One of the credo’s that were spoon fed to me is: “If you would not let your own child eat it, than do not sell it to anybody”. Such a statement makes that sometimes you lose business, but the most important thing – your name – stays free from any kind of unethical stains.
Working in the juice industry has the convenient side-effect of me being an nonstandard consumer. I read all labels, check ingredients intensely and am always curious to know where a product originates from.
Reflecting on how I act in a supermarket for instance, this also means that I see how many people just pick and buy: No reading of labels, no checking of price, no comparison with other products alike…
The Power of Packaging
It is amazing to read about and see consumer buying behavior. There are multiple continuous studies on it and every time I am stupefied by the developments.
The average consumer has become more and more a convenience shopper, being triggered by claims and statements on the packaging (either untrue or true, research backed or made up out of thin air…) and mostly hasted by a self-inflicted lack of time that causes that need for convenience goods.
I am happy to see the developments in Europe towards reliable labeling and the pressure the governments are putting on producers to fully state what actually is contained in the package. But the European Union is only a small part of the world and the number of products thrown at the consumer is hard to count.
Yet just mentioning ingredients is not enough. We want to know where a product exactly comes from. Better, we want to know where the different ingredients come from. And while we are at it, it would be nice to know whether the ingredients were sourced under laborer-friendly circumstances and without nasty pesticides.
A nice dream for the moment and of course first something bad needs to happen before more people start to think alike… which just did happen.
Ignorance of Traceability starts to play its part
Most food manufacturers and distributors cannot identify the suppliers or recipients of their products despite federal rules that require them to do so, federal health investigators have found.
A quarter of the food facilities contacted by investigators as part of the study were not even aware that they were supposed to be able to trace their suppliers, according to a report by Daniel R. Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services.
The above quote is from the following article in the New York Times: “Investigators find Source of Many Foods Untraceable“.
Referring to the recent incident with the Peanut Corporation of America (announcement and liquidation) and other companies involved, the article focuses on research results bundled in a report that will be published today.
To test compliance with the rules, federal investigators bought 40 products – including tomatoes, oatmeal and yogurt – from retail stores in New York, San Francisco, Chicago and Washington and tried to trace them to farms or to the border. Investigators successfully traced the source for only 5 of the 40 products, the report stated.
The investigators contacted 220 food facilities to ask about their supplier records. But only 118 of these businesses were included in the study because the rest were not required under rules adopted by the F.D.A. in 2005 to maintain supplier and recipient records. Of those 118 firms, 70 failed to provide investigators with required information about suppliers or customers, with 6 of the companies failing to provide any information at all.
As this is shocking on one hand, it is the signal that is needed to catch the attention of the consumer.
Industry’s or Consumer’s Responsibility?
While in an ideal world all government would make sure that all producers fully comply with all regulations on Quality and Traceability, that simply is and – negatively thought – will never be the case. But the consumers, as a group, have the possibility to push producers into an ethical and responsible way of working. Even stronger, the consumer has the VETO that can give direction… if only he or she gets better involved with what the producers actually do.
Yet the latter is only possible if and when the producers start providing in true and fully disclosed information.
So, are we facing a chicken and egg situation? Not really. The good thing is that when bad things happen in an industry, usually the regualtors, the producers and the consumers are rubbed in with their noses. Which leads to awareness. Which hopefully leads to a desire for change towards a safer product and a better understanding of that product by the consumer.
Now
What has happened and the current time we live in, might bring a forced change of direction for the industry. I have the feeling that producers will have to fight harder and cleaner to win over a consumer that is already slowly stepping away from convenience products and getting back to whole foods… juicing and blending at home, cooking more consciously and actually making food and beverage a social part of life again.
Will keep a close eye on these developments… hope you do also.
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It is a sad fact that there are a lot of companies who do not have traceability as part of their system. Ironic how the USDA is so strict about compliance with overseas manufacturers and suppliers when they are lenient with US-based companies. It is unthinkable even that there are companies who do not have SSOP's or HACCP in place. Yet, they are … Read Moreoperating and thriving!
If there is such a thing as concern for the well-being of the consumer, the USDA should be the front runner in taking responsibility on traceability. As you said, most consumers don't read labels. Most of them rely on the fact that there is a governing body that monitors these things for them. That's why they're there in the first place!
And bless those companies whose vision is to provide healthy, nutritious and safe products and actually make good on their promise! Traceability is not a joke. It is tedious and very expensive to implement. Maybe that's one reason why some companies can't afford to have it.