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Inspired Greens Producing To Meet Frantic Demand For Clean, Safe, Local Lettuce
Innovative Alberta greenhouse offers lettuce grown in pristine conditions
COALDALE – A $60 million investment into the world’s most innovative greenhouse technology was based on a fundamental premise: clean means clean.
With North American retailers and consumers paying heightened attention to food safety – specifically related to romaine lettuce – Inspired Greens offers greenhouse-grown lettuce varieties grown with triple-filtrated water in a closed, environmentally safe and secure environment.
“Retailers and consumers have a heightened awareness of food safety, quality and taste,” said David Karwacki, Chief Executive Officer of The Star Group of Companies, which built the Inspired Greens greenhouses. “We invested this cutting-edge clean technology to ensure we can unequivocally deliver clean, fresh, healthy lettuce with no concerns about contamination.”
The Inspired Greens greenhouses opened in Coaldale, AB, in June 2017 and can produce up to 12 million heads annually. It is the first North American greenhouse to use this advanced technology, with plants untouched by human hands from seed to harvest. In April 2018, Inspired Greens announced plans to double its production capacity based on strong industry and consumer demand.
Inspired Greens and Inspired Leaves are available in grocery stores across Western Canada and in select markets in the western United States
Hydroponically-Grown Romaine Lettuce Is Safe
A note from Circle A Lettuce
Hydroponically-grown lettuce is safe for consumption.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION
The recent reportings nationwide of contaminated romaine lettuce is something to take very serious and should you have any store-bought romaine lettuce, please do heed caution and do not consume regardless of suspicions that it could be ok. This sickness is very severe and can even be fatal.
Although, lettuce grown hydroponically is SAFE. The factors we employ to grow our lettuce virtually eliminate the risk of E.coli contamination. So much so that we even encourage you to not even rinse or wash our lettuces.
We take pride and extreme caution in our lettuce-handling practices and we do this for our consumers. We attempt every day to grow the healthiest and safest product we can. It's part of our mission statement.
Thank you for your continued support and faith in our high-standard in growing the best lettuce, EVER !!
"Situations Like This Remind Us Why Traceability And Transparency Are So Important In Our Food System"
Multiple statements were issued in regards to the E. coli outbreak
"Avoid eating romaine lettuce - it may be contaminated with E.coli." This very serious message has been given by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. They are advising consumers to avoid eating romaine lettuce until more is learned about the outbreak. It should be noted this outbreak and the consumer advisories are limited to romaine lettuce only.
According to the CDC, currently romaine lettuce may be contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 and could make people sick. No grower, supplier, distributor or brand has been identified in the current outbreak, in which 32 people across 11 states fell ill.
The advice includes all types or uses of romaine lettuce, such as whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of precut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad.
The FDA is conducting a traceback investigation.
Traceability
For the greenhouse industry, this offers the opportunity to show the traceability of their products. Gotham Greens for example responds quickly. Only recently they've expanded into romaine lettuce. In doing so they wanted to offer a more reliable, transparent and traceable supply chain.
"Situations like this remind us why traceability and transparency are so important in our food system", they respond. "We’ve seen today’s CDC report and while they have issued a blanket warning on all romaine lettuce, our internal environmental testing program shows NO E. coli in any of our greenhouse facilities. All of our lettuces, salad mixes and herbs, including Romaine, are grown, harvested and packed daily in controlled greenhouses in New York and Chicago. We only sell greens that we grow ourselves so we can assure 100% traceability. And through our water monitoring program we can guarantee that the water used to nourish our plants is free of harmful pathogens. Our hydroponic growing methods use municipal water and sterile agricultural inputs, reducing sources of contamination."
"Not from Florida"
There's more groups responding and explaining why their product should be safe. The Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association for example strongly urges the agency to determine the source of the contamination as quickly as possible. "South Florida’s romaine harvest season starts in early November, so Florida product was not being harvested when people started becoming ill. However, it is unfortunate that anyone has become sick, and we remain concerned for those consumers."
"Safe production and handling of crops is the top priority for growers of Florida produce. They adhere to the highest mandatory food safety standards, testing and safeguards to ensure Florida produce is safe. They also open their operations to FDA representatives periodically for inspections."
How's Canada?
In Canada, Bamford Produce and Freshline Foods also made a statement regarding the E. coli outbreak. The Public Health Agency of Canada is also advising individuals in Ontario and Quebec to avoid eating romaine lettuce and salad mixes containing romaine lettuce until more is known about the outbreak and the cause of contamination. "At this point in time no recall has been issued. We will be advising and updating all our customers as the situation changes and if any further action is required."
"Effective immediately, Bamford Produce/ Freshline foods will cease shipments of ALL romaine products until further information is available." This includes Romaine 24 count, Romaine hearts, chopped romaine & spring mix/Mesculin Blend
Produce industry associations
A group of open field produce industry associations made a statement regarding the E. coli outbreak as well. Arizona Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement, Produce Marketing Association, United Fresh Produce Association, Western Growers, Yuma Safe Produce Council & Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association explained in a united statement why they are relying on producers and retail/restaurant customers to support the government health agency advisories and are urging an industry-wide voluntary withdrawal of all romaine currently in marketing channels and held in inventory.
"Food safety is the produce industry's top priority. We must take swift action to protect consumers", they state. "We believe a withdrawal of romaine lettuce is the fastest way to clear up the supply chain of any romaine that could be responsible for illnesses and to make a hard, convincing and clean break from harvesting and shipping romaine lettuce until this outbreak is declared over or the source of the implicated produce can be identified. Additionally, we are calling on handlers to clean and sanitize any equipment that may have been used in recent weeks to prevent cross-contamination of product during future harvest, processing and distribution activities."
Geographic region
They urge a group of food safety experts from the produce industry to come together as quickly as possible to closely examine information that may help pinpoint the specific source of the outbreak utilizing the extensive traceback information maintained by leafy greens producers. "The goal of this effort is to learn any information about the geographic region or specific farms that may be tied to this outbreak. Government agencies have indicated the E. coli isolate involved in this outbreak has been closely related by Whole Genome Sequencing data to two past outbreaks linked to leafy greens in 2016 and 2017. No one wants to get to the bottom of how these outbreaks are occurring faster than the producers of leafy greens. We absolutely must do everything possible to stop recurring outbreaks. We owe this to those whose lives have been tragically impacted by this outbreak and to all our consumers who trust us to grow safe food for their families."
For more information on the consumer advisory, visit the CDC or FDA websites.
Crop One Holdings Reaffirms the Superior Cleanliness and Safety of FreshBox Farms’ Leafy Greens
Controlled Environment Agriculture Farming Method ensures FreshBox Farms’ Romaine Lettuce Remains Safe for All to Eat
November 21, 2018
Source: Crop One Holdings, Inc.
SAN MATEO, Calif. and MILLIS, Mass., Nov. 21, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --
Crop One Holdings (“Crop One” or “the Company”), the world’s largest vertical farm operator through its FreshBox Farms brand, would like to inform all of its customers – including individuals, wholesalers, and retail distributors – that it is voluntarily complying with the CDC’s Food Safety Alert, even though Crop One believes that the CDC warning regarding potential E. coli contamination of romaine lettuce does not apply to FreshBox Farms’ romaine lettuce and other leafy greens grown using the Company’s unique controlled indoor farming systems. Crop One appreciates that the CDC uses these types of broad and general alerts when it knows the cause of contamination, but cannot identify the specific source, and understands that traceability of leafy greens is very limited or not possible for many farmers.
FreshBox Farms abides by the strictest health and safety standards, using operating procedures certified by the USDA Good Agricultural Practices and Good Handling Practices programs. The traceability of the farm’s leaves goes back to the 2’ x 4’ shelf in which it was grown. FreshBox Farms also relies on a stringent data collection system, using layers of digital sensors and controls to gather substantial amounts of information on each plant – from seed to harvest.
Using a variety of controlled environment agriculture technologies, FreshBox Farms grows its leafy greens in soilless, modular enclosures further protected from potential outdoor contaminants by being inside a sealed warehouse. Unlike other vertical farmers or greenhouses, FreshBox Farms’ dual ‘box within a box’ system provides multiple layers of hygiene protection and control. In addition to being insulated from outdoor pollutants and diseases, plants are grown with highly purified water produced by an on-site water treatment system.
Unlike “ready-to-eat” packaged greens, FreshBox Farms does not expose its leafy greens to potentially contaminated water through triple washing, and even its waste water is potable. FreshBox Farms’ leafy greens are so clean that Crop One is the only Kosher-certified vertical farmer in the United States. Products leave FreshBox Farms with 1/600th the bacteria of field grown, triple washed products.
“Yesterday’s warning by the CDC is a wise precaution and certainly in the best interest of the public,” said Dr. Deane Falcone, Chief Scientific Officer of Crop One Holdings. “That said, we feel FreshBox Farms’ customers should know that our produce is grown in controlled, tightly-sealed environments with filtered air and water, and our plants are never touched by more than three gloved and gowned individuals. This distinctive indoor production method protects our produce from potential pathogens found in water, soil, or fecal matter, which are the typical causes of E. coli outbreaks.”
Inside Soilless Modular Enclosure
Sonia Lo, Chief Executive Officer of Crop One Holdings, added to Dr. Falcone’s comments, “As a result of our commitment to innovation and accountability, as well our responsibility to the health of our consumers and the planet, FreshBox Farms continues to grow the cleanest, freshest and best-tasting produce possible for our customers. Our wish this holiday season is to support our customers as best as we can, and ensure them that they can continue to rely on FreshBox Farms to provide safe, healthy, delicious leafy greens this Thanksgiving. We have reached out to our local FDA offices to continue this dialogue on food traceability and cleanliness, practices at Crop One which surpass other greenhouse and vertical farming methods.”
About Crop One Holdings
San Mateo, California-based Crop One Holdings is a vertical farming holding company for two subsidiaries – FreshBox Farms, Millis, Mass., and a joint venture with Emirates Flight Catering, Dubai South, United Emirates. Crop One has been in continuous commercial production longer than any other major vertical farmer in the U.S. It produces the highest crop yield per square foot, at 25% of the capital cost of any vertical farm, due to its unique combination of proprietary technology platform and best-in-class plant science.
For more information on Crop One or vertical farming, please visit the Company website at croponeholdings.com or follow FreshBox Farms on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram for the latest company news.
Local Company's Indoor Growing System Could Be Solution To Safer Romaine And Other Lettuce
by Amanda Becker, FOX 11 News
Sunday, November 25th 2018
Local company's indoor growing system could be solution to safer Romaine and other lettuce. (WLUK/Amanda Becker)
FOX CROSSING (WLUK) -- The FDA and Center for Disease Control warned people this past week not to eat romaine lettuce due to a dangerous strain of E. Coli.
The CDC estimates that E.Coli, also referred to as STEC, causes 3,600 hospitalizations and 30 deaths in the US each year.
This past summer an outbreak caused 5 deaths.
The CDC has reported outbreaks of E. Coli, in various leafy green vegetables alone, 7 out of the last 12 years.
The latest scare came just before Thanksgiving and the busiest day of the year for many grocers.
While many businesses were clearing their shelves of romaine lettuce, it was the customers clearing the shelves here at the Free Market in Appleton.
“People snatched it all up. They've been saying this is the only place they can find it,” said Kyra Evers, a Free Market associate.
Sunday just one bag of mixed greens remained, but they don’t have far to go for more. The produce travels just two miles from the Fox Valley Hydro Farm to here. It's not your conventional farm, instead a vertical hydroponic system indoors.
“If we had an acre of these systems we could grow roughly 100 acres of conventional farming,” said Steve Main, the owner of Fox Valley Hydro Farm.
He grows and distributes, leafy greens to local businesses and at Farmers Markets- mainly lettuce.
Local company's indoor growing system could be solution to safer Romaine and other lettuce. (WLUK/ Amanda Becker){p}{/p}
Fork Farms is the Appleton tech company that designs and builds the system.
”We are able to control the environment here so not only can we control the growth rates and the success of the plant but we can also control the food safety really carefully,” said Alex Tyink president of Fork Farms.
Safety is what’s on the mind of shoppers when buying lettuce these days.
“The E. coli outbreak is really scary,” said Tyink.
Tyink says growing indoors, and locally, lowers the chances of bacterial growth.
“Those crops are coming from very large-scale farms usually in Arizona and California and it’s where we get majority of our produce right now in the United States,” said Tyink. “Farms like that they grow outdoors primarily.”
He lists things like human contact, travel time, well water and environmental conditions to all have negative effects on crops.
“That product being at such a large scale has to go through a lot of different steps in the supply chain in order to get here- and every one of those steps is an opportunity for pathogens to get into the food,” he said.
Steps that he says are eliminated with this hydroponic process.
“Some of those unknowns, we can really tightly control here,” he said.
From 'indoor farm' to table.
"Exempt Indoor Grown Lettuce From Romaine Recall"
With the romaine being pulled out of the shops and the product receiving some very bad publicity due to the recent E.coli contamination, greenhouse growers throughout the US and Canada are opening up to show the public what solution they can bring to food safety.
Yesterday we've shown you already how Gotham Greens responded, today there's more.
Food safety in mind
“We started from the beginning with food safety in mind, and this is the safest way,” said Jay Johnson with Revol Greens to CBS Local. “That’s why it’s difficult to be grouped in with the broad romaine alert.”
It’s also why Revol is working with the industry’s lobby to ask federal regulators to exempt indoor grown lettuce from the recall. Arguing that unlike field-raised crops, their romaine lettuce is never exposed to possible contamination sources from birds or animals.
Amongst customers, the story has landed for sure - the phone at Revol has been ringing non stop. "We can of course supply clients with mixes or products without Romaine, but we currently also have people asking specifically for our Romaine lettuce, since they know our produce is safe."
The demand from the food service is very high. Since Revol is operating local and can adjust easily, they try to help as many customers out - especially since Thanksgiving puts pressure on the hospitality and food service industry.
BrightFarms
Also BrightFarms, growing in Virginia, Ohio and Pennsylvania, made a statement, showing how indoor farming can benefit the industry. "All of BrightFarms' products, including our romaine lettuce, are safe to eat and are NOT associated with the CDC's investigation into an unfortunate outbreak of illness."
"Our salad greens and herbs are grown inside of local greenhouse farms, a controlled indoor environment, which allows for clean, safe, and pesticide free produce. We're proud that our model allows for complete traceability to a local farm (and farmer!) in your community."
"Safe to eat"
lēf Farms from Loudon shows the public a video of their farm on social media. "Rest assured, our lettuce is safe to eat because our hands-free operation delivers nothing but clean and tasty greens grown right here in NH. So, in this season of thankfulness, you can be thankful for a local grower who cares about your health. And we, in turn, can be thankful for the ongoing support from customers like you."
Then there's Go Green Agriculture. After Tuesday's email, many buyers told him not to send any romaine lettuce and “trucks should be turned around immediately; everything’s being dumped and destroyed on site.” He explains to 10News why the indoor farming technologies “pretty much guarantees that everything is 100 percent safe."
"Clean means clean"
Also the Alberta-based company Inspired Greens is responding to the situation. "Our A$60 million investment into the world’s most innovative greenhouse technology was based on a fundamental premise: clean means clean", they explain. The company offers greenhouse-grown lettuce varieties grown with triple-filtrated water in a closed, environmentally safe and secure environment.
“Retailers and consumers have a heightened awareness of food safety, quality and taste,” said David Karwacki, Chief Executive Officer of The Star Group of Companies, which built the Inspired Greens greenhouses. “We invested this cutting-edge clean technology to ensure we can unequivocally deliver clean, fresh, healthy lettuce with no concerns about contamination.”
The Inspired Greens greenhouses opened in Coaldale, AB, in June 2017 and can produce up to 12 million heads annually. It is the first North American greenhouse to use this advanced technology, with plants untouched by human hands from seed to harvest. In April 2018, Inspired Greens announced plans to double its production capacity based on strong industry and consumer demand.
Optimum traceability
Crop One Holdings, known for its FreshBox Farms brand, also informs its customers their food is safe. However, they are voluntarily complying with the CDC’s Food Safety Alert. "Even though we believe that the CDC warning regarding potential E. coli contamination of romaine lettuce does not apply to FreshBox Farms’ romaine lettuce and other leafy greens grown using our unique controlled indoor farming systems."
“Yesterday’s warning by the CDC is a wise precaution and certainly in the best interest of the public,” said Dr. Deane Falcone, Chief Scientific Officer of Crop One Holdings. “That said, we feel FreshBox Farms’ customers should know that our produce is grown in controlled, tightly-sealed environments with filtered air and water, and our plants are never touched by more than three gloved and gowned individuals. This distinctive indoor production method protects our produce from potential pathogens found in water, soil, or fecal matter, which are the typical causes of E. coli outbreaks.”
In case you’re wondering, our #Romaine is not part of the recent recall. We will continue to bring fresh products to our markets this weekend and you do not have to throw our #Romaine out of your fridge🙂 #knowyourfarmerpic.twitter.com/J58kIdoOTF
— Doef's Greenhouses (@doefs) November 22, 2018
Publication date : 11/23/2018
Author: Arlette Sijmonsma
© FreshPlaza.com
FDA Looks At Labeling Standard, Plans To Allow Romaine Return
“We’re working with growers and distributors on labeling produce for location and harvest date and possibly other ways of informing consumers that the product is ‘post-purge,’”
Chris Koger November 23, 2018
In a trio of tweets Nov. 23, Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb referred to plans to allow romaine to return to the market, and a possible new labeling standard to aid in tracing products in future outbreaks.
Following Thanksgiving Day tweets that the FDA believes the E. coli-tainted romaine that led to a nationwide ban on the leafy green originated from California, Gottlieb said “the goal now is to withdraw the product that’s at risk of being contaminated from the market, and then re-stock the market.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FDA announced the outbreak on Nov. 20, asking all levels of the supply chain to remove romaine from the market, and any that had been harvested but not shipped. Thirty-two people in the U.S. and 18 people in Canada became ill with E. coli from mid-October to early November.
In a Nov. 23 tweet, Gottlieb noted that romaine from different growing regions — Arizona and Florida — will soon be harvested.
“We’re working with growers and distributors on labeling produce for location and harvest date and possibly other ways of informing consumers that the product is ‘post-purge,’” he tweeted.
“We want to help unaffected growers get back into production and enable stores and consumers to re-stock,” Gottlieb tweeted. “One goal we’re seeking is to make this type of labeling the new standard rather than a short-term fix; as a way to improve identification and traceability in the system.”
On Thanksgiving, Gottlieb used Twitter to explain the decision to call for all romaine to be removed from the commerce stream.
“Some lettuce packing is labeled in a way that doesn’t make it clear where the product was grown,” he tweeted. “If you look at a package of lettuce, it’s most likely going to have the address of the company on the back; not the location of the growing fields.”
The United Fresh Produce Association on Nov. 20 advised companies to quickly comply and urged anyone contacted by regulatory agencies investigating the origin to help and make shipping records available. But it had also requested federal agencies to consider narrowing down the regions where romaine had been harvesting from when illnesses were reported, roughly mid- to late October.
“This is an extremely broad warning to consumers to not eat any type of romaine from any growing region,” according to a member alert from United Fresh. “Despite our urging that industry could clearly identify some sources of romaine coming onto the market as not related to the outbreak, CDC and FDA are also requesting the voluntarily withdrawal of romaine lettuce before it enters commerce.”
According to United Fresh, Yuma, Ariz., romaine had not commenced when the first illnesses were reported in mid-October.
Western Growers also asked regulators to use harvest and illness onset dates to target the possible growing region.
“ … It is important to acknowledge that a number of regions in current production were not harvesting or shipping romaine at the onset of the outbreak and, consequently, could not be the source of the specific E. coli strain identified in the illnesses,” according to a Western Growers statement on Nov. 21. “In light of this evidence, we urge the government’s health agencies to work with stakeholders to quickly narrow the scope of the investigation, and to remove these regions from the comprehensive advisory as soon as the safety of the public can be ensured.”
Related Topics: Outbreak E. coli Romaine United Fresh Western Growers
BULLETIN: Romaine Lettuce Is Not Safe To Eat, CDC Warns U.S. Consumers
E. coli infections are gross. Here are 5 facts you can't unlearn about them.
An estimated 265,000 people report suffering from E. coli infections each year in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Monica Akhtar/The Washington Post)
By Joel Achenbach and Lena H. Sun
November 20, 2018
Romaine lettuce is unsafe to eat in any form, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Tuesday in a broad alert in response to a new outbreak of illnesses caused by a particularly dangerous type of E. coli contamination.
The CDC told consumers to throw away any romaine lettuce they may already have purchased. Restaurants should not serve it, stores should not sell it, and people should not buy it, no matter where or when the lettuce was grown. It doesn’t matter if it is chopped, whole head or part of a mix. All romaine should be avoided.
The CDC alert, issued just two days before Americans sit down for their Thanksgiving dinners, reported that 32 people in 11 states have become sick from eating contaminated romaine. Of those, 13 have been hospitalized, with one patient suffering from a form of kidney failure.
The Public Health Agency of Canada has reported 18 people infected with the same strain of E. coli.
No deaths have been reported.
“Consumers who have any type of romaine lettuce in their home should not eat it and should throw it away, even if some of it was eaten and no one has gotten sick,” the CDC said in the Food Safety Alert issued shortly before 3 p.m.
Romaine lettuce could be contaminated and should be thrown away, CDC advises. (karandaev/iStock)
“This advice includes all types or uses of romaine lettuce, such as whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of precut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad,” the CDC said. “If you do not know if the lettuce is romaine or whether a salad mix contains romaine, do not eat it and throw it away.”
The agency also advised consumers to wash and sanitize drawers and shelves where the lettuce was stored. People usually become sick within three or four days of consuming lettuce contaminated with the E. coli, according to the CDC.
The origin of the outbreak is unknown and remains under investigation. The CDC did not limit the warning to romaine from any particular agricultural area. A common strain of E.coli was detected in six of the sickened people.
Five people died in the most recent major outbreak from contaminated romaine, which lasted from March to June of this year and led to 210 cases in 36 states. That outbreak was traced to the Yuma, Ariz. growing region, but investigators never conclusively determined the precise source.
The latest outbreak is from a strain that has the same genetic fingerprint as the one that caused an outbreak of illnesses from leafy greens late last year in both the U.S. and Canada. That outbreak was declared over in January.
All three outbreaks — the current one, the one from Yuma and the one from last year — are caused by contamination of E. coli O157:H7. It produces a Shiga toxin that can cause hemolytic uremic syndrome, a type of kidney failure. Until the 1990s, most E. coli cases in humans came from eating contaminated hamburger. In more recent years, after reforms in the livestock industry, the outbreaks have been most often associated with leafy greens.
This is a developing story.
Read more
Salmonella outbreak in turkey continues as Thanksgiving approaches
Source of E. coli-contaminated romaine lettuce still a mystery
This mock pandemic killed 150 million people. Next time it might not be a drill.
Calling All Microgreen Growers! We Need Your Help!
Dr. Kristen Gibson and Gina Riggio at the University of Arkansas Department of Food Science kindly request your help with a microgreen research project. We are conducting a study to identify factors associated with food safety practices on microgreen farms that sell in the United States.
To help us out, please fill out our survey that includes questions about your operation and your food safety practices. It should take you approximately 15 minutes to complete. Your response will help us to gain a better understanding of the size and scope of the microgreen industry and its food safety needs.
The survey is linked from this website: https://sites.uark.edu/gmriggio/
Johnny’s Seeds has kindly offered to give a Free Shipping coupon for orders over $50 to all microgreen growers who complete our survey.
The coupon will only be valid until Dec 14, 2018, so act quickly!
Thank you so much for your help and do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you have about our work.
Sincerely,
Gina Riggio
gmriggio@gmail.com
How A 3.5-Mile-Long Irrigation canal Used by 23 Farms Caused The E. coli Outbreak Linked To Romaine Lettuce
Flickr / Ken LundFDA offers its first assessment of what happened in Yuma, Arizona.
November 1st, 2018
by Joe Fassler
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Thursday offered its first thorough postmortem of the recent E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce. We last heard from the agency on this topic in June, when it announced that canal water in Yuma County, Arizona—the winter lettuce capital of the world—contained the same strain of E. coli found to be sickening people, and noted that the investigation was ongoing. Thursday’s release helps illustrate the full scale of the outbreak, provides new clues about what went wrong, and suggests the incident may permanently alter the federal government’s relationship to bagged salad.
To start, FDA’s “environmental assessment” provides the most recent update of the outbreak’s massive scale. Sickening 210 people across 36 states, sending nearly 100 to the hospital, and killing five, it was the largest outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7 in this country since 2006. Those numbers—including the five deaths—are similar to what was already known in June, so the human toll of the outbreak hasn’t turned out to be much larger than we knew. What is new, though, is a sense of how many farms were involved.
Until now, it hasn’t been known whether the outbreak was linked to just one producer, or if there was some kind of more systemic problem. Thursday’s report paints a clearer picture. An investigation by FDA and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) found that 36 fields on 23 different Yuma County farms supplied lettuce that was potentially contaminated with the rare strain of E. coli implicated in the outbreak. The culprit? A 3.5-mile-long irrigation canal near Wellton, Arizona, which the farms each relied on for water.
“The commingling of romaine lettuce from various farm growing fields complicated traceback efforts.”
The agencies don’t know exactly how the water became contaminated in the first place, though they note it had an animal, not human, source—likely some form of domesticated livestock or wildlife. But all those plots relied on the affected water at some point. The FDA says that the most plausible ways the water reached the crops were through direct application, or when it was used to dilute pesticides sprayed on the fields. It also notes that a late season freeze—in early February—may have weakened the plants and made them more susceptible to contamination.
A compounding factor, though—and one reason why such a huge volume of lettuce was potentially impacted—was the way local processing plants mixed together romaine from multiple producers, complicating the investigation and potentially cross-contaminating product. Though the agencies only found the E. coli in question on a single farm, the 36 fields affected shared infrastructure, greatly muddying the picture.
Related: Could Yuma, Arizona’s trained falcons prevent the next E. coli outbreak
“The commingling of romaine lettuce from various farm growing fields at fresh-cut produce manufacturing/processing facilities complicated traceback efforts and made it impossible for FDA to definitively determine which farm or farms identified in the traceback supplied romaine lettuce contaminated with the E. coli O157:H7 outbreak strain,” said the report.
It’s that scenario that the agencies will work harder to prevent. Though FDA and CDC found no specific “deficiencies” at packing plants in the area, they signaled that they are exploring actions that would prevent a similar outbreak in the future.
For now, Gottlieb said, more action is needed “on all fronts.”
“Going forward, both FDA and industry need to explore better ways to standardize record keeping and determine whether the use of additional tools on product packaging could improve traceability,” FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb wrote, in a statement.
That will likely include more aggressive safety testing on the ground. “The FDA plans to collect and analyze romaine lettuce samples through a new special surveillance sampling assignment for contamination with human pathogens,” Gottlieb wrote. “This will help us determine whether products are safe to enter the U.S. marketplace.” As of now, it’s unclear exactly what kind of system would be put into place, though the Commissioner suggested whole-genome sequencing could be an option back in June.
For now, Gottlieb wrote, more action is needed “on all fronts”—the private and public sector will need to work harder, and work together, if they are to prevent another Yuma.
California LGMA Adopts Changes After E. coli Outbreak
October 25, 2018
Members of the Leafy Greens Food Safety Task Force convened in late July to review recommendations for updates to the LGMA metrics. ( Marilyn Dolan )
The California Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement has adopted the changes made by its Arizona counterpart in the wake of an E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce grown in Arizona — with one exception.
In Arizona, LGMA members tripled the buffer zone for concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) from 400 feet to 1,200 feet. That’s also the case for California now, unless the CAFOs have 80,000 or more head of cattle. Those operations now trigger a one-mile buffer zone for California LGMA members.
California LGMA CEO Scott Horsfall said the CAFO rule was adopted out of “an abundance of caution,” and that its effect on current members should be minimal.
“We’re still in the process of determining the impact it might have,” Horsfall said in mid-October.
He stressed the importance of the 1,200-foot buffers in both states, and the overall metrics updates in both production areas. The changes were made in late September, and Horsfall said workshops and training seminars will help educate growers on the changes.
Those include:
More rigorous risk assessments on intense weather conditions;
Added measures for leafy greens grown near CAFOs;
More requirements on cleaning/sanitizing harvest equipment; and
Stronger traceback requirements.
The focus on CAFOs comes after the investigation into the cause of the E. coli outbreak this year. Inspections found the same strain of E. coli in the tainted romaine in an irrigation canal used for Yuma crops. That canal passes near a CAFO that has a capacity of at least 100,000 head, according to the Food and Drug Administration.
Related Topics: Lettuce Food safety E. coli
Meat Plant That Recalled 7 Million Pounds of Ground Beef Has History of “Egregious” Animal Welfare Practices
iStock / gevende
In 2017, regulators warned JBS over its treatment of sick dairy cattle at its Tolleson, Arizona plant. The resulting documents may help clarify the source of this year's Salmonella outbreak.
October 11, 2018
by Joe Fassler
The JBS meatpacking plant at the center of the recent, 6.9-million-pound beef recall has a history of “egregious” animal welfare practices, documents first reported by The Arizona Republic show. The documents suggest that the United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) was concerned about livestock protocols at JBS’s Tolleston, Arizona plant in question as far back as July, 2017—and not just that. The agency also seemed concerned that the company’s approach to cattle might cause it to overlook symptoms that could pose a risk to human health.
The documents also establish that sick dairy cows—a common carrier of Salmonella Newport, and likely the source of the current recall—were present at the plant to be processed for meat, and did not receive timely treatment from JBS.
On July 25, 2017, a year and a day before the first lots of recalled beef were processed at Tolleson, FSIS sent an official “Notice of Intended Enforcement” to JBS leadership, threatening to remove its federal inspectors and halt work at the plant.
Related: Why sick dairy cows may be the culprit in last week’s historic Salmonella beef recall
“This action was initiated due to your firm’s failure to maintain or implement required controls to prevent the inhumane handling and slaughtering of livestock at your establishment,” the letter read.
The letter went on to describe an incident involving two sick dairy cows observed by the plant’s Consumer Safety Inspector (CSI) early in the morning of the 25th. (CSIs are government employees stationed in federally inspected meatpacking plants; they work to ensure that facilities follow their written safety and sanitation plans.)
“The CSI observed one cow in Pen 19 lying on her side and unable to rise, mentally incoherent, having difficulty breathing, and repetitively making a kicking motion with its legs while moaning as if in pain,” according to the notice. “The CSI then observed another cow down in Pen 15, also lying on its side, unable to rise, mentally incoherent, and also struggling to breathe while making kicking motions with its legs.” The official determined that both cows were “in significant distress and [were] suffering.”
Ultimately, it took 15 minutes—and the CSI’s direct intervention—to bring an employee on the scene to euthanize the remaining cow.
An FSIS spokesperson confirmed to The New Food Economy that the cows described were “dairy cows sold to the plant for meat.” (As I reported last week, dairy cow meat is commonly used pad out commodity ground beef from beef cattle. The problem is, they’re often sent to slaughter old and sick.)
The CSI felt both cows needed to be euthanized immediately to prevent further suffering, but had trouble getting JBS staff to address the problem urgently, according to the letter. The Yard Supervisor agreed to summon an employee to euthanize the cows, but he did not immediately appear. One cow died on its own before the employee arrived, and the CSI seemed to feel that calls for prompt treatment were not taken seriously.
“The CSI repeated to the Yard Supervisor that the one remaining suffering cow needed to be knocked promptly. The CSI informed her that the second cow had died and emphatically stated that the other distressed cow needed to be knocked as soon as possible,” according to the notice. “She stated ‘I Know, I Know’ but did not do anything further.”
Ultimately, it took 15 minutes—and the CSI’s direct intervention—to bring an employee on the scene to euthanize the remaining cow. Though it’s hard to say whether the event described was an anomaly, the incident was troubling enough that FSIS sent its formal warning letter later that same day. And a follow-up letter published by FSIS suggests there were multiple issues with the animal welfare plan JBS had in place.
In a letter dated October 19, 2017, FSIS acknowledged that JBS immediately moved to appeal the decision, and ultimately asked the agency to rescind its notice. But FSIS denied JBS’s appeal then and on two subsequent occasions. Specifically, the agency cited the fact that JBS’s existing paperwork did not assure the agency that JBS employees could “identify animals in distress and take appropriate actions in a timely manner.” FSIS also noted its belief that standard operating procedures were not “sufficient to prevent the recurrence of inhumane handling due to failure to identify and verify the need for euthanasia without FSIS intervening.”
The revelation of the FSIS letters makes an emerging picture even clearer.
Multiple rounds of negotiation apparently followed. JBS said it had trained employees “to look for and to determine signs of distress” and had committed to performing a “daily animal welfare audit.” After months of negotiation, FSIS finally noted in the October 19 letter that it was satisfied with improvements and would rescind the notice. But the letter ended with words of admonishment that, considering the recent recall, would prove to be prophetic.
“You are reminded that as an operator of a federally inspected facility, you are expected to comply with the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA) and the regulations promulgated thereunder to ensure that livestock at your establishment are handled and slaughtered humanely,” Yudhbir Sharma, the director of FSIS’s Alameda, California office noted.
He went on: “It is also important for you to understand that FSIS has the responsibility to initiate actions if your establishment fails to operate in accordance with FSIS regulations, or conditions occur that may render products unwholesome or adulterated.”
Now, less than a year later, we know that conditions did occur at Tolleson to “render products unwholesome or adulterated.” Almost 7 million pounds of ground beef suspected to be tainted with Salmonella Newport were recalled, meaning that the meat of nearly 13,000 cattle will ultimately end up in landfill. FSIS has not been willing to provide additional details on what led to the outbreak, and JBS has not responded to repeated requests for comment. But the scenario I laid out earlier this week starts to look even more likely.
I’ve already made my speculative case that dairy cows are to blame for JBS’s latest recall, the largest recall of ground beef for Salmonella ever. As I reported previously, we already know that dairy cows, which provide about 20 percent of the nation’s ground beef supply, are the likeliest reservoir of Salmonella Newport. We know that dairy cows usually don’t enter the food supply until they get old, weak, or sick. We know that, in processing plants, dairy cow meat is used as filler in ground beef—a practice that exponentially increases its already significant public health risks, and has the potential to contaminate huge volumes of product.
The revelation of the FSIS letters makes an emerging picture even clearer. We now know that sick dairy cattle, so ill they could barely stand, were present at Tolleson just one year before the recall started. We know, too, that FSIS felt JBS employees were unable to identify excessively suffering animals and disarm problems as they happened.
Now, two other questions remain. When will FSIS provide the public with a full account of what happened at Tolleson? And if dairy cows prove to be the culprit, can we have a conversation about how to treat these animals—often sickened or weakened by the demands of high-volume milk production—as we rethink the role they play in feeding us?
ENVIRONMENT, FARM, HEALTH, HOME FEATURE, ISSUES, SYSTEMS BEEF JBS RECALL SALMONELLA
Centers For Disease Control And Prevention Report
Restaurants were linked to outbreaks more often than any other place where food was prepared, as in previous reports
US: New Numbers On Foodborne
Illness Outbreaks
In 2016, 839 foodborne disease outbreaks were reported to CDC, according to a recently released annual summary from the National Outbreak Reporting System (NORS). The data come from reports that state, local, and territorial public health agencies submitted to the Foodborne Disease Outbreak Surveillance System using NORS, and includes single-state and multistate outbreaks.
According to qualityassurancemag.com, the CDC estimates that each year in the United States, about 9.4 million people get ill from 31 known foodborne germs. These illnesses lead to about 56,000 hospitalizations and 1,350 deaths. Although most foodborne illnesses are not part of a recognized outbreak, outbreaks provide important information on the agents (germs, toxins, and chemicals) that cause illness, the foods responsible, and the settings that lead to transmission.
The main findings from the annual summary include:
Reported foodborne disease outbreaks resulted in 14,259 illnesses, 875 hospitalizations, 17 deaths, and recalls of 18 food products.
Norovirus was the most frequently reported cause, with 145 outbreaks and 3,794 outbreak-associated illnesses.
Salmonella was the second most common cause, with 132 outbreaks and 3,047 outbreak-associated illnesses.
Restaurants were linked to outbreaks more often than any other place where food was prepared, as in previous reports. Restaurants were associated with 459 outbreaks, accounting for 61% of outbreaks that reported a single location where food was prepared. Most of these restaurant outbreaks (363) were reported at establishments offering sit-down dining.
Click Here to Read The Full Report.
Publication date : 10/16/2018
China Reaches Top of Global Food Safety List
China moved from fourth place to the top of the list. This announcement explained that this development is due to China being a high-income economy with low custom tariffs for agricultural import products, which helps to reduce the import costs.
The Economist Intelligence Unit recently announced the "Global Food Safety Index". It ranks the food safety level of 113 countries based on an investigation of food origin, product quality, and safety. China moved from fourth place to the top of the list. This announcement explained that this development is due to China being a high-income economy with low custom tariffs for agricultural import products, which helps to reduce the import costs.
However, the announcement also stated that China's food supply is easily disturbed by weather conditions and natural disasters. For example, if weather changes, soil quality, and water supply are included in the investigation, then China drops to number 16 on the list.
Apart from this, China's food supply is also vulnerable because the majority is imported from around 180 countries, so that trade and supply chain problems can easily disturb China's food supply.
Source: News and Current Trends
Publication date : 10/22/2018
US: FDA Investigates More Cyclospora Outbreaks
Although Cyclospora outbreaks in the US happen less frequently than those caused by typical pathogens like E. coli, Salmonella and Listeria, the recent salad mix outbreaks occurring in July and August of this year are sadly familiar. Food Engineering already reported on similar events in a news item entitled “Cyclospora outbreak traced to pre-packaged salad mix.” Now, Cyclospora certainly has the FDA’s attention.
Recently, some 630 people from 25 American states were infected, according to the CDC. Officials in Nebraska said the salad mix contained iceberg and romaine lettuce, red cabbage and carrots, and was sold via a national distribution chain. By the time the final tallies were made, the offending salad mixes were out of the supply chain.
An August 23, 2018, FDA update showed that this summer’s Cyclospora infection afflicted people who consumed salads from McDonald’s restaurants. Though the investigation is still ongoing, cases were reported in 15 states and New York City, resulting in 507 illnesses and 24 hospitalizations. Infections were reported in July and August 2018. The FDA has been reviewing distribution and supplier information for romaine and carrots.
But McDonald’s salads weren’t the only product affected. On July 30, 2018, the USDA issued a public health alert on beef, pork and poultry salad wrap products potentially contaminated with Cyclospora that were distributed by Caito Foods LLC, Indianapolis. Caito Foods had received notification from Fresh Express that the chopped romaine in these products was being recalled.
Publication date : 10/16/2018
Tortilla Trouble
Tests show that samples of both white and yellow Maseca brand flours contain traces of Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Tests also show that most of the flours are made with GMO corn.
Maseca, the leading global brand of Mexican corn flours, plainly states on its website:
“MASECA is made of 100% natural corn and is vital for the good diet, its high nutritional value and is synonym of health and energy.”
And yet, our tests show that samples of both white and yellow Maseca brand flours contain traces of Monsanto’s Roundup weedkiller. Tests also show that most of the flours are made with GMO corn.
That’s bad news for U.S. consumers. It’s even worse news for consumers in Mexico, who might rightly assume that the Mexican brand of corn flour they use to make tortillas wouldn’t be made from GMO corn—because open-field growing of GMO corn is prohibited in Mexico.
Bad Burgers
Bad Burgers
The world’s largest meat packer, JBS Tolleson, is recalling nearly 7 million pounds of beef after an investigation identified JBS as the common supplier of ground beef products sold to people who developed Salmonella Newport, a disease that causes fever and diarrhea, weakness, dyspnea and, potentially, sudden death.
As of October 4, 57 people in 16 states had been sickened by JBS beef.
If that’s not enough to make you swear off industrial factory farm beef, here’s more food for thought: There’s a good chance the JBS beef was contaminated because it contained a combination of cattle raised for beef, and dairy cows sent off for slaughter because they were too sick to produce milk.
According to an article published this week in The New Food Economy, scientists have known since the 1980s that dairy cows are a primary reservoir of Salmonella Newport. The authors say the facts point to an “ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.”
One way to address that crisis? End industrial dairy farming which creates the conditions that make cows susceptible to a host of painful and debilitating illnesses, including Salmonella Newport.
Read ‘Another Reason to End the ‘Dirty Dairy’ Industry: Contaminated Hamburgers'
Why Sick Dairy Cows May Be The Culprit In Last Week’s Historic Salmonella Beef Recall
Late last week, JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, recalled 6.9 million pounds of ground beef that it said may have been tainted with Salmonella Newport.
Why Sick Dairy Cows May Be The Culprit In Last Week’s Historic Salmonella Beef Recall
Since the mid-1980s, scientists have identified dairy cows as the primary reservoir of Salmonella Newport. A closer look at established facts points to an ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.
October 9, 2018
by Joe Fassler
Late last week, JBS, the world’s largest meat packer, recalled 6.9 million pounds of ground beef that it said may have been tainted with Salmonella Newport. Here’s what we know four days into the recall: the strain is responsible for sickening 57 people in 16 states. All of the meat came from the same JBS plant in Tolleson, Arizona. And in less than a week, the incident has already reached historic proportions. It’s the largest recall of beef since the notorious Rancho Feeding Inc. recall of 2014. Former USDA food safety specialist Carl Custer has said it’s largest-ever recall of ground beef related to Salmonella.
Still, major questions remain. The United States Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) may again broaden the scope of the recall, as it already did on Thursday. More stores may be added to the list of affected retailers published over the weekend. And, of course, more Americans may continue to fall ill. But while basic facts—how much meat, from which stores, causing how many illnesses—remain unclear, a larger uncertainty looms. Namely: How does nearly 7 million pounds of beef get exposed to Salmonella in the first place, then get shipped out to the public? What, exactly, went wrong at Tolleson?
Facts point to a massive, ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.
When I asked FSIS for additional insight, I was told I’d have to file a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to learn more. JBS did not respond to multiple requests for comment. So far as the official channels are concerned, we’re still largely in the dark.
And yet, the few details voluntarily released are very revealing if you read between the lines, helping to explain why the meat of an estimated 13,000 animals, a small city of cattle, is now headed for the landfill.
The people I spoke to for this story suggest this outbreak had a clear origin point: a dairy farm in the Southwest. That’s important, because dairy cows processed for meat turn out to be a kind of food safety blind spot. For reasons I’ll explain, dairy cows sickened by Salmonella are more likely than healthy ones to be sent to meat plants for slaughter. Once there, they’re likely to be ground up and used as filler in thousands of pounds of beef, dramatically increasing their risk potential. Perhaps most surprisingly, there’s no system in place to track or disarm this risk. In fact, thanks to a quirk in food safety law, meatpackers aren’t required to test for Salmonella. And even when it is present, the government can’t really do anything about it—not even if millions of pounds of tainted product are at stake.
While we may never know the exact details of this outbreak, we can look to previous recalls for clues—and established facts point to a massive, ongoing food safety crisis hidden in plain sight.
Tolleson, Arizona, situated just west of the Phoenix metropolitan area, is surrounded by cows.
Arizona is the 13th highest milk-producing state by volume. Neighboring New Mexico, with 323,000 cows producing more than 8 billion pounds of milk in 2017, ranks in the top ten. But in the realm of livestock transport, where farmers routinely have to drive their animals hundreds of miles to be slaughtered, Tolleson is less than a day’s drive from the country’s most productive dairy region: central and Southern California.
Dairy cows on a farm in California, the country’s most productive dairy state
California is by far the largest milk-producing state in the nation. In San Bernardino County alone, 40,000 dairy cows produced almost a billion pounds of milk in 2017. Heading north from there into lusher, more temperate central California, production only increases. The state’s top five milk-producing counties—Tulare, Merced, Kings, Stanislaus, and Kern—are home to well over a million dairy cows, who churned out about 27 billion pounds of milk in 2017.
The dairy industry’s proximity is a corroborating detail in last week’s recall. But location isn’t the only factor that makes dairy cows the likely culprit. The smoking gun here is epidemiological: Salmonella entericaserotype Newport, the unusual strain of Salmonella implicated in this recall, has been highly linked to dairy cows in the past. In fact, since the mid-1980s, scientists have identified dairy cows as the primary reservoir of Salmonella Newport.
In 1985, Californians in Los Angeles County started getting sick. Further research found that Salmonella Newport was to blame—a specific, multi-drug-resistant strain that came from California dairy farms. Scientists found that same unique strain in ground beef products on the shelf, at the slaughterhouse where those products were processed, at the dairies who’d sent cows for slaughter on the days tainted product was pushed through, and in the bodies of sick cows at those dairies. In the years that followed, the research community began to take note.
Dairy cow meat makes up 20 percent of the U.S. ground beef market.
“Dairy cows have been incriminated as the source of Salmonella Newport-contaminated hamburgers causing foodborne illness,” wrote the authors of a 1997 paper published by the World Organization for Animal Health, an intergovernmental organization that works to control animal disease worldwide. By 2002, after several smaller outbreaks, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) acknowledged that “strains of Salmonella enterica serotype Newport are becoming increasingly common in dairy cattle and are causing a growing share of infections in humans.”
Last year, Megin Nichols, a CDC veterinarian, was part of a team of scientists tasked with investigating a recall that had close similarities to JBS’s: Between October 2016 and July 2017, 106 people across 21 states were sickened by Salmonella Newport after eating ground beef. Nichols’s team traced this lesser-known strain of salmonella back to a herd of New Mexico dairy cows.
Based on the strain detected, dairy cows are the likely source of this year’s outbreak, too, she says.
In other words, experts seem to agree that whenever Salmonella Newport turns up in ground beef—the exact scenario that lead to last week’s recall—dairy cows tend to be the culprit. I was not able to find reference to a Salmonella Newport outbreak linked to ground beef that didn’t originate with dairy cows. And so it seems reasonable to conclude, even though JBS and FSIS have not offered more official information, that this outbreak is no different, especially given the plant’s proximity to dairy country.
iStock / AHPhotoswpg
Between October 2016 and July 2017, 106 people were sickened by Salmonella Newport after eating ground beef linked to dairy cows
But how does Salmonella Newport get into dairy cows in the first place, and why is that strain so likely to end up in our hamburgers? This part of the story that has to do with biology, economics, and regulation—and it’s where things start to get very interesting.
At large-scale, intensive dairies like the ones that proliferate in California, productivity is all-important. Cows are hooked up by their udders to pneumatic sucking devices and placed on “rotary milking parlours,” originally called Rotolactors—a slowly turning wheel of automated milking stalls, kind of like a cow Gravitron. To best earn a living, dairy farmers need to make sure every cow on that wheel is as productive as physically possible. So when a cow’s output significantly drops for any reason, the farmer must make the difficult decision about whether or not to “cull” the cow: to sell it for meat, and find a better-producing replacement to take its place.
Culling is an unfortunate reality of dairy production. Virtually all dairy cows are sold for meat at some point, but farmers never want to sell a cow they’ve invested time, money, and effort in until they really have to. The difficult question farmers continually face is whether it would be cheaper and more efficient to treat a cow’s ailment, losing productivity all the while, or just sell it for meat and replace it.
A sick dairy cow is more likely than a healthy one to make its way into our food.
Routinely, culling makes the most sense. A 2007 USDA report found that roughly a quarter of cows are removed from dairies each year for one reason or another, and that the vast majority of culled cows are sold for meat. That makes for a lot of burgers. Since dairy cows are bred for milking, not for well-marbled steaks, they’re typically ground, not processed into primal cuts. All that dairy cow meat makes up a significant proportion of the U.S. ground beef market—about 20 percent, according to the Cattlemen’s Beef Board.
That’s where Salmonella comes in. Because when cows get Salmonella—and Salmonella Newport in particular—their milk output starts to drop. This helps explains a contorted fact that’s hard to believe: A sick dairy cow is more likely than a healthy one to make its way into our food.
Salmonella bacteria can get into a dairy herd in a variety of ways. It can be introduced by new replacement cattle carrying it, or brought in by the rodents or wild birds attracted to grain-heavy dairy cow feed. Because of the stress of modern dairies, cows tend to be quite susceptible to these germs, especially as they age.
“If you can imagine dairy cow environments, there’s a lot of cows, often moving around in a contained space,” says CDC’s Megan Nichols. “One of the things that might really predispose [dairy cows] to infections are some of the environmental factors and just being mixed with hundreds of other cows. I think anytime you bring a large group together, whether it’s a group of people or a herd of cattle, you’re potentially introducing new diseases.”
Dairy farmers care a lot about Salmonella, in part because it’s a productivity issue that affects their bottom line.
As a result, dairy cattle do frequently harbor Salmonella—though estimates vary widely on how often. A 1994 survey in Washington state found Salmonella in only 4.6 percent of culled dairy cattle. More recently, a 2012 studyof dairies on the Texas High Plains found Salmonella in nearly a third—32.6 percent—of culled dairy cows from nine different operations. Research at dairies in New York state foundthat individual farms ranged dramatically: In some dairy herds, zero percent of cows tested positive for Salmonella, while others tested positive at rates as high as 53 percent. USDA data tell us that over 50 percent of dairies with more than 500 cows are Salmonella-positive, more than half of them clustered in the West and Southwest.
Why isn’t it a bigger deal that Salmonella is so prevalent at large diaries? The dairy industry would argue that Salmonella isn’t really a public health issue, thanks to the miracles of modern milk processing. Since proper pasteurization will kill a range of bacteria including Salmonella, you could argue that it doesn’t really matter if a cow is carrying it or not. Dairy farmers care a lot about Salmonella, but that’s in part because it’s a productivity issue that affects their bottom line.
In fact, dairy farmers may not ever know their cows have Salmonella. Though acute cases can result in a range of noticeable symptoms in cows, including fever, diarrhea, and death, most cases of dairy cow Salmonella are subclinical—they betray no obvious signs. “Subclinical Salmonella may be lurking in your herd, and you’d never know it,” warns a promotional pamphlet published by Zoetis, the world’s largest producer of animal medications. According to Zoetis’s guide, the main thing farmers are likely to notice is a drop in milk production—about 2.5 pounds of milk per infected animal per day, which adds up to more than a ton of milk per week at a heavily infected 500-cow dairy.
Zoetis
A pamphlet by Zoetis, the world’s largest producer of animal medications, warns of the dangers of “hidden” salmonella in a dairy cow herd
Salmonella Newport can also cause what veterinarians call an “abortion storm”—a rash of cows in a herd suffering spontaneous abortion. Cows who suffer an abortion can’t produce milk for the season—enough incentive for farmers, hard-pressed to feed and house and animals that can’t produce, to send them to slaughter. But even cows that see a mild to moderate drop in production are likely to be pulled from the herd. In this way, a strange kind of logic plays out across the industry: The sicker an animal is, the more likely it is to enter the food supply. Because when cows stop producing milk for any reason—whether it’s due to age, stress, or disease—we usually end up eating them.
When infected dairy cows leave the herd, they take their Salmonella with them. Animals processed at the large plants like the one in Tolleson often travel hundreds of miles to get there, a stressful, crowded journey that makes them more likely to both contract and spread illness. Finally, at the slaughterhouse, the Salmonella that isn’t really a health risk on dairy farms suddenly becomes one. Because meat isn’t pasteurized like milk, after all. Plenty of Americans like their burgers medium-rare.
If dairy cows are more likely than beef cattle to harbor Salmonella, the way they’re processed at slaughterhouses makes them even more likely to spread it. While beef cattle are typically processed in “lots”—cattle of specific types, whether conventional, organic, or 100-percent grass fed are kept separate by attribute and price—dairy cows are blended into a wide spectrum of products. You won’t eat a burger that is all dairy cow; those animals aren’t really raised for meat. Culled dairy cows are frequently used as a kind of padding ingredient that’s mixed in with standard beef.
Meat from dairy cows is spread out across a vast number of patties—millions and millions of them.
“Lean beef trimmings from cull cows are often blended with high-fat content beef trimmings harvested from animals finished in feedlots to facilitate a consistent supply of ground beef that meets certain purchase specifications,” according to a 2012 study published in the journal Foodborne Pathogens and Disease. (The study’s lead author is Guy Loneragan, a Texas Tech University food scientist who tells me he also has a paid role on JBS’s Food Safety and Quality Team.) “As a consequence, beef from culled dairy cows may be broadly incorporated into ground beef products across the United States.”
In other words, meat from dairy cows is spread out across a vast number of patties—millions and millions of them. That’s not a bad thing when the meat doesn’t harbor Salmonella. But when it does, the results can be dramatic. The JBS recall ordered by FSIS affected 49 different JBS product lines, from its Cedar River Farms “natural” beef, to its Grass Run Farms line of grass-fed beef, to its conventional beef sold under Walmart’s “Showcase” label. One reason why FSIS recalled so many different products, and so much meat overall, could be that each of these individual offerings was blended with potentially tainted dairy cow meat.
For more conventional offerings, blending with dairy cow trim is standard and would be unsurprising. But in the case of specialty beef marketed with claims like “100 percent grass-fed,” that’s really not supposed to happen. Was that what went on at Tolleson? Hard to say, because there’s another possibility, too: that only some of JBS’s products were blended with the unsafe beef, but pathogens remained inside processing equipment due to a sanitation issue. In other words, dirty equipment may also have contributed to the problem.
“When you have a six-week window where you have many, many different types of products implicated, it appears to be a sanitation issue,” says Angela Anandappa, founding director at the Alliance for Advanced Sanitation, and a research assistant professor with the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. She points out a full cleaning must take place every 24 hours for slaughter and ground beef operations. “If equipment wasn’t adequately cleaned, Salmonella could haven taken up residence. That’s very possible here.”
The federal government is effectively powerless to stop companies from sending Salmonella-tainted meat out into the public.
FSIS confirmed to me that “processing equipment must be broken down, cleaned and sanitized in between production days,” according to federal regulations. It’s possible that didn’t happen here. But you’d also think that JBS would be testing constantly for signs of virulent pathogens like Salmonella Newport—and if the company had taken the time to look, they would have been able to stop the outbreak in its tracks. After all, we’re talking about millions of pounds of meat that moved through the plant over the course of six weeks. Who would want to risk a recall on that scale? Isn’t constant, stringent safety testing in place to prevent this very thing from happening?
No, actually—and that’s where things get really hard to stomach. According to USDA rules, Salmonella doesn’t even qualify as an “adulterant” in meat. That means processors aren’t required to test for it. And if it does show up, it doesn’t mean they’re doing anything wrong—technically or legally.
“Presence of Salmonella in meat products does not render them ‘injurious to health,’ and thus ‘adulterated’ per se within meaning of the Federal Meat Inspection Act (FMIA), as normal cooking practices destroy Salmonella organism,” writes the legal research firm Westlaw. In practice, that means that the federal government is effectively powerless to stop companies from sending Salmonella-tainted meat out into the public.
Case in point: In 2011, FSIS pulled its inspectors and halted production at Supreme Beef, Inc., a Texas processor who was selling Salmonella-tainted ground beef to the state’s public school system. Supreme sued, arguing that the presence of Salmonella was not cause for the government to intervene. Ultimately, the United States Court of Appeals agreed, writing that “cross-contamination of Salmonella alone cannot form the basis of a determination that a plant’s products are adulterated, because Salmonella itself does not render a product ‘injurious to health.’”
Workers at a Texas slaughterhouse, where FSIS inspectors are on hand to ensure meat meets USDA food safety standards. But FSIS can do little to regulate the presence of Salmonella in meat
The presence of Salmonella in meat, then, poses no public safety hazard—at least by any legal definition. Even if Salmonella-tainted product actually starts making people sick, the government has no legal recourse to force a company to recall it, or to punish a company for distributing it in the first place. JBS’s recall of 7 million pounds of beef was entirely voluntary, after all—issued not because the government forced its hand, but because the company thought it was a good idea.
“Technically, JBS could have said to FSIS, ‘Forget it, I’m not recalling the product,’” says Bill Marler, food safety lawyer and publisher of the website Food Safety News. “Now, that would not have been a smart move on their part because I can still sue them under state law and collect damages. Or if some little kid gets sick or dies, that would not be a good thing from their perspective.” But companies don’t really have to issue meat recalls for Salmonella, —even though they do for E. coli.
According to Marler, E. coli and Salmonella have had radically divergent public health histories. After the 1993 Jack in the Box outbreak that sickened hundreds and killed four (at least three of them children), FSIS moved to make E. Coli an adulterant under FMIA, making it illegal in commerce. As a result, meat processors must test for E. coli, and if it’s found to be present in meat, they can’t sell it. In the wake of that decision, poisonings from E. coli 0157:H7—the most dangerous strain—have fallen by 40 percent since 1994.
When cows stop producing milk for any reason—whether it’s due to age, stress, or disease—we usually end up eating them.
But Salmonella has taken a different path: Its noxious impact has continued unabated. According to CDC, Salmonella is still responsible for 1. 2 million illnesses and 450 deaths every year—and the rate of confirmed cases has held steady.
The government’s lack of regulatory power over Salmonella shrouds the recent JBS recall in secrecy. Because it cannot be said that the company did anything wrong, USDA can’t insist on providing transparency to the public. Legally, JBS is only recalling potentially tainted beef because it wants to. As such, we may never know what really happened.
But that’s why the case I’ve laid out here, though speculative, is important. By reporting on each recall as a one-off, a crisis that’s here one day and gone the next, we fail to connect the larger dots in an increasingly clear picture. There are things we do know, after all. We know that Salmonella Newport has almost always been linked to dairy cows in the past. We know that those sick cows are more likely to be sold to meat plants than their healthy comrades. We know that dairy cow meat is typically treated like filler at the slaughterhouse, processed in a way that dramatically increases its already significant risks. And we know that, if there is a Salmonella-related food safety issue, the government can’t really do anything about it until it is too late.
There’s only one question that remains, really: why, knowing what we know, we don’t do more about it.
Additional reporting contributed by Sam Bloch.
FARM, HEALTH, HOME FEATURE, POLICY, SYSTEMS BEEF FSIS JBS RECALL SALMONELLA USDA
Joe Fassler is The New Food Economy's features editor. His food safety and public health reporting has been a finalist for the James Beard Foundation Award in Journalism. Follow him @joefassler. Reach him by email at: joe.fassler@newfoodeconomy.org
In Wake of Romaine E. Coli Scare, Walmart To Track Leafy Greens
Lately, food safety has been in the public eye: 2018 has already seen a large outbreak of E. coli in romaine lettuce and Salmonella in a number of products from eggs to breakfast cereal.
September 25, 2018
Lately, food safety has been in the public eye: 2018 has already seen a large outbreak of E. coli in romaine lettuce and Salmonella in a number of products from eggs to breakfast cereal.
Walmart and Sam’s Club sent a letter to suppliers of fresh, leafy greens asking them to trace their products all the way back to the farm using blockchain technology. Suppliers are expected to have all these systems in place by this time next year.
This change means that the information gathered by these suppliers will be open and accessible through technology that offers real-time, end-to-end traceability from farm to table. Blockchain allows for digitized sharing of data in a secure and trusted way.
What happens when the food you buy has been identified as having Salmonella or E. coli? You may not know where or how your Caesar salad was affected. You just know you don’t want your family to get sick when eating it.
This year, many customers and grocers were forced to throw away large amounts of romaine lettuce when an E. coli contamination in romaine lettuce spread through the food industry. Health officials at the Centers for Disease Control told Americans to avoid eating lettuce that was grown in Yuma, AZ.
“But it was difficult for consumers to know how to determine where their lettuce was grown,” said Frank Yiannas, vice president of food safety at Walmart.
“None of the bags of salad had ‘Yuma, Arizona’ on them,” he said. “In the future, using the technology we’re requiring, a customer could potentially scan a bag of salad and know with certainty where it came from.”
It’s crucial to respond quickly and accurately to food-safety issues like these. But with the traditional paper-based method of capturing information that exists at many farms, packing houses and warehouses, tracking down important data from multiple sources is extremely time-consuming.
With paper-based ledgers, Yiannas mentioned that it may take his team seven days to track down where a product came from. The team has to contact the supplier, get paper records and use those records to contact the company that imported or shipped the product to Walmart’s distribution center.
“The food system is absolutely too large for any single entity to [track],” Yiannas said.
But blockchain changes everything.
“We’ve been working with IBM to digitize that, so the information is captured on the farm with a handheld system. It’s [also] captured at the packing house at the supplier,” Yiannas continued.
Now, Walmart plans to use the power of blockchain to speed up identifying, researching and reacting to food safety situations.
Instead of taking a week to hunt down information about potential Salmonella in a product, blockchain tracking takes only a couple of seconds.
The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention believes that this change will help make more effective recalls.
“Customers trust us to help them put quality food on their tables for themselves and their families,” said Charles Redfield, executive vice president of food for Walmart U.S. “We have to go further than offering great food at an everyday low price. Our customers need to know they can trust us to help ensure that food is safe. These new requirements will help us do just that.”
Making information available in the interest of public safety is a step change for the industry. But it matters to everyone.
“When it comes to safety, this is not a competitive issue,” Yiannas said. “We all win or lose together.”
The 2018 Aquaponics Association Annual Conference Is 1 DAY AWAY - Aquaponics Across Connecticut!
The Putting Up Shoots Conference Features Tours of Four Sites Across The Great State of Connecticut.
The 2018 Aquaponics Association Annual Conference is less than 10 DAYS AWAY - have you registered for the largest aquaponics event in the nation?
Learn from Top Aquaponics Experts from Around the World!
Join us and leaders from Practical Aquaponics, Foodery Farms, Ouroboros Farms, Waterfarmers, and so much more Sept. 21-23rd for the event of the season!
The Putting Up Shoots Conference Features Tours of Four Sites Across The Great State of Connecticut.
Guests will get a first-hand look at all angles of aquaponics: commercial, food safety, community, research, and STEM education.
Tours will inform afternoon sessions and team-building. We will identify ways that Connecticut growers are breaking down barriers and growing more with aquaponics, and how we can all apply these lessons.
Check out the Putting Up Shoots Conference Homepage for ticket info.
Also, check out the draft Putting Up Shoots Schedule.
Email community@aquaponicsassociation.org for questions.
There's A Ticket Type For Everyone
With day passes starting at $175, STEM educator weekend passes at $375 with the code "onceinalifetime", and full weekend passes at $475, there's a place for everyone at the conference!