Eternal Vigilance Required

By Jim Prevor, Editor-in-Chief, Produce Business

Morton Grodzins, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, coined the phrase “tipping point.” Grodzins was studying the dynamics of residential integration in the early 1960s. He noted a formerly all-white neighborhood would continue much as it was as black families gradually began moving into the neighborhood. However, the instant a neighborhood reached a certain percentage of black families, the character of the neighborhood would dramatically change. The neighborhood would change in a matter of months from overwhelmingly white to almost exclusively black.

The threat to the produce industry, which Bryan Silbermann correctly identifies, is persistent, prominent publicity about produce being implicated in the spread of foodborne illness could cause the industry to reach a “tipping point” in which consumer perception of our products moves from the current sense that these are healthful and good to eat to a more ominous perception, that these are dangerous and must be consumed with caution.

Though it is distressing that the industry should find itself in this state of affairs, there is some irony in it, too. Our trade’s efforts have paid off, and there is little doubt produce has been getting safer, not more dangerous. Unfortunately, this fact, though true, won’t save us by itself.

While our core product has been getting safer, other trends are dictating we will have more foodborne illness outbreaks, not less, unless something is done. What are these trends? First, we are now putting a lot of produce, mostly processed but not exclusively, in modified-atmosphere packaging. Bacteria have always grown on produce, and we have never had a “kill step,” such as cooking, that would neutralize most dangerous pathogens. What we did have, however, was the “rotting step” — by which produce became unappetizing before it became dangerous.

With our ability to keep produce good looking for extended periods of time, we have lost that protection. We also have gone heavily into the production of fresh-cut blends, often the highest margin fresh-cut items. These blends serve to multiply the percentage of bags of product that has a problem. If one item in the bag is contaminated and that item is 5 percent of a blend, you just took one contaminated bag and multiplied it by 20.

Finally, new technology has made it certain many outbreaks that would have never been identified are now noticed. Fortunately, most foodborne illness has no long-term consequence for most healthy adults. People get sick, then they get better. A certain percentage of the population — the elderly, young children and those with compromised immune systems — can get very sick or die. The way this dynamic functions is that a foodborne illness outbreak in mainstream supermarkets or restaurants has to sicken many, many people before enough people are sick enough to go to the doctor and get tested; only then can an outbreak be determined.

For a nationally distributed product, you might wind up with people sick in a scattered pattern across the country and, not too long ago, there was no mechanism by which these scattered sicknesses were likely to be linked together. That has all changed. We now have the sophisticated technology by which we can identify the exact strain of what is making people sick. We can test both product and people, as was done in the spinach/E. coli situation and tie them together. So we can tie together sick people in Anchorage, AK, Portland, ME, Key West, FL, and Hilo, HI, as all suffering from the same foodborne illness found on a specific produce item.

The nature of a “tipping point” is such that consumer perceptions make a dramatic change. In the classic example, they change from perceiving a neighborhood as “white” to perceiving a neighborhood as “black” — and it happens in the blink of an eye.

This means all consumer research must be judged delicately and analyzed in a spirit of awareness that consumer answers are influenced not just by the question asked but by their understanding of the nature of the situation and the motivations of the players. Take a scenario and explain Mother Teresa did action A and you will get a much friendlier interpretation than if you give consumers the exact same scenario but place a villain in Mother Teresa’s place.

It is very good that the produce industry has gotten generally good marks from the public on its handling of the crisis. It is also good that there are outside parties, especially the Food and Drug Administration, whose actions and statements consumers give credence to when it comes to food safety.

None of this is likely to make a difference, however, if we keep having outbreaks in which people get sick or worse.

Although, as Bryan points out, the recall of green leaf lettuce may have given consumers “greater confidence in the safety of the produce supply because it had been done voluntarily,” we should add one caveat: It built confidence in the system because it was done voluntarily — before anyone got hurt.

A laser-like focus on the need to make sure people stop getting seriously ill from our products is required.

PMA’s Board and its membership deserve industry commendation for coming to the table with $1 million in new funding to help support this focus.

In the end, associations don’t grow, process or sell produce. PMA and other associations can help, but produce safety is in the hands of those who handle produce, and only eternal vigilance in this goal will be availing.