Food Safety – Another outbreak in the U.S.A.

July 2009

Dough used to make cookies has been found to have E.coli contamination.  As a consequence at least 69 people in 29 different states have been infected, 34 of these required hospital treatment.

The dough was prepared at a Nestle plant in Virginia.  It has just emerged that when it was inspected by FDA officials in September 2001, a number of deficiencies were noted.  More worryingly, the inspectors were refused access to important food safety related documents.

These include :

·         Complaints records

·         Pest control records

·         HACCP information

It is clear from this that the powers available to the authorities in the U.S. have serious limitations.

Furthermore it is absolutely incredulous that the attitude of food safety in a plant owned by one of the biggest food manufacturers in the world is to put it mildly “Cavalier”.  The damage to the brand caused by this incident must be enormous.

Finally all purchasers of ingredients must take steps to ensure the safety of their supplies.  This example demonstrates that you cannot always rely on major international companies.

If you would like to find out more about this, then go to: www.foodhaccp.com/memberonly/newsletter357.html.