Are you at risk of being held criminally liable, including jail time? The recent Boar’s Head recall, which involved 7 million lbs of bratwurst and other ready-to-eat deli meats contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes, has been linked to 10 deaths and 60 hospitalizations across 19 states, to date. Regardless of any civil action Boar’s Head may face for damages, Congress has asked for direct criminal accountability, meaning executives at the company could face incarceration as a result of this recall.
Even more recently, McDonald’s faced an E. coli outbreak involving its Quarter Pounders. So far, 104 people across 14 states have been infected by the bacteria linked to slivered onions on these burgers, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Of these, 34 people were confirmed to have been hospitalized, one person in Colorado has died, and four others have developed potentially life-threatening kidney complications.
These recent food safety faux pas brings to mind the Peanut Corporation of America’s (PCA) recall in 2008 and 2009. The recall disrupted a vast assortment of peanut butter-inclusive products due to Salmonella Typhimurium contamination, and when it was all said and done, the outbreak was responsible for nine deaths and 700 cases of reported illness.
In 2014, PCA and three of its employees were found guilty in federal court on multiple counts of conspiracy, mail and wire fraud, sale of misbranded food, introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce, and obstruction of justice. As a result, the president of PCA, at age 61, was sentenced to 28 years in prison with three years of supervised release; the head of sales, age 56, faced 20 years in prison with three years of supervised release; and the quality assurance manager, age 41, was sentenced to five years in prison with two years of supervised release.
There are several other high-profile examples. These food safety mistakes are not as uncommon as you think, but their consequences are as real as they seem. Since 2023, there have been 233 food recalls due to a pathogenic or unsafe concentration of a substance as reported by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and US Department of Agriculture (USDA) in America. If you talk to most food and pet food companies, and if they will share, most would say they have had some scare of a market withdrawal or have actually had a market withdrawal for product non-conformance.
If the federal government were to prosecute all of these recalls as federal crimes, 233 brand leaders could face jail time. As a food safety professional, I am very concerned about this, as one day I might have to face such challenges or sit in front of a prosecuting attorney. Will you?
There’s power in a plan
You may find yourself asking, “Why does this keep happening? We have a great food safety plan.” But do you really? In order to truly determine the strength of your food safety program, ask yourself the following questions:
- Do you have a qualified preventative control professional that has a background in food safety, or do you have a person that was promoted because at one time they did a quality job?
- How much of your annual budget is spent on direct food safety testing and food safety training? Is it the right amount? How do you stack up against other companies?
- Do you perform the right number of tests on your product and at the right steps to know your product is safe?
- Do you know what your worst non-food-safe day is?
- Have you identified your high-risk areas within the facility?
These are just a few of many, many considerations, but if you can’t answer these to start, you could be at risk of going to jail. Some good news: in fewer than two years, there are 233 other manufacturers who may be joining you. They, too, thought they had a robust food safety program.
From my experience as a food safety detective, troubleshooter, and a 25-year sleuth of food safety concerns, it is with the above questions and others where the food safety program falls short. Generally, when a food safety concern — especially pathogens — escapes the control of the plant, it is not due to just one failure of the system but many failures. Commonly, the amount of product involved in a recall grows because either the facility cannot demonstrate they knew about the problem or cannot demonstrate when the last time they had a clean break.
Hope exists
All food manufacturing facilities have the potential (and duty) to produce safe food products. Following these simple steps can go a long way toward building a robust food safety program:
- Foster a food safety culture — make it a priority every day.
- Build a team of food safety professionals or retain them. In most cases, food safety and quality teams should have their own reporting structure.
- Train all employees and visitors who may come in contact with food on proper food safety measures.
- Complete a comprehensive risk assessment for food safety for the types of foods you produce.
- Find out what companies of perceived high quality and food safety are spending on food safety interventions and material testing. Work to match that spend.
- Build your food safety program around your worst day of production, not your normal day. Establish baselines for critical aspects of your program to measure against day-to-day operations.
- Know what you don’t know. In other words, test your program with third-party eyes and conduct real assessments.
- Create a robust traceability and crisis management program — and test them several times a year.
- Continuously improve and critically reassess your programs.
By keeping tabs on these considerations and others, companies can avoid recalls and market withdrawals, with the hope of never having to initiate your crisis management plan in the first place.
