Michael Moss and Andrew Martin, “Food Safety Problems Slip Past Private Inspections,” The New York Times, March 6, 2009
“An examination of the largest food poisoning outbreaks in recent years – in products as varied as spinach, pet food, and a children’s snack, Veggie Booty – show that auditors failed to detect problems at plants whose contaminated products later sickened consumers,” claims this article exploring the role of private inspectors in the current food safety system. The authors point to the recent Salmonella outbreak linked to a Peanut Corp. of America (PCA) plant in southwest Georgia.
According to a March 27, 2008, internal audit obtained by The New York Times, the operation received a food safety rating of “superior” from a third-party inspector hired by PCA to verify plant conditions on behalf of the Kellogg Co. and other food companies supplied by the peanut processor. “Federal investigators later discovered that the dilapidated plant was ravaged by Salmonella and had been shipping tainted peanuts and paste for at least nine months,” opines the article, highlighting a potential conflict of interest between third-party auditors and the companies that hire them to perform inspections.
The PCA inspector reportedly worked for the Kansas-based American Institute of Baking (AIB), which has clients in the meat, seafood, vegetables, spices, oils, and dairy sectors, and which also sells educational services to food and beverage companies. Some industry stakeholders, however, have apparently expressed misgivings about AIB’s “dual role as an educator and inspector,” noting that the company’s expertise in baking processes does not necessarily extend to other products. “The contributions of third-party audits to food safety is the same as the contribution of mail-order diploma mills to education,” one food safety consultant was quoted as saying.
The article notes that despite these concerns, the Food and Drug Administration has “proposed expanding the role of private auditors to inspect the more than 200,000 foreign facilities that ship food to the United States.” In addition, federal efforts to toughen audit standards and reporting requirements have met “stiff resistance from the food industry.” The authors nevertheless conclude that not only did the third-party auditors fail to identify significant problems at the Georgia peanut plant, but “state inspectors also found only minor problems, while a federal team last month uncovered a number of alarming signs, as well as testing records from the company itself that showed Salmonella in its products as far back as June 2007.”
