Salmonella Tomato Outbreak

Why Can’t We Track a Sick Tomato As Fast As FedEx Tracks a Lost Package?

by Henri Morris

Two-year-old Allison has been fighting an intestinal illness for three weeks now, a colleague shared with me yesterday. The toddler’s suburban Houston parents are praying for her recovery and for good news on her lab tests. As I learn of her illness, I fear she could become number 36 on the growing list of Texans who are ill from eating fresh tomatoes.

With the Salmonella tomato outbreak starting in late April and new cases being discovered in June, it leaves most people wondering why it’s taking so long to pinpoint the source of the bacteria. Should Allison’s parents and the rest of Houstonians accept the snail’s pace it’s taking to pinpoint the outbreak? Absolutely not.

After all, we put a man on the moon decades ago, so why can’t we track a sick tomato with the same speed that FedEx tracks a lost package? The fact is, we can. The technology exists today to barcode and scan tomatoes, leafy greens, pears, apples and other fresh produce, just the same as a box of crackers or a jar of peanut butter (when was the last time you worried about the danger of food-borne pathogens lingering in a new jar of peanut butter?). Regrettably, it is mostly the mega-sized produce distributors who are putting expert tracking technology to use.

Yes, there are exemplary mom and pop operations who take pride in making new technology an integral part of the way they conduct business, but they are not typical. To most of the estimated 78,000 U.S. food distributors, traceability still means cursory food inspections and best-guess hunches. And unfortunately, it is these small wholesale distributors who are the ultimate suppliers of most of the fresh produce consumed in this country. Their outdated, albeit well-intentioned, tracking strategies are unacceptable in today’s world.

What’s in the way of adopting traceability technology across the produce industry? Excuses range from cost, to manpower and time. “Sell it or smell it,” is the mantra of growers, wholesalers and retailers who desperately need to get the fresh grown bounty on our dinner plates to make money in a business where every fraction of every penny counts. But as consumers throw out their tomatoes and mark them off their grocery lists, the produce industry suffers financially. We need to recognize that any cost incurred to implement tracing technology is a fraction of what it will cost in human terms if the problem isn’t fixed.

In the meantime, it may be days, weeks or months before the four million mouths in the Houston area taste fresh salsa, bite into a toasted BLT sandwich or add a fresh sliced tomato to their spinach salad.

Spinach? Yes, we’re eating it again, but it’s been nearly two years since the discovery that bagged spinach contaminated with E. coli had killed at least three people and sickened more than 200 here in the U.S. All told, food-borne diseases cause approximately 76 million illnesses, 325 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths in the U.S. each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

This prompts the question: With all of the food safety problems in the last two years – that’s Allison’s entire lifetime - has the food supply chain learned its lessons? Sometimes yes, but more often than not the answer is no.

Many of us believe a gaping hole remains overlooked in the quest for food safety. Jim Prevor, the Florida-based pundit and editor of Produce Business magazine, a man who unabashedly eyeballs every twist and wiggle of our industry in his daily blog, points a finger – not at the growers, packers and processors – but at the local distributors and retail distribution centers. Wholesale food distributors are the crucial links in the food supply chain who provide our grocery stores, restaurants, schools and hospitals with perishable food.

“Many products lose their unique identity – and thus their traceability – when they get slotted at foodservice distributors or at retail warehouses,” says Prevor. This means tomatoes from Grower A can be commingled with tomatoes from Grower B, C and D at the time of sale. Then, when Salmonella or E. coli raises its ugly head, the distributor is at a loss to determine the offending food’s origin.

So what happens? Even though only one grower or growing region may be at fault, the Food and Drug Administration doesn’t know which one, so the chaos and shame shines on the entire industry.

How do we get out of this mess? Every player in the produce industry must implement traceability technology. This way, the affected produce can be removed from our food supply with the accuracy and speed of a bar-coded jar of peanut butter. With the passage of the 2008 “country of origin” farm bill (COOL) to be implemented in September, Congress and the produce industry will be one step closer to solving the problem. Keeping the safety of the nation’s food supply top of mind as a new president takes office will help the country move toward keeping pathogen-infested produce out of the U.S. food chain and out of the mouths of babes like little Allison.

Henri Morris, CPA, is president and chief executive officer of Edible Software, a division of Solid Software, LLC. The Houston-based company develops and distributes inventory control and accounting software for the wholesale food distribution industry.