Peanut Recall Swamps Small Bizs
Big food companies were not the only ones troubled by the peanut recall.
Small businesses in all corners of the United States bought potentially tainted peanut products from the Peanut Corporation of America and are now part of one of the largest food recalls ever in this country.
There is the chef in Las Vegas, for instance, who used them in protein bars, the packager of nuts and dried fruits in Connecticut, the cannery in Montana that sold chocolate-covered nuts and the ice cream manufacturer in New York State.
In all, more than 2,100 processed and packaged foods have been recalled in the wake of a salmonella outbreak linked to the Peanut Corporation’s products.
While big companies like Kellogg, Kraft and General Mills have the experience and staff to handle recalls, many small businesses have never had to deal with anything like this.
Some have had to keep employees on overtime or hire additional help to handle the recall-related work — records have to be searched to identify and track products, and replacement products manufactured. And company officials say they are spending a lot of time reassuring their customers.
The lesson to small businesses in all this, food safety experts say, is that they need to know their ingredients and the risks, and know what to ask of suppliers.
Photo by lusi.
Jaclyn on March 4th, 2009 8:40 am
That is such a huge problem for the small business that bought the peanut products in question. for the larger companies yeah it’s a big deal, but at the same time they have more time, resources, employees and money to take care of such a problem promptly…where as smaller businesses and mom and pop shop’s don’t have all those thing’s to handle such a recall.
HMS Nerd on March 5th, 2009 8:11 am
The lesson to small food good producing businesses isn’t just to watch their suppliers, it’s to look beyond the bottom line when choosing businesses to buy from. The FDA doesn’t actually inspect the vast majority of food processing plants – http://www.newsy.com/videos/is_the_fda_broken/
- due, supposedly, from logistical limitations. The result is that self-policing within the industry is the norm. That should indicate to potential wholesale buyers that there’s a difference between suppliers and that perhaps on-site visits and choosing locally produced foods are good policies to explore.
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