171 | The Food Fraud That Wasn't | E. coli Onions Follow-up |
Plus, the correct way to eat string cheese snacks
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Follow-up: Outcomes from the E. coli in slivered onions outbreak;
The food fraud that wasn’t - a fruit juice story;
Food Safety News and Resources;
How to eat string cheese snacks;
Food fraud news, emerging issues and recent incidents.
Hi lovely readers,
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Welcome to Issue 171 of The Rotten Apple where I follow up on the E. coli outbreak linked to raw slivered onions on McDonald’s burgers. How did it happen and what did the authorities do about it? Read on to find out.
Also this week: what happens when one company’s food fraud is another’s legitimate practice - a juicy story that highlights different regional expectations. Plus, how to eat string cheese properly 😛
Have a fantastic week.
Karen
P.S. Attention Mr/Ms animal feed expert! I received your message via our Suggestion Box but need your email address so we can discuss your offer of training for our readers (please drop it in the Suggestion Box or reply to this email).
Followup: E.coli outbreak from raw onions on McDonald’s Burgers
In October’s Food Safety News Roundup, we reported on an Escherichia coli outbreak in the United States that affected people who had eaten certain McDonald’s burgers. The outbreak was later linked to raw slivered onions from Taylor’s Farms, with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) declaring them the “likely source”.
Side note: Taylor Farms was also linked to an E. coli outbreak likely caused by romaine and iceberg lettuce which sickened at least 69 people in November 2024.
By the time the outbreak was declared over, 104 people had been sickened with Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 (STEC), 34 had been hospitalized, 4 had developed haemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS), a serious condition that can cause kidney failure and 1 person had died.
Although the outbreak strain was never recovered from the single sample of onions that was available for testing, nor from environmental samples collected by authorities in Colorado, the epidemiological and traceback evidence showed that yellow onions from Taylor Farms were the likely source of the STEC.
McDonald’s stopped buying onions from the Taylor Farms Colorado facility soon after the outbreak began. Taylor Farms initiated a recall.
The recall and outbreak were declared over in December. But what happened to the company that supplied the suspect onions? With such serious outcomes for consumers, did any regulatory or enforcement actions arise from this outbreak? Have any steps been taken to stop this happening again?
Did anyone in the US regulatory system do anything about Taylor Farms?
What happened to the processor?
The FDA reported in November that they had completed onsite inspections at Taylor Farms’ Colorado facility, where the suspect onions were processed. But until now, we didn’t know what they discovered.
Now, thanks to a freedom of information request by CBS News, we have access to the FDA’s inspection report. (Thanks, CBS for doing the journalistic footwork that I don’t have the resources for).
Last week, CBS News shared an FDA Inspection report describing inspections that began within days of the outbreak becoming public on 22nd October 2024.
The facility, in Colorado Springs, was visited by FDA inspectors eight times between 28th October to 12th November. Nine FDA employees are signatories of the report.
Here’s a summary of what they found:
The facility’s food safety plan did not include controls for preventing recontamination of the slivered onions with environmental pathogens, even though such pathogens had been identified as hazards.
Within the production areas, the onions and other produce are exposed to the environment from the peeling step to the final packaging step, with several areas where contamination with pathogens such as Listeria and Salmonella could occur.
The production environment was observed to be wet and “maintained at temperatures that would support the growth of pathogenic organisms such as Listeria.”
FDA inspectors observed "numerous equipment with apparent biofilm and large amounts of food debris" after post-operation cleaning and sanitising procedures. Slicers, bins and hoppers on the packaging lines were signed off as “pass” (clean) in pre-op checks despite having biofilm and food debris.
Listeria spp. positive test results had been recorded for twelve non-food contact locations in the production rooms, including in drains, and non-contact parts of processing lines, with improper or non-existent corrective actions in many cases.
Hand hygiene protocols were not properly followed by staff who were handling ready-to-eat foods and hand wash sinks were not used.
Sanitiser concentrations were not properly controlled or validated, and there was no label or manufacturer’s information for one of the sanitiser mixes used on site.
The FDA did not raise any punitive actions as a result of the inspections, Taylor Farms told CBS News. Instead, the FDA has allowed them to make voluntary corrections. In the FDA’s words, such actions may be taken to correct “objectionable conditions or practices” that have rendered food possibly “injurious to health”.
Comment
The situation at Taylor Farms’ Colorado Springs facility, as observed by the FDA, is not great. Not appalling, perhaps not even surprising, but very far from best practice. And ready-to-eat, sliced fresh produce absolutely needs best practice when it comes to food safety: it is one the riskiest foods for foodborne illness.
Although there is no direct proof that food from the facility caused death and serious illness to consumers, it’s shocking to me that these inspections - in which multiple breaches of the Food Safety Modernization Act were observed - didn’t lead to any non-voluntary enforcement activity, such as fines, temporary suspension or prosecution. Perhaps those will come from the state of Colorado?
Commentators have asked how McDonald’s, which is famous for its stringent supplier approvals programs, got caught up in this outbreak. It’s true: if the onion supplier didn’t clean their equipment properly when FDA inspectors were on site, how were they able to convince McDonald’s that they were operating a hygienic facility?
On the other hand, McDonald’s serves 69 million meals every day and purchases food from hundreds of thousands of suppliers globally. I guess this one just slipped through the cracks…
Finally, it’s worth noting that the FDA inspection report does not mention E. coli as a potential hazard within the processing facility. It’s possible that the E. coli was already inside the onions before processing, and did not arise from cross-contamination from the unhygienic processing environment in Taylor Farms’ facility.
The FDA also inspected an onion farm in Washington state, but did not find the outbreak strain there.
Takeaways for food professionals
It’s easy to lose sight of the big picture when you conduct supplier audits. But if you see a dirty hopper and biofilms on equipment during an audit, you’re not just seeing a non-conformity, you’re seeing a potential outbreak waiting to happen. That dirty hopper could lead to cases of haemolytic uremic syndrome, with a life on kidney dialysis treatment for unlucky consumers.
For production staff, the FDA’s investigation report should serve as a reminder that signing a pre-operation checklist to give a dirty hopper a “pass” could have life-and-death outcomes.
In short: 🍏 A freedom of information request resulted in the US FDA sharing its inspection report for the facility implicated in the deadly outbreak from E. coli in slivered onions in October and November 2024 🍏 The report details multiple observations of “objectionable conditions or practices” that could have rendered the ready-to-eat onions “injurious to health” 🍏 These included missing preventive controls and failures in the cleaning and sanitisation of food contact machinery for ready-to-eat raw produce 🍏 No mandatory or punitive actions seem to have been initiated in the wake of the inspections 🍏 The observations serve as a reminder of the ‘big picture’ for supplier auditors and production supervisors 🍏
Sources:
Tin, A. (2025). FDA finds little handwashing, dirty equipment at McDonald’s supplier linked to E. coli outbreak. [online] Cbs News. Available at: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-report-e-coli-outbreak-onions-taylor-farms/.
The redacted FDA report is embedded in the CBS news story and is available from Scribd (paywalled)
This is (not) food fraud
Suspicious fruit juice
I read a fascinating case study the other day, about fraudulently adulterated fruit juice. Except it turned out not to be fraudulent.
Please explain, I hear you ask! Okay, here’s what happened:
An accredited laboratory that specialises in fruit juice testing received samples of fruit juice from a client in Europe. The client had found a new supplier and wanted to check the quality and authenticity of the supplier’s juices. Nice one.
Unfortunately, testing with stable isotopic ratio methods (carbon 12 and carbon 13 ratios) revealed the presence of added cane sugar in the new supplier’s products.
When the company asked their supplier about the results, the supplier admitted they do indeed add sugar to their products and that this is standard practice for them. They did not realise this would be a problem for their new customer. The supplier is in Asia and had previously only supplied to customers in Asia where added sugar is not a concern for fruit juices.
After learning this, the European customer requested they receive only juices with no added sugar and the supplier was happy to comply.
Takeaways for food professionals
Authenticity testing is a complex undertaking, not just because of the technicalities of test methods, but because of the questions that can arise if results are unexpected.
Before arranging for expensive tests, it’s a good idea to know what you will do if the results reveal authenticity problems. Know who will be responsible for making decisions about what action to take. Decide if you will share the results with external organisations such as the Food Industry Intelligence Network or enforcement agencies. Research other tests that could be used to confirm suspected food fraud.
The fruit juice story was originally published by the manager of Tentamus Chelab, a dedicated fruit juice and beverage testing laboratory in the Food Authenticity Network’s December newsletter.
Food Safety News and Resources
My food safety news and resources are expertly curated from around the globe and free from ads, fluff and filler. This week’s weird news: food fraud checks discover water in a famous company’s UHT milk, leading to a recall.
Click the preview below to read.
How to eat string cheese properly (just for fun)
Who invented string cheese? Commonly attributed to a Wisconsin cheese company owner in 1976, stringy cheese snacks were not in fact invented in the 1970s. They were mentioned in lawsuits and US business listings in the 1960s, and one writer even attributes their invention to a teenager in the 1880s.
For more on the history of string cheese snacks check out The curious history of string cheese | snack stack.
Below for paying subscribers: Food fraud news, research and incident reports
📌 Food Fraud News 📌
In this week’s food fraud news:
📌 Smuggled chocolate bars;
📌 Sildenafil in food supplements;
📌 Good news for milk in India;
📌 Halal pig meat (?!) and more...
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