Interesting defense
Saw this pop up on food safety news. I wonder how far it will go if they really have no evidence that the outbreak started in PCA.
Well I've just read the article, and there are a number of fair points.
If their not testing the final product how do they know it's safe for the consumer? (Part of due diligence defence!) Was the raw ingredient tested? If it's mixed with a number of different companies pastes then how can they say its PCA's that was contaminated (poor traceability)? Is environmental monitoring carried out?
If the cracker was found to be contaminated, I think id be asking a lot of questions of Kelloggs and their systems etc!!
Caz x
(Disclaimer: Nothing in this message is meant to defame Kellogg's in any way it's a statement of my perception of actual events I participated in as a purchaser of Kellogg's products as an ingredient of our own.)
Good luck asking Kellogg's anything. I worked for a company that Kellogg's was a supplier to and they give only what they perceive to be the minimum amount of information you need. They have, or at least had not very long ago, a policy to not fill out customer questionnaires and their rational was that the purchasing company should come themselves. Of course not every company has the money to just pick up and send people out to every supplier and it wasn't like we could use another supplier. From my experience they come off as a bit of a shady character to work with due to that and other issues we had with them.
That being said I think the FDA should be looking into their practices perhaps some, or all, of the blame rests with them.
The case let's me think about the whole MOSH/MOAH discussion when using cardboard for direct contact packaging of fatty food products. When a migration of MOSH/MOAH is identified, we immediately think that the used ink or cardboard is responsable. While studies have indicated that eggs contain sometimes more MOSH/MOAH than the recycled cardboard they are packed in. Eggs are an ingredient of many fatty food products ...
There is no backward traceability. Same ingredient from different suppliers mixed together. It is the customer's fault that he bought the product and ate it. He should have
tested it in a lab before eating :( .
There is no backward traceability. Same ingredient from different suppliers mixed together. It is the customer's fault that he bought the product and ate it. He should have
tested it in a lab before eating :( .
I hope that is said with note of sarcasm...^^^^
If they can trace the specific type of Salmonella to both the customer and PCA, there is your reasonable connection.
It is not as definitive as strains of E.Coli (to my limited understanding) but if the positive samples at PCA (which Parnell OKed to send) and the customer's tests had Salmonella Newport and there were no other peanut butter Salmonella outbreaks, it stands to reason that there is a connection.
I hope that is said with note of sarcasm...^^^^
If they can trace the specific type of Salmonella to both the customer and PCA, there is your reasonable connection.
It is not as definitive as strains of E.Coli (to my limited understanding) but if the positive samples at PCA (which Parnell OKed to send) and the customer's tests had Salmonella Newport and there were no other peanut butter Salmonella outbreaks, it stands to reason that there is a connection.
I think the biggest question I have is if they actually discovered Salmonella at the PCA plant. It's not in that story either way and TBH it happened before I was in food safety directly. So I wasn't really paying any attention to it other than if my peanut butter brand was on the list of potentially contaminated products.
Salmonella was found in tests PCA did and Parnell released it. The defense for that is that he has ADHD and didn't understand the implications of releasing the product. Emails show they did test positive at PCA, BUT whether or not that is the Kellogg's peanut butter is probably what Kellogg is protesting.
From what I have seen Parnell and PCA make all food manufacturing suspect. smh
Reminds me a bit of Cadbury's and their Salmonella scare. :w00t:
The defense also wants to prevent the jury from KNOWING people became ill and died!!!
Well... I don't think any reasonable person wouldn't know that people died and a lot of people were ill just from the news coverage back then. They may not know the extent of it or the food safety side of it though.
http://news.bbc.co.u...and/6900467.stm
Sobering reading; caused quite a stir here (on IFSQN) when it happened.
Caz x
Briefly, and from MEMORY (eek)
Salmonella was found in tests PCA did and Parnell released it. The defense for that is that he has ADHD and didn't understand the implications of releasing the product. Emails show they did test positive at PCA, BUT whether or not that is the Kellogg's peanut butter is probably what Kellogg is protesting.
From what I have seen Parnell and PCA make all food manufacturing suspect. smh
That's right I forgot the part where they kept sending tests over and over again until they got a negative result.
I had the opportunity to meet one of the FDA agents involved with the PCA situation and it was interesting to hear how they did some of the sampling. What was clear was they had a hard time finding the organisms in the raw product and how they were sampling such large batches was concerning as well and in my opinion fraught with potential error. That being said it does negate the responsibility of the people involved to do the right thing and it is clear that they didn't.
HAHAHAHA!!! :roflmao: :roflmao: :roflmao: I'm saving that!
Funny story. When I was working in a DVD factory as a technician one of the operators could care less about the quality of the disks and when I mentioned something about it he said "What do I care Walmart has a real good return policy"... I was not amused.
To hell with the results, Full Steam Ahead. Grrr.
"Damn the torpedoes. Full speed ahead" Admiral Farragut - Battle of Mobile Bay (which at the time what he was referring to was not actual torpedoes but underwater mines)
BTW I wanted to mention it in another thread but I didn't want to hijack it... great weeping angel pic!