CDC Believes That Risks Associated with Leafy Greens Have Been on the Rise
Following the high-profile leafy greens E. coli outbreaks in 2006, CDC started studying the trends. It concluded that “during 1996 2005 leafy green consumption increased 9% and leafy green-associated outbreaks increased 39%,” according to a recent article on ScienceDaily. Therefore even taking into account the increase in leafy greens consumption, associated food-borne outbreaks are on the rise. This is consistent with general trends, as indicated in my recent magazine article in Cooperative Grocers.
Although there is no way to eliminate risk, grocers, restaurants, and produce suppliers should conduct ongoing reviews of their food safety, audit, supplier, and insurance programs to ensure that everything that can be done is being done to mitigate or shift risk.
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Ken, welcome to the blog world.
This is a very interesting situation. While risk always exists, the rise in food-related outbreaks increases the importance of due diligence checks performed by each entity in the supply chain. Minimizing and then shifting risk is the best way to limit liability for these entities.