By Kyle LoJacono
A recent outbreak of listeria-infected cantaloupe and spinach has raised the question about food safety.
Adam Putnam, commissioner of Florida’s Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, said the food itself is much safer than any other nation in the world.
“The real problem is with how far the food travels and how many stops it has along the way,” Putnam said.
Putnam said the problem is less severe in Florida, as the Sunshine State can grow most of the agriculture its citizens need throughout the year, but in many other areas it is harder to contain such outbreaks.
“The cantaloupe grown in Colorado can stop in half a dozen places before it gets to the supermarket,” Putnam said. “As soon as a food-borne illness is spotted, all the local and federal groups do whatever they can to stop it, but when you have to track it back to four and five places it makes it difficult.”
Putnam said once harvested, food generally goes to a packinghouse where it is cleaned and packed. Then a processor usually cuts and repackages it before a distributor takes over to sell large amounts to the food to grocery chains, which houses the food for some time before it goes to the local level. Only then does it go on store shelves for the consumer.
Food grown internationally, which Putnam said accounts for about two-thirds of the produce eaten in the United States, has additional steps before it gets into the food supply.
“The good thing is all those levels have safeguards to test the food for problems, so if anything is detected along the way it can be removed from the food supply,” Putnam said. “When it gets through, that’s when you have the issue of tracking the food.”
The cantaloupe that caused the recent outbreaks sickened 84 people and accounted for 17 deaths nationally, according to Food and Drug Administration (FDA) records. Sherri McGarry, an adviser in the FDA’s Office of Food, said it has been difficult to track down the infected fruit because the producer, Jensen Farms, cannot say exactly where it was sold.
“The food chain is very complex,” McGarry wrote in an email. “There are many steps, and the more steps there are the harder it can be to link up each step to identify what the common (outbreak) source is.”
None of those reported ill from the cantaloupe were within Florida, but the infected spinach did make it to the Sunshine State inside dip sold at Publix stores.
Publix spokesperson Shannon Patten said the supermarket chain recalled 16-ounce containers of prepackaged spinach dip sold in its delis with a UPC 41415-00062 and use-by date of Oct. 10. Patten said the company only knows the dip was not sold at locations in southern Florida near Miami or out of the state, making it very likely it was sold in Pasco and Hillsborough counties.
The recent recalls are just a couple in a long line of such issues. In 2006, spinach infected with E. coli killed at least five people and hospitalized 205 across 26 states, according to the FDA. Peanuts were the source of a salmonella outbreak in 2009, while eggs transmitted the same disease a year later.
Putnam said new legislation recently passed by Congress is giving the FDA more power to track food wherever it goes.
“That will allow the outbreaks to stop much faster because all they have to do is call up where the food is from and track it to market in a matter of seconds,” Putnam said. “We already had the safest food in the world, and this new law is just another way to make the food supply even safer.”
The new legislation goes into effect later this year.