As sometimes happens, I have a blog post almost ready to go. Then something happens, or I see an article, or my news feed lights up. What was I going to write about today? Doesn’t matter, you will see it next week. What’s happening right now is a seeming deluge of food recalls.
Just a few months ago, Boar’s Head recalled a massive amount of their products due to listeria. You can read more about that here. Since the beginning of October, there have been 54 voluntary recalls by different food companies. Over half of those, 31, were due to some type of food-borne pathogen (Listeria, E. coli, Salmonella, etc.). You can find that list here. Those products include:
Sprouts
Juice
Meal kits
Mushrooms
Vegetables
Frozen Waffles
Fish
Pre-made salads
Cheese
Sandwiches
Pet food and treats
Eggs
The biggest ones that have made the news recently are the carrots, cucumbers, and eggs.
For most of these recent recalls, there is no given reason. We don’t know if it was a harvesting issue or a facility deficiency or pest problems. These investigations can take a year or more to officially be released.
HOWEVER…. We can look at some historical data and make some assumptions. If we take fiscal years 2024/25, we can see the general breakdown of citations issued. Almost 10% were a direct result of deficiencies in the pest control program. This could be the presence of pests, evidence of pests, not having a pest control program, or other items related to pest control.
Of course we realize that pest control is complicated and involves many factors that are indirectly related to pests. Namely sanitation and exclusion. If we pull out those items that include sanitary design, personnel, sanitation, and exclusion we can attribute almost 40% of citations related to pest control. We can stretch it a bit further and include hazard analysis (are pests a hazard? You bet!) and sanitation of food processing equipment we now have over half the violations linked to pest control.
We know pests can spread pathogens around. There is plenty of research on cockroaches, flies, and rodents that show they easily pick up pathogens and drop them as they run around.
It’s not just food processing. It’s hospitals, restaurants, grocery stores, homes. Anywhere food is processed, stored, cooked, or anywhere that has any type of food is susceptible to pests and therefore susceptible to the nasty little bugs that make people sick. Whether it’s a high end product or an off-brand, each is just as likely to be impacted if pest control isn’t sufficient.
What’s the point here?
We probably won’t know for a while the underlying causes of these recalls.
Pest control is essential, vital, crucial for food safety.
While the US has some of the safest food in the world, it’s never going to be perfect.
So if you’ve been concerned about food safety and need an independent assessment of your program, we do that. Contact us.
And remember: wine and liquor haven’t had a recall in ages…. Just saying. (so go watch the latest wineing about pest control episode.)
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