Peanut and Pistachio Recalls Lead FDA to Issue Tougher Food Safety Warnings
The Obama administration has reportedly issued a tough warning that it will substantially change the way government oversees food safety. According to published reports, food-handling practices that formerly would have resulted in mild warnings from FDA may now lead to wide-ranging and expensive recalls.“ The food industry needs to be on notice that FDA is going to be much more proactive and move things faster,” David Acheson, FDA associate commissioner for food protection, was quoted as saying. “We’re going to try to stop people from getting sick in the first place, as opposed to waiting until we have illness and death before we take action.”
Meanwhile, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a report April 9 claiming the nation’s food safety system needs a thorough overhaul and that even though cases of Salmonella may be increasing, their incidence is not statistically significant. The system should be overhauled, the report states, because it was created when most of the U.S. food supply was grown, prepared and consumed locally and now should address an increasingly global food industry. See foodnavigator-usa.com and Reuters, April 6, 2009, The New York Times, April 7 and 10, 2009.
And in related news, an article in the March 2009 issue of Specialty Food Magazine, says that food safety scares have caused many shoppers to turn toward “sacred foods” such as certified kosher and halal foods because of the perceived quality and hygiene used in their manufacturing. The article states that kosher food sales have increased by 10 to 15 percent annually for the last eight years.
