News

Law could change process of identifying tainted food in stores

By Richard Duke/OF THE COMMERCIAL STAFF
Wednesday, July 25, 2007 9:54 AM CDT

Sometimes it’s spinach and lettuce. Sometimes it’s peanut butter. Sometimes it’s canned chili. The list of recalled foods from a supermarket’s shelves can include anything.

The public has dealt with massive recalls before, but many in Jefferson County have only one source for their food and safety concerns — their local grocery store.

It is the supermarket that keeps the recalled food and material off the shelves, and it is the supermarket that deals directly with customers.

Several high-profile recall cases were in national news over the past year, including peanut butter tainted with salmonella and spinach leaves that contained E. coli bacteria. When these and smaller recall cases are revealed, the local stores go into action.

“As soon as we receive information on a recall from any source, we inform all of our stores via e-mail,” said Donna Lanier, who is the distribution accounting manager for Brookshire’s, which operates four locations in Pine Bluff. “We get the stores to pull the product as soon as possible, and we also have a system for stores to report back in terms of any recalled items that were sold.”

Lanier said that the stores and the main office in Tyler, Texas, are in constant contact during a recall.

Mary Wilson, store manager of Food King in Pine Bluff, said the store usually receives notice from Affiliated Foods Inc., and the items are off the shelves within minutes. In one particular case, the recall can be contained to a limited number of a particular brand. As long as the recall does not affect what is in the store, Wilson said she will keep items on the shelves.

“There was recently a recall of a brand of chili hot dog sauce,” she said. “Those making the recall knew it only affected a certain number of units. When we found out we didn’t have any of those, we were satisfied to keep selling that item. It’s important to know that we are able to pinpoint where a recall exactly is so that not everyone has to be affected.”

While store managers agree that the process of dealing with a recalled item is much easier than one would expect, some in Congress believe that the procedure for informing of a recall needs an overhaul, citing the current system’s fault in not catching food poisoning fast enough. In some cases, people get sick before action is taken by state and federal health officials.

A bill has been introduced to Congress that would strengthen the authority that the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Agriculture have over food recalls. The USDA regulates meat, poultry and eggs, while the FDA regulates all other foods. It includes provisions that would create a food contamination early warning system and requirements that food companies provide records to regulators upon request.

The FDA and USDA currently lack mandatory recall authority; they must ask companies to take back bad food, or, if the situation is extreme, they can go to court to force a company’s hand. An exception is the FDA’s authority over infant formula.

Not everyone thinks the food recall system is broken. Officials at the two agencies say it works and has prevented many people from falling ill. The low recall recovery rates, officials from both agencies said, are the result of consumers throwing food out instead of returning it, but that doesn’t mean people are eating tainted food.

Lanier said that the stores are constantly monitoring FDA alerts and checking the fda.gov Web site for updates concerning recalls. Sometimes, she said, people in the supermarkets can even get news from television or Internet reports.

“Any way we can get the information, we do what we can,” Lanier said.

Sam Anderson, director of public relations for Brookshire’s, said that most customers understand in the state of a recall if a particular item is not available.

“It can be frustrating, especially when you have people that rely on certain brand names, but they understand that safety comes first,” he said.

Wilson agreed, noting that she has never had any major complaints when a major recall happens.

“The worst thing is having empty shelves,” she said. “But as long as people know that we are looking out for them, they understand when something is missing.”

“It’s the definition of circumstances being out of our control,” Anderson said. “The problem comes from somewhere else, but we are the last link to the customer, so we need to make sure they know what the problem is and what we are doing on our end to deal with it.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Print this story   |   Email this story