Salmonella outbreak in the USA

July 2009

Recently there was a major outbreak in the U.S.A. which was caused by peanuts contaminated by Salmonella.  At least 9 people died and an estimated 25,000 became ill.

The peanuts were from a factory in Georgia owned by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA).  Investigations have shown that the company repeatedly re-tested product until negative results for Salmonella were obtained, distributed product that it knew was contaminated and failed to act on FDA recommendations.

Bill Master, the attorney who specialises in food safety has estimated the costs that are likely to be incurred.  These include :

Settlement of compensation claims for those who died and suffered illness         $30-35 million

Recalling contaminated food products                                                                     $500 million

Kellogg’s estimated that their recall costs would be                                                  $75 million

Loss of sales and product ion to the peanut industry                                                   $1 billion

We should not kid ourselves that the standards in the U.K. are higher than they are in the U.S.A.  The recent Pennington report on the E. coli outbreak in South Wales demonstrates a rather uncanny parallel with what happened in America.

(You can read my resume on the Pennington report at http://www.vwa.co.uk/penn.htm).

Above all, the U.S. outbreak demonstrates very clearly the damage that an outbreak of food poisoning can do to the various businesses involved. 

Furthermore it just shows how important it is to have confidence in the safety of the ingredients which are sourced from other suppliers.

Unfortunately a number of small companies, which probably had perfectly good standards in their own premises were wiped out because they failed to ensure the peanut products purchased were safe!

If you would like to get some idea of the large number of products involved in the recall have a look at the relevant part of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which can be accessed at:

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/peanutbutterrecall/index.cfm