Perishable Pundit 061206

Our attempts to understand the reasoning of buyers who have elected not to join the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative have taken us down many paths.

First, we learned that many opposed letting the consumer press in on the initiative.

Fifth, some buyers didn’t like the grower-driven plans either, especially the idea of separate California plans.

Now we hear from a buyer who is concerned about the situation the industry will find itself in as a result of the letter written by the signatories to the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative, to PMA, United and WGA:

I find it interesting that, to date, the 3 major trade associations have basically had no formal response to the original letter! And then I ask myself, what happens if they DON’T respond?!?

The decision of the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative to not act on its own but to request the produce associations to act was always problematic.

First, the buyers, though very important members, are only a small fraction of the membership of these organizations. It came across a bit like “barking orders” and was not well received. On the other hand, the National Restaurant Association saw all the growers in these associations and feared the standards wouldn’t be high enough and started its own effort.

Second, some of the buyers who signed the letter are on the board or executive committees of these same associations. If they wanted the association to consider something, one would think they would have brought it up at a board meeting instead of writing letters.

Third, it set up a scenario for possible trouble down the road. The buyers didn’t just request that the associations look at something, they gave instructions and included this thought:

Due to the urgency of this matter—its current and potential impact on public health—we expect that the major components of this process can and will be accomplished by December 15, 2006. If this is not the case, our options include fast-tracking our own working group to establish a meaningful certification program with objective criteria.

It is not quite clear what the buyers will define as “this process,” but their letter included things such as:

“…we are asking the associations to develop a supply pipeline food safety program for lettuce and leafy greens...”

“…standardized food safety recommendations and requirements (GAPs, GMPs and HACCP as appropriate) that reflect best practices and are specific, measurable, and verifiable….”

“…have in place a process to keep the requirements up to date based on sound science….”

“…A certification program shall be in place to assure private auditors are calibrated and perform inspections/reviews in accordance to the established standards….”

“…website or other mechanism whereby buyers can verify whether grower/suppliers have received certification….”

“…The associations will fund and lead robust industry and consumer outreach about the certification program….”

There are nine days to go before the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative deadline. Will the associations meet the deadline?

Will the buyers fast-track their own “…working group to establish a meaningful certification program with objective criteria.”

Now that USA Today and other consumer media heard about the plan, they may be back to ask questions. Will the answer be that the industry can’t meet the deadline?

The strength of PMA and United has always been vertical integration. This initiative sets the buyers up as demanding something from the association that their own votes are not sufficient to make happen. It could cause severe disagreements between the buy-side and sell-side of the business.

Will the buyers go ahead and set up their own group? Is that even legal? Afterall, we’re talking about a bunch of competitors meeting in closed session to determine the minimum standards at which any of them agree to buy. Some might call it a restraint of trade.

The whole situation is frustrating The list of signatories to the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative is long. All these individuals want desperately to help the industry. Yet the mechanism they are working with is very complex, and whether it is up to the task at hand is yet to be determined.

Today is December 6, which means we are only nine days from B-Day, the day of the deadline of the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative. Keep your fingers crossed.

Yesterday we mentioned an E. coli outbreak at Taco Bell. Today there was more news.

Some of it was bad news for the produce industry as word leaked out that investigators were focusing on non-meat items as possible culprits in the Taco Bell/E. coli outbreak in New York and New Jersey. The focus was on non-meat products because several of those who have fallen ill report that they are vegetarians.

McLane Company is the distributor that handles distribution to Taco Bells in New Jersey, New York City and its suburbs, including Long Island. As a result investigators were touring its facility in Burlington, New Jersey as part of their track-back efforts.

Bill Marler of Marler Clark, a law firm specializing in cases involving foodborne illness and who is representing many of the plaintiffs in litigation related to the spinach/E. coli crisis, fingers salsa as a likely cause. He notes that salsa contains cilantro, green onions and tomatoes, all of which have been implicated in previous situations where E. coli was a factor.

Taco Bell seems to be taking a very unusual PR path on this crisis. They haven’t offered to pay any medical bills. They didn’t close down the restaurants until two days after they learned of the first case. You have to search around and click on press releases on the Taco Bell web site to find any reference to the outbreak, and the web site of the parent company, Yum! Brands, has no mention of the problem at all.

We suppose they must have very clever consultants who told them this is really a smart way to handle things.

The Pundit thinks that every time someone in the food business behaves this way, it is bad for everyone as it builds up consumer doubt about how important the consumer is to the industry.

To better understand the elements of effective food safety programs, we are running a series of Pundit Pulses focused on foodservice operators as the industry consensus is that foodservice is ahead of retail in the quality of food safety programs. We started out with pundit’s Pulse Of The Industry: Del Taco’s Janet Erickson and Notre Dame’s Dan Crimmins, which dealt with the perspectives of two smaller buyers who are very active in the produce industry by virtue of their service on the Board of Directors of PMA.

Today’s interviewee, Michael Spinazzola of Diversified Restaurant Systems, represents a larger organization as his company supplies the Subway chain. He also has a PMA connection, serving on the foodservice board of PMA.

Mira Slott, Pundit Investigator and Special Projects Editor, spoke to Michael about food safety:

Michael Spinazzola,
President, Diversified Restaurant Systems (DRS)San Diego, California

Q: Before we discuss food safety, could you clarify the relationship between Diversified Restaurant Systems and Subway

A: To simplify, DRS/IPC is the buying coop in charge of all purchases for the Subway chain. We’re hired by Independent Purchasing Cooperative or IPC, which is owned by the Subway franchise. Subway is actually just a trademark owned by Doctor’s Associates, Inc. (DAI).

A: Currently there are more than 26,500 Subway restaurants, all franchised, in 85 countries. As of 12/31/05, sales topped $9 billion, with $7 billion of that in the United States.

Q: With such a wide network of franchised restaurants, what challenges did you face during the spinach crisis?

A: Subway franchise owners use the coop buying group for their specified product needs. At the time of the outbreak, Subway corporate took immediate actions to pull spinach from all Subway restaurants. Recently, spinach has been reintroduced. However, some of the owners chose not to put spinach back in yet, even though the corporation gave the OK. It is so early in the process, I don’t have the numbers on how many franchises now have spinach and how many don’t.

Q: What specific strategies does the coop have in place to control food safety at the supplier level?

A: Subway has tried to be an industry leader in food safety and is continually looking to raise the bar. Food safety should be the highest priority for every chain, but often times it is not. Since the spinach E.coli outbreak, different industry groups and food safety task forces have been working with the FDA and California Department of Health Services. We are behind any initiatives that try to lift the industry beyond the minimum standards.

We also are reviewing our policies internally, and working with the industry leaders to raise the standards across the board. We must insist with them that we as an industry are doing everything in our power to make produce as safe as possible.

A: The big companies, the Burger Kings and McDonald’s, are more thorough and demanding of their suppliers. Darden’s Larry Barton [Director of Global Fresh Produce] is a smart guy. He goes out into the fields himself to investigate. But there are a handful of chains that don’t necessarily do their own direct produce buying programs. A lot have distributors like a ProAct or Sysco that do buying programs for them. They’ll either do a third party audit, or rely on their distributors for food safety reassurances. Who is coordinating these chains’ buying? Is it them or their distributors who actually handle the audits? How frequent are the audits and are they unannounced?

A: We do millions of dollars through our big distributors. We also buy directly from produce companies including Fresh Express and Taylor Farms. Each level of the supply chain is checked and audited. We have strict GAP requirements that must be followed whether at the field level or at the tomato re-packer. We require all our suppliers to do self inspections as well as hire our third party auditing company to evaluate their internal programs. We have different audits for distributors, processors, re-packers, wholesalers, growers, and harvesting crews. We believe it is important for us to control and monitor all stages of production.

A: Yes. You’ve pinpointed the problem. You’re only as good as the actual auditor. Sometimes chains say they have internal quality control people that go into the marketplace and audit all their facilities, but they may not be as highly skilled in specialized areas as an expert at a top level auditing firm. The key is to hire the PhD to check the water. We need to be asking the right questions. Are we hiring the right food safety company? Did we work jointly to develop the right audit, to have all the questions answered and all necessary tests conducted and verified? One of the critical things is to examine new testing opportunities built on technological advances. For example, end product testing is one area being discussed, but it is not yet clear whether this approach will lead to effective safety results, rather than a false sense of security.

We have a dedicated department at Subway in charge of food quality and food safety. We’ve always pushed for the freshest produce, but food safety verification is critical. The quality control team has done a thorough evaluation and found what we feel is the best auditing company to audit our vendors all the way through the supply chain. What they are assuring is that all our audit needs are being met.

We give our auditing firm the list of our vendors and they audit their operations from the plants down to the fields. And then we evaluate it again. There isn’t a kill step in produce. In meat you have cooking. With produce all you can do is handle each step the best you can, and try to eliminate the risks of contamination and the possibilities for foodborne illness to spread.

The Pundit extends much appreciation to Michael for helping the industry by giving some insight into his thoughts on food safety. We take away three big concepts:

All too often food safety is discussed as if everything goes non-stop from farm to a store or a restaurant. Many times there are loads of stops in between. All these stops have implications for handling and thus food safety, but retail chains and foodservice operators typically lose the ability to dictate or monitor grower-level food safety efforts. Dan Crimmins at Notre Dame pointed out that for his organization it was really the distributor that made the crucial decision of who to buy from. DRS is much larger and buys a narrower range of products, so it is in a position to assert more control. But as we think about the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative we are reminded that no regional wholesalers or distributors are signatories. It is a large hole in the distribution system.

Michael reminds us that, although the auditing firm is important and the standards they are told to audit are important as well, no audit is better than the individual person doing the auditing. As Michael says: “You’re only as good as the actual auditor. Sometimes chains say they have internal quality control people that go into the marketplace and audit all their facilities, but they may not be as highly skilled in specialized areas as an expert at a top level auditing firm. The key is to hire the PhD to check the water.”

We’re not sure about the PhD. He might be bored doing water samples and you might get a better audit from an ambitious tech but the point is well taken: If we are relying on audits to confirm food safety, we better be really concerned with how auditing firms select, train, compensate and motivate the actual people in the field.

Things such as rapid product testing are now technologically possible. As Michael points out, staying on top of the wave so that we always have the most effective approach but are not bamboozled by something ineffective is a challenge unto itself.

Thanks again to Janet Erickson of Del Taco, Dan Crimmins of University of Notre Dame and Michael Spinazzola of Diversified Restaurant Systems for their willingness to share with the trade. It is through these types of exchanges that we become stronger as an industry.

Today we have an important letter. It is important both because it comes from someone with experience outside of the produce trade and because it draws on the increasing recognition that food safety efforts can’t be limited to spinach but, inevitably, must address issues throughout the produce trade:

I have held back commenting on the spinach issues as I am not in the spinach business and do not wish to be perceived as suggesting I know better than they do how to manage their business. However, now that the dialog has logically broadened well beyond the spinach incident to the whole produce industry and government regulation I am compelled to offer my two cents to your valuable forum.

The Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative is important if it is effective. Government involvement in food safety, even at the level of processing plant inspections, does not eliminate food safety problems. Prior to being recruited by the potato industry, I worked for the US beef industry for twelve years; the meat industry has the ultimate government food safety program — inspection and USDA certification, which is stamped right on the product.

However during my tenure with the beef industry, despite USDA inspection programs, we dealt with the Jack-in-the-Box E. coli 0157:H7 incident, numerous other E. coli 0157:H7 recalls and the media fallout from the outbreak of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) in the UK (which is also a highly government-regulated and inspected industry).

A government mandated standard establishes the table stakes and forces everyone in the business to meet the ante, which is a good thing. However, those that differentiate themselves and their products above the minimum standard are better positioned to win in the long run. Which explains a lot about why foodservice groups such as Darden have invested in a supply chain initiative that substantially reduces their risk of food safety issues (with the additional benefits of improving quality and alignment of value systems); over time they see the cost of their initiative and supplier partnerships as much lower than the blow to their business and brand image they would experience if any food safety incidents occur in their restaurants. If the buyer-led initiative stimulates processes above the minimum standard, such as Darden’s, and alters buyers’ purchasing criteria to value attributes from their suppliers beyond price, it will have great meaning to the produce industry.

Given my experience with government inspection and regulation, I place much more value on a supply chain-led initiative to deliver meaningful long term results. I have been studying food supply chain systems in the UK for the past six years; they are light years ahead of the US in food safety, innovation and value creation for both buyers and suppliers. In my opinion that is the model the US produce industry needs to go to school on; and we are way behind.

I enjoy and value your thought-provoking commentary and the robust dialog your forum facilitates for the produce industry.

We greatly appreciate Tim’s recognition of the Pundit for “… thought-provoking commentary and the robust dialog your forum facilitates for the produce industry.” That means a great deal as does Tim’s thoughtful commentary.

His letter raises many interesting issues. He warns those buyers who are urging government regulation, as we dealt with here, to not see it as a panacea. He is pointing out the same with grower-led mandatory regulatory schemes, such as we dealt with here. In other words, a government mandate may help, but it won’t give buyers what they are looking for: The ability to buy from anyone, anywhere and still feel confident in the product they are selling.

The problem with the buyer-led food safety initiative is that in its collective nature, it can’t be like Darden’s highly rated program. The very nature of Darden’s buying program is that Darden doesn’t just buy randomly from everyone; it selects who it will work with and builds an aligned supply chain. Mark Munger of Andrew-Williamson wrote an excellent letter on this subject, and we heard from another shipper who pointed out that it is only this kind of commitment from buyers that allows for advances in areas such as flavor and food safety.

Tim poses the $64,000 question: If the buyer-led initiative stimulates processes above the minimum standard, such as Darden’s, and alters buyers’ purchasing criteria to value attributes from their suppliers beyond price, it will have great meaning to the produce industry.

Indeed it would. But, of course, a buying organization doesn’t need to have a club to do that. A buyer just has to do it.

One of our most e-mailed pieces, Tale of Two Buyers, pointed out that cultural and compensation issues were holding back buying organizations from embracing food safety.

To some extent, the buyer-led food safety initiative, at least in its first phase, is a plea to the associations to raise the minimum standard so that the buyers can continue doing what they always did.

Tim O’Conner’s letter is a salient reminder that the world has changed and buying practices have to change too.

Just as the British regulatory scheme didn’t protect its people from BSE and the USDA scheme didn’t protect against Jack in the Box, no scheme, mandatory or voluntary, guarantees food safety.

That means no scheme can excuse buyers from their responsibility to act on behalf of their customers. Which means that buyers have to convincingly communicate a willingness to commit to food safety so that vendor organizations will know they can recoup their money if they make big investments in this area.

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 in one place.

As new developments, occur we will continue to update this recap to help keep the trade organized on this important subject.

On September 25, 2006, in the midst of the spinach crisis, we published The Role of Retailers And The Future Of Food Safety, which pointed out that it is the “representations and warranties” that buyers demand that define the food safety programs we get:

“…in the end, the strength of our food safety systems is at least as dependent on what retailers demand as they are on what the government does for the simple reason that what retailers pay for is what they are going to get.”

Then in the issue of the Pundit’s sister publication, PRODUCE BUSINESS, which was unveiled at the PMA Convention in San Diego on October 21, 2006, we published Food Safety Is A Retail Issue, which pointed out:

“…what holds suppliers back is not that they need an FDA regulation — it is that they need to see a willingness on the part of buyers to pay more to obtain a higher level of food safety and security. So far that is missing.”

The Buyer-led Initiative for Food Safety was then announced. In time it came to be signed on to by nine important buying organizations:

“What would be helpful from these buyers is…a reassurance to the grower/shipper/packer/processor community that investments in food safety will be protected.”

As Gene Harris of Denny’s added his endorsement to the Buyer-led Initiative for Food Safety, we published, Pundit’s Mailbag—Denny’s Weighs In On Food Safety Effort on November 1, 2006, and we pointed out that the Western Growers Association was now looking for mandatory standards:

“Buyers can impose standards on their suppliers, but it seems as if the big grower members of WGA are more inclined to go with a mandatory program. Perhaps because this is more easily “saleable” to consumers, perhaps because the growers have no confidence that buyers will ever agree to a uniform standard on food safety and, perhaps, because growers know that buyers today can have the best of intentions but situations change and buyer’s change — and if legal product is available for much less money, that will put a lot of pressure on an organization to change its standards.”

“Here’s the Pundit’s suggestion to the buyers: Don’t wait for the deadline to pass. Withdraw the letter to the associations, which can only lead to endless negotiations with grower/shippers and watered-down food safety standards. Instead, create a temporary ad hoc consortium to spearhead the quick development of science-based food safety standards.

In the short term, these will be enforced by buyer demand, hopefully including other buyers who will buy into the plan; in the medium run the plan will be turned over to state authorities in California and federal authorities in Washington, D.C., as the basis for new mandatory regulation.”

“What we should have learned from the FDA loss of confidence in the industry is that food safety is not something that we negotiate over. It has to be driven by the best scientific knowledge we have.”

Mark Munger of Andrew-Williamson Fresh Produce, a grower/shipper, pitched in his thoughts on the important role buyers play in the food safety arena and, on November 8, 2006, we published Pundit’s Mailbag – Insights From A Conscientious Grower, which specifically praised one foodservice customer:

I also have to commend one of our customers, who I believe demonstrates the value of collective partnerships between growers and customers. Two years ago we began working with Darden Restaurants. Darden takes food safety very seriously. They have empowered a food safety team that must approve each and every supplier. They have inspectors in the field who make weekly random inspections of growing operations, picking and packing programs. When problem issues are identified, they work closely with our food safety team to help educate our team and to ensure that collectively we fix the problem. The knowledge that an inspector can be in any field or packing shed at anytime has forced us to treat every day as an inspection day.

Additionally, Darden’s food safety team is separate from their buying team. If a farm is not up to par, they have the authority to stop all transactions until the problems are fixed. They truly put their money where their mouth is and have helped us become a markedly better company. I cannot think of a better example of the power of collective thinking between suppliers and customers. I think the industry would be well served to learn more about their programs and create similar models.

Not surprisingly, the Food Marketing Institute was not going to be content to sit this one out and, on November 10, 2006, we published FMI Steps Into The Food Safety Fray, which detailed a conference scheduled for December 5th at which FMI would host representatives from industry, associations, academia and government to advance food safety issues. Unfortunately, FMI decided to exclude the media and we pointed out:

“…if the goal is to build public confidence in the process the industry is going through, you not only open it to media, you send a velvet invitation to the big consumer media groups.

It smells of smoke-filled rooms where deals will be cut in secret. If you let in some light and air, everyone will have more confidence in the final product.”

On November 14, 2006, we published Pundit’s Mailbag: Grower/Shipper Calls Buyer Led-Food Safety Initiative Hollow Call To Action, in which a respected grower/shipper pointed out that “This is where the retailers must step out of their ivory towers and get their walk (vendor relationship) to match their talk (aligned supply chain)… If those who signed on to this letter would get committed to buying only from “qualified suppliers,” the laws of supply and demand will drive the solution and we will quickly catch up with the rest of the world in this critical area.”

On November 17, 2006, we featured Tale Of Two Buyers, in which we pointed out: “If the VPs are sincere about wanting the buyers to place food safety first, the VPs have the responsibility for changing the culture and the economic incentive systems.”

On November 21, 2006, we published Tim York Takes Leadership Role In Food Safety Crisis, which features an extensive interview with Tim York of Markon Cooperative as well as the announcement that the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative gained ten new retail signatories:

Despite the impressive show of buyer support, we expressed some concern: “…it is also pretty clear that the prospect of one unified food safety standard acceptable to every one of the signatories, much less to those who have declined to sign, is somewhere between nil and nothing.”

We also quoted buyers who had declined to sign the letter mostly due to their objection to the public nature of the initiative. We also pointed out how vendors were thinking:

Pundit Note: Many growers and shippers are irate over the effort as they see it as an evasion of responsibility. These buying organizations get exactly what they value enough to pay for. All too often, some of the same companies who signed the letter on Monday will, on Tuesday, buy some product without the slightest knowledge of where it came from.

On November 29, 2006, we ran Another Naysayer of Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative, which gave voice to the thoughts of some non-participating buyers that only mandatory government regulation is the way to go. Also on November 29, 2006, we published pundit’s Mailbag—Buyers Lecturing Again, in which a processor there at the beginning of the national fresh-cut industry reminded us how uninterested in food safety most retailers were at the time.

On November 30, 2006, we continued our exploration of why some buyers were declining to join the buyer-led initiative with Self-Interests Play Role In Food Safety Initiatives. Also on November 30, 2006, we received a letter from Al Zuckerman of ProMark Group, which we focused on in pundit’s Mailbag — Pundit Logic On Food Safety Regulation. We pointed out: “In terms of the difficulties on spinach and leafy greens, the key buyers are missing from the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative. The buyers of the produce, in this case, are the processors.”

On December 1, 2006, we published Spinach And The Consequences Of Buyers’ Action, in which buyers who hadn’t signed on to the buyer-led food safety initiative pointed out that rigorous food safety systems will restrict supply and raise prices.

As we explained: “It is unknown if those who don’t buy spinach because of high prices will buy healthy alternatives. They may buy candy bars and die of complications of obesity. It is a completely open question as to whether safer spinach won’t cost lives in the end.”

On December 5, 2006, we continued our discussion with buyers who refused to sign the Buyer-led Food Safety Initiative by noting that some of them weren’t thrilled with the Western Growers Association proposal either. Our Piece Is WGA’s Food Safety Proposal Up To The Job? dealt with the problems created for the industry when one region is declared “safer” than another and with the difficulty of utilizing a marketing order to legislate world class food safety practices.

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 coverage on October 2, 2006, by publishing the FDA notice to consumers warning them not to drink the product, and we inquired as to the margin of safety on the product. You can find the piece, entitled Oh No! Another Outbreak, right here.

On October 4, 2006, we published Bolthouse And Juice Refrigeration, which analyzed the proper standard of refrigeration for vulnerable products and the ability of both the trade and consumers to maintain that cold chain. Read it here.

October 5, 2006, we ran Botulism III, which detailed the 12 steps in the distribution chain that the industry needs functioning properly in order to maintain the cold chain. The piece challenged retailers to evaluate the integrity of their own cold chain. You can find the piece here.

In The Botulism And E. coli Connection, which we ran on October 6, 2006, we noted similarities between the botulism outbreak on certain Bolthouse carrot juice and the spinach/E. coli outbreak. The piece is right here.

On October 10, 2006, we noted, in Bolthouse Botulism Case Hits Canada, that two Canadians were now victims of this botulism case and noted that it was an unusual cluster to occur at one time if the problem was solely temperature abuse by customers. You can catch it here.

October 11, 2006, we ran Carrot Juice Still On Canadian Shelves, we noted that Canadians were getting upset over the inability of Canada’s public health authorities to execute a simple product recall and that the frequency of recalls was raising questions over the safety of California produce. Read it right here.

On October 13, 2006, we ran Lobbying For Better Refrigeration urging industry lobbyists to work on legislation to make sure consumers have the tools they need to keep product safe at home. The article is here.

October 18, 2006, we ran a Pundit’s Mailbag — Thermometers In Refrigerators, disagreeing with our urging of legislation regarding thermostats and refrigeration. You can read the piece here.

Digg this Post to del.icio.us Post to Furl Technorati

Pundit Rewind XL

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, 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 15, 2006, we published Spinach Recall Reveals Serious Industry Problems, which addressed the implications of this crisis for the fresh-cut industry. You can read the piece here.

On September 18, 2006, we published Organic Dodges a Bullet, which deals with the implications of the outbreak for the future of organic farming. You can find this piece here. Also on September 18, 2006, we ran a piece called Ramifications and Reflections on the Spinach Recall, which provided our first 10-point analysis of the situation. You can read it here.

September 19, 2006, we asked Is FDA’s Concern Now an Obsession? — a piece in which we assessed whether a national recommendation to not eat spinach made any sense. You can review this here.

On September 20, 2006, we noted 10 Peculiarities about the E. coli Outbreak and reviewed why certain aspects of the situation are unlike past food-safety challenges and other unanswered questions regarding the outbreak. Read this one right here. Also on September 20, 2006, we did our third 10-point list, calling this one “Spinach Recall Begs for Solutions”, where we reviewed how the trade can deal with this issue for the future, including looking at the meat industry, the prospect of universal testing and the use of RFID and GTIN. You can read all this here.

On September 21, 2006, we asked Is FDA Causing Long-term Damage? Here we posed the question of whether punishing the innocent and the guilty alike doesn’t reduce incentives to invest in food safety. You can read this piece right here.

The September 25, 2006 edition of the Pundit includes our fourth 10-point list entitled Though Not ‘All-Clear’, Consumers Can Eat Spinach Again, which reviewed many issues facing the industry as spinach begins to reenter the market, including the FDA’s announcement, PMA consumer research, the behavior of industry association, battles over fresh-cuts and organics, the reintroduction of Salinas Valley production, the FDA’s capabilities, and more. You can read this piece here. Also on September 25, 2006, we reviewed The Role of Retailers And The Future Of Food Safety, which pointed out that buyers have an important role in insuring food safety. Catch this piece here.

Additionally, on September 25, 2006, we ran the Pundit’s Pulse Of The Industry in which a panel of retail pundits gave us insight into the way the spinach issue played in store and with consumers. You can read it here.

The Pundit on September 26, 2006, included an articled entitled The California Department of Health Services Owes People An Explanation in which the question was raised whether certain parties received preferential treatment in the current spinach/E. coli outbreak. Read it right here. Also on September 26, 2006, we did a piece questioning the efficacy of our trace-back systems. The piece was titled More Recalls Trickle In, and you can read it here.

On September 27, 2006, the Pundit analyzed the bad publicity that the Salinas Valley has received and asked Is Salinas Getting A Bum Rap On Food Safety? The piece can be read right here