 36 weeks pregnant.

Listeriosis in pregnant women carries a 25% risk of serious complications or death for the foetus.

Fortunately, the woman attended hospital after having a fever for three days where she was told that she could lose the baby or might need early emergency cesarean surgery. She was treated with intravenous antibiotics which fortunately worked and she later delivered a healthy baby girl.

Source:

Schmall, E. (2024) Violent Convulsions and Lost Speech: Listeria Survivors Describe Harrowing Illnesses. New York Times. Available online: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/09/12/well/listeria-survivors-boars-head.html

---

Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, emerging risks, research and incident reports

📌 Food Fraud News 📌

In this week’s food fraud news:

📌 Groundnut oil adulteration;
📌 Canola concerns;
📌 Palm wine;
📌 Mineral water.