Who's Really Responsible for Food Safety? | Inside Food Safety EP.6

If food is being sold in the United States, someone has to make sure it's safe.

But what does that actually mean? Over the last several weeks, we've watched a massive, cyclist for investigation involving iceberg-ledist source from Mexico, expand across the country. Now we're dealing with another major produce issue. Salmonella linked to jalapenos originating from Mexico, with recalls expanding into products

made with those peppers. Two different pathogens, two different products, but they raise a much bigger question. A head of lettuce grown in the United States with the jalapeno grown outside the United States are legally expected to meet U.S. food safety standards.

“But are they produced, inspected and verified in the same way?”

And when an ingredient crosses a border, passes through a distributor, answers a processing facility, and ends up inside salsa guacamole or a finished restaurant product, who is actually responsible for making sure it's safe. Today on inside food safety, Eric Moore and Kylie Harper Larson are back with us to help separate the regulation from reality.

We're looking at the latest cyclist fora and salmonella outbreaks, how recalls expand through the supply chain, what domestic producers are required to do versus foreign suppliers and

importers, and ultimately whether our food safety system is preventing contamination or

discovering it after people get sick, Eric, my man, where are you today, you're in Philly? I was actually planning to go to Washington, D.C., tonight for FDA's holding a public meeting around Australia, but had some personal things that are keeping me away from attending that, so I'll be depending it virtually.

“I think a lot has happened since we had our last episode touching on cyclists for and whatnot,”

Kylie. First of all, thanks for, you know, so we're doing this rendezvous thing here. We're in Lakeland again at Lake Mirror, we're sitting in the truck, and our view is literally Lake Mirror here in Lakeland, and this is actually quite nice.

It is, it is, I did mention to you earlier that it really felt like we should do this

in the middle of the lake in a swan boat that he vetoed that, Eric. Yes, it was an absolute veto. Since our last episode, what's changed with the cyclist for outbreak? Well, we've got more folks identified by the CDC and their respective state health departments as having cyclist Borough.

In the same tone, we also do not have a congressional action calling anyone to come to D.C. in answer for what is happening. And we still see the recall and the outbreak, oh, it was spanding. And there is some serious back and forth between the state departments of health and the CDC about actual numbers.

So what does that actually mean? Since there's a lot of questions, and they know what they know, but there's more that they don't know. Or they're not revealing, is that possible? You know, I'm a little bit of a conspiracy theorist, and I would say so, but I know that

they hold back until they are positive, no pun intended on the food safety end about what they do know. And they don't know a lot. They tend not to point the fingers, especially when it has a major political donor involved.

“Yeah, I mean, you know, I think the importance of boots on the ground, epidemiological”

investigation, his just continued to illustrate the importance of those individuals within the regulatory structure. But it also highlights, I think, the complexity in what they do aligned with what else is going on, right? Like, because what they do takes time, all the lab testing takes time, people getting

sick, like, it's just all these, all these things that none of it is like, it is super fast and unfortunately, we're just sort of caught in this perfect storm almost of what's been going on. And not to mention incubation time of cyclospora, right? Which is a lot more.

Just re-incubation, yes, unfortunately for those that have got sick, they can easily get sick again.

But how does an investigator link an outbreak to a product when the original positive sample

was later ruled a false positive?

“Such a heavy topic right there, well, they have to keep sampling and it doesn't negate that original”

sample. So my sincere hope is that original sample is being preserved, so it can go for further testing. But it has to be preserved in a freezer. In the lab testing, whether it's this incident, right, this outbreak, or it's another

one, that's just one factor of the whole investigative procedure.

And as I'm sure a lot of people have heard in the news right, cyclospora is really hard to test for. It is. It can be on one leaf of lettuce, and maybe it's not on another one from the same head. You know, the combination of epidemiological work, the ability of the investigators to adequately

trace products back to their source is another key aspect. And then layered in top of that, it is at some sort of laboratory analysis.

In a lot of times, you'll get two of those three pillars, and that is the way that

the investigation team will end up moving forward and saying, you know, there is a problem,

“there isn't, and you know, I think that's where we're at, like, they were able to get adequate”

epidemiological information, and they were able to, to piece together some traceability information. So even with the lack of the, the, the lab feedback, or the challenge with obtaining the lab level information, they're still able to move forward on, on saying, you know, with a high probability that this product from this place caused these issues.

And I think that that's really good as a consumer, as well, because it does lend itself to asking the question, well, if I can't get it from this company, we're can I get it from, and what is safe and what should I, for a while, maybe stay away from because there is so much that I don't know. Well, let's water this down a little bit, right?

Because not everybody out there are, not everyone is, a couple of food safety pros, like you, too, right? And if we're talking about, like, jalapenos, and we're talking about salmonella. But if it's, if it's a, if salmonella is in one ingredient like a jalapeno, and you're talking about recalls of salsa and guacamole and other, you know, finished products, what

“is the average person supposed to do at this point?”

Just stay away from their local Mexican restaurants, stay away from, you know, the produce section at the grocery store, like, what's the, what do people do? Well, I think what we're talking about with jalapenos is a little bit different than what we're talking about with cyclists for it, and the, but most people don't understand the differences between one or the other and what else is out there.

Yes, the, and, and the common person doesn't, but what we have is a key difference between these two, even though Taylor Farms is mentioned in both. Taylor Farms grew and processed the lettuce, and they are named from a traceback exercise. In the instance with the salmonella and the jalapenos that are a product of Mexico, according to the importer, coast of citrus and San Diego, they are not naming a farm yet, Taylor Farms

bought that product from coast as an importer, they didn't grow it, and right now we're still saying, who grew it, who harvested it, who packed it, and where did it go before it came into coasts citrus and then Taylor Farms processing plants to go into those 20 odd products? Have they determined whether or not it came from the Taylor Farms distribution side, or

When a recall expands, are we finding more contamination or discovering where the original

product went?

“Because I don't know that people exactly understand these processes, and this whole thing”

is very skewed. You know, for me, I'm in the middle of this, I know a lot of folks like you guys, I know a lot of folks, like just the average everyday, you know, Joe Jane Consumer, we're all different here. I have a little bit more information by the people I keep company with, but I'm lucky,

most people aren't. Yeah, I would say right, like typically, right, as a recall expands, like in using the South group, the jalapenos, it illustrates the complexity of the food system that we are

“in today, right, because whoever grew those, then they get shipped and distributed somewhere,”

they're then getting processed and put into into other products, and for those that may recall, you know, in the mid 2000s, early 2000s, like 2011, you may be 2009, the spinach recall, or even going back further to the peanut corporation of America, the peanut past recall that was massive, you know, every 3000 products involved in that recall, and what we're seeing with this jalapeno recall, and as it expands, is that this traceback, you

know, or traceful, you know, process, they're able to better, or decay, or in the process of identifying where all these jalapenos ended up going, and the better they can do that, the faster they can do that, the better they can get product off the market, but that's,

“it takes, you know, unfortunately, like it just takes time to, the way that the system”

is designed right now, right, it just takes a little bit of time to, to really begin to, to put a, you know, a, a finger on exactly where all these things went, because maybe they go, maybe they leave the coast, the, the coast facility, they go to, like, you know, on this scenario, a larger, you know, a larger distribution center, and maybe there's a, there's some aspect of a, you know, production going on in that distribution center,

where, you know, they're, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're subpacking these things, it, it, it just, it gets really, really complicated to, to, to, to trace these things down. I will concur with you on that and to shed a little bit of light as to when a recall initially

begins, it always expands, most of the time we don't see contraction in that, because

of the news of the recall spreading, and people saying, hmm, when I got sick, day or two, go, was that this, or was that that, it leads into a little bit of personal investigation. In the instance of the cycle spora, and then the samanella, with cycle spora not having a quick testing method and samanella being quicker, we're seeing more information come out about samanella simply because testing can occur so much more readily.

One of the biggest things that comes up to echo what you said, Eric, is the complexities that occur in our food system, but as we get further up into what we call value added or processed goods, the numbers, though, decrease dramatically. The supply chain for those products decreases dramatically because not everyone can afford to have a processing plant or a processing facility that has a number of lines within

that, so most of the time when we have a very large recall in both instances here, and we have products that can be provided both whole and process, you will find that those recalls will continue for a significant amount of time.

We don't know with the jalapenos and the samanella right now because coast has never

They just said, we're going to voluntarily recall this, and oh, by the way, Taylor Farms

is linked to it.

“Go chase them down more because they already have a target on their back.”

They literally have not owned up to anything as an importer, and they're under a little bit of a different legal situation because they are what's called an importer of record underneath the Food Safety Modernization Act Foreign Supplier Verification Program, where as Taylor Farms demets the co, imported its own product, and therefore they were able to do

the trace back albeit in a cumbersome way much quicker.

So the complexities of the supply chain when dealing with importers is much like Dante's inferno, the various levels of hell exist. Well, let's talk domestic versus imported, because we're talking about imported products

“a lot here, not just stuff grown here in the country.”

What sort of food safety requirements apply to the US grown produce versus product grown abroad for the US market? Well, as a produce safety trainer, and as a preventive control trainer, I can answer that question very easily. The same legal expectations were product grown in the United States and marketed the

US consumers, as well as foreign product grown outside the United States, and brought into the United States are legally supposed to meet the same exact conditions, farming, harvesting, packing, and processing. But we're talking about the law here, and it's kind of like seeing a posted speed limit.

It's 45, or we always do in 45, I mean, it's the law.

So some of us go under, some of us stay at 45, and some of us don't care. And unfortunately, sometimes biology shows up even when practices are in place. Well, biology seems to be shown up a lot, and I literally just got a notification that 10 million pounds of meat and poultry are recalled for Listeria. I mean, as we're recording, that just pops up on the feed.

So Eric will be attending that webinar, and I've already signed up for it. I would just kind of add right to what Kylie was saying, the expectations are the same. And maybe the differentiator is that domestic growers, shippers, et cetera, they're subject to FDA's domestic regulatory framework, right?

“So the oversight is maybe a little bit greater, where as foreign suppliers, right?”

There are enough employees, regulatory employees to go out and inspect every agricultural field on the planet. So there is a much higher resilience of the putting expectations, standards, and requirements out there, and tracking the good organizations and identifying the poor performing organizations so that FDA can have better visibility of things coming in.

And they can begin to try to create some boundaries, if you will, or some obstacles for getting things actually into the country. For some of those bad players, but again, we have a lot of borders, and we have a lot of points of importation, especially for a shoot on both sides of the United States, and you know, there's a lot of stuff that's coming in, and not a lot of eyes that get the

see it all. So you know what you're saying as well too, Eric, I mean, to just put numbers in play.

these investigations that are qualified by the FDA without the support of the departments

“of agriculture, and the departments of health in each of the states, which they may or may”

not have memorandums of understanding with, and even when they do, those personnel on the state level may not be qualified in the areas. So when we're talking about a lot of produce inspections, there are certain states that simply do not have the staff that are adequately qualified to help perform investigations along with the FDA.

They've been highly dependent for the entirety of the food safety modernization act, and it's investigation requirements, following the 2011 Listeria Montecetogini outbreak that happened in canolopes on the state departments of agriculture and the state departments of health,

“to help them in performing many of the local investigative duties, and it just simply is”

impossible to get out there. So then what is a U.S. importer required to verify when you're talking about foreign suppliers? Well, they are required to do one of two things, if not both. They are required to obtain a GFS side that means global food safety initiative, benchmarked

audit for that product from its previous step. Notice I said previous step. It doesn't mean that they have to take it all the way down to the farm level, because

“it's one step forward and one step back.”

If they can't get that audit and have it reviewed by a qualified individual, then they, themselves, have to perform through a qualified individual, a Fizma accepted audit. So we're talking about nearly 100% of the time, they obtained what is called a third party audit that has been conducted on site by their previous one step back. And if that one step back was the packing house and not the farmer and it was where aggregate

irrigation of five types of iceberg lettuce and 10 types of jalapenos coming from 100 different farms occurred, all they have is that facility audit. So then we have to play a lot of what I call Inspector Gadget in getting to the bottom of it and finding out who harvested it, who packed it initially, who repacked it, which is I

think you touched on that a little bit earlier, Eric, never, ever, ever in my 20 years in

the produce industry, seen foreign product that made it here to the United States that did not get repacked at some point in the process. And that builds up a whole lot of traceability problems within batches and lots and codes and you see recalls and outbreaks expand and more people get named when repacking occurs. Well, think of it from the restaurants perspective.

I mean, how much can a chef or an operator realistically know where their produce is coming from? And are they required to ask for more? Like there's a lot of responsibility that goes around traceability has to go through the whole supply chain. So a chef is required since he is going to or she is going to serve the public.

She is simply required to have a supplier list and make sure that those suppliers are following the food safety modernization at. Now, with the information that has been presented and as our experience grows, one would say it would be who view to attempt to get as much information about what you're serving. And this is not just for produce.

This is for all ingredients that are being served.

As you just stated, 10 million pounds of meat and I'm sure Eric is going, that's going

to get a lot bigger.

players.

It's going to get bigger.

Remember what I said about process and focus? It gets tighter at the top, so that's where it expands. You know, I, I would just say, you know, this is where relationships with your, you know, you are suppliers, right? You are vendors, really, um, playing important role. Um, and you know, really understanding, um, their business model to some degree, um, and

how they, uh, how they that the people they're getting their products from is, is really

important, um, you know, because the likelihood of, you know, a chef knowing, you know,

that having a clear line of sight of where all of their products are coming from all the

“way back to the farm, um, I think realistically, that is, that is a really challenging, um,”

almost like impossible, you know, thing to, to, to, to actually be able to incorporate into into into in the most businesses today, um, but the better that you understand, the organization, your buying your products through, right? And that's where the book gets thrown around like a pre-supplier list and, you know, vendors and things like that, um, really understanding, you know, how that organization operates, how it works, how do they evaluate

where they're picking, where they're buying their, they're proves from, um, and things like that is really in, in your best interest, um, that have a clear understanding of what that is in, you know, isn't, that's, that's should be able to provide you with a level of, of, of, to some degree trust on when things do begin to happen like this, this situation we're now, whether it's lettuce, peppers, you know, or, or imported meat, or, or what have you,

then, you know, that, you know, they're going to be reaching out to you, proactively to say, hey, listen, you know, where, where, whether it's switching a provider, because of, you know, this problem or concern or more products aren't involved in this, and, you know, they are not involved in this recall, they are not, and here is how we know that, um, you know,

“from the best of their ability to provide that information. I think it's really important”

for people to understand the value in, in having a good relationship with their, with their suppliers. I can't agree with you more, um, me coming from distribution, 25 years and produce, uh, it matters where you're buying the product, and the level of competency of that distributor, how deep they are with their own hasps of plans and their, their food, food safety, um, plans. You know, sometimes chefs and people in the industry want to buy from the, uh, least expensive

option, and a lot of times that option, um, means there's, you know, the smaller the operation, the smaller the produce company, the distributor is, the more they can, you know, buy smaller loads, polish every apple, so to speak, and you think you're getting this great deal,

you know, the price is fair, but the reality is the, all of these, um, checks and balances,

a lot of times go out the window, because you don't really know where they're picking that product up from, and the traceability goes right out the window. So when we're talking about where the biggest vulnerabilities are, is it the farm, is it the, the water, the processing, is it verifications, imports, traceability? I mean, where, where does it, where do you draw the,

“where does it stop? I think the largest vulnerability that we have as a nation is our dependence”

on foreign product to fill the gaps when distributors and retailers, unfortunately, deemed domestic product too expensive. Throughout the United States, generally speaking, there's a fair amount of production, ability that farmers have, and we've got better oversight. We've got more inspections going on. We've got more demand for audits in every single field

in fact, are on import detention again, out of Mexico, cause La Familia doesn't like it when

they can't send a little cocaine with their, their avocados, and they like the threatened USDA inspectors, so the great news for the avocados season is starting. I mean, who doesn't like some cocaine with your avocado on toast? You know, sometimes, sometimes they throw out a, you know, a little bit of marijuana in there, you know, to keep things, you know, wrapped up a fun fact that they painted one recently like a watermelon, and it made its way through. Carly, everything you're saying

makes a lot of sense. All right, so if you guys can, if you guys can actually change some stuff about how produce is grown or verify it, inspect it, et cetera, in order to prevent the next outbreak,

what would they be? All right, let me, let me lead off, and I'll actually take one, one quick second

to, you know, to address that vulnerability piece, and I just want to say, you know, the biggest vulnerability, right, is the fact that it's a systems problem, right, are, are everything in the system, whether it's farming practices, it's irrigation water management, it's verification, you know, import or accountability, and being able to identify products anywhere in the supply chain, all those things have to work, right? So it's a very, very complex system, and, you know,

until we have a better solution for that, like the system is the actual vulnerability in my, in my opinion. Now, you know, changing, changing some things, or, you know, what is a better tomorrow

“look like, I guess, it maybe took the reshrain that, you know, I think traceability, like,”

is an important thing that actually needs to come to fruition. You know, there are other industries that are able to, to trace things narrow rapidly, you know, in, in a matter of, of seconds, you know, from point of point of, of question, to point of origin. I really, I understand the complexity in the food, in the food systems. I just think with, with today's, you know, ecology and the, the importance of getting things out of the system faster from the

prevention perspective, I think traceability is, is a huge, huge thing that will, that will enhance that. But, and I also want to downplay the complexity, because I, I realize that it is a very, very complex topic, especially for very, very large organizations. It is not something that they can just turn a light switch on and off, and it happens. It, it's, it's more complicated than

“that. Um, I think that, uh, the, another thing is, you know, in a perker world, uh, you know,”

with all the imports coming into the United States, if there was a way to, to really eef up the, um, the foreign supplier, uh, verification system, um, whether that's through better technology-based tools, or it's through better people-based, um, people-based tools, um, either of those two things, or combination thereof of, of both of them. Um, I think that is, that would be a really, a really great step towards, uh, joins improvement as well. Um, and, you know, prevention is, is, is obviously,

you know, the ideal is we want to, you know, that would be like the third thing. How can we,

the, will create better preventative controls, um, to alleviate these things from ever even getting

“into the system? Um, and, you know, I think that is- that is, hopefully what the future will”

will actually begin to show us answers to, um, you know, around how can we actually, you know, begin to, to, to create better sanitation controls, better equipment design, um, cleaning water better, and, and more, it- it- it's, it's, it's, it's, um, you know, I think all of those things will, it, you know, can, can provide a better preventative framework to, to, to really begin to eliminate

I will say, we dream the impossible dream, or at least aspirational, at this moment.

We have to realize that the food safety, traceability portion of the food safety modernization act has been a factor of the original law that was passed in 2011, and it has been held up and held up, by effective lobbying efforts. I'll be at some of them, I have actually participated in,

because the framework was there, but the details to enact it were not. Now, we have the details.

Now we just, unfortunately, have lobbying groups for the wrong reasons holding it up, and we may see the conflagration of these recalls and outbreaks with Cycle Spora, Samanella, and now the stereotype. I mean, we all we need is a good E. Colo 157,

Sugar Talks, and producing there to, you know, round out the rainbow of

hordeness that is happening. When we talk about traceability, this isn't just a foreign problem. It's a domestic problem, too, okay? And we have to, we have to face the facts within that,

“but if we help solve the complexity issue, that's why I said, you, the chef, you, the consumer,”

ask the question, where is this coming from? Not where did the box get packed, but where did the product get reduced? Man, I'll tell you what, you know, if it's me, this is a great time to go on a diet. Just stop eating all together. Or eat all of these

“compromised products and use it that way. Yeah, exactly. All right, listen, I think this has been”

another great episode, you know, bringing the, what's happening now in news on food safety, to the, to the table, so to speak. Real quick, Eric, how do we find you? LinkedIn, Eric Moore's here is your one, you define, testo at capital North America.com as well.

“Perfect, Kylie, baby, what about you? You find me on LinkedIn, Kylie Harper Larson, I think I'm probably”

the only one. You can also reach me on agsafetylady.com or as everybody is in the know, just beat the drum. All right, hey, listen, again, appreciate y'all. We're going to do this again, I think, at Lake Mirror. It's pretty cozy over here. Until the next time, wash your hands folks, we are out.