Recalls are on the rise, jumping four-fold in the last five years - and 2019 had no shortage of them. From food products like romaine and papaya, fish, poultry and beef, to food and beverage packaging, food companies executed recalls on a daily basis.
"When you consider that 3,000 people die every year from foodborne illness—that's one 9/11 every year," says FoodLogiQ CEO Sean O'Leary. "That's unacceptable because this is a preventable issue, and unfortunately, these illnesses are an underreported public health problem."
FoodLogiQ shared thoughts from corporate leadership today in the wake of the ongoing E. coli outbreak linked to romaine lettuce. The affected produce has sickened 67 people in 19 states, with 39 hospitalizations and six cases of kidney failure, according to a November 26, 2019 update from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). As of today, no deaths have been attributed to the E. coli outbreak.
After retailers pulled romaine lettuce off shelves in the Fall of 2018, consumers were left wondering if leafy greens were safe to eat.
Nothing alarms consumers at the grocery store more than seeing row after row of empty shelves where produce used to be. This was the scene during the nation’s largest recall of romaine lettuce one year ago. Although consumers were repeatedly reassured by the FDA earlier this year that all the affected produce was removed from retail locations, some consumers still have underlying concerns about whether the lettuce is really safe to eat.
Last week, Consumer Reports announced that, in light of the recent series of foodborne illness outbreaks linked to leafy greens, the publication had conducted its own testing of 284 samples of leafy greens purchased from various retailers. The results from those tests showed Listeria monocytogenes were present in six of the samples. These findings are now being reviewed by the Food and Drug Administration.
Join FoodLogiQ for a live demo on Tuesday, July 30th, 2019 at 2:00 pm ET. Learn how you can build a community of your supply chain partners, capture and monitor quality incidents, achieve end-to-end traceability and respond to food recalls with speed and accuracy all on the FoodLogiQ Connect platform.
