Peanut Butter Outbreak: Breakdown of the Entire System

Peanut Butter Outbreak: Breakdown of the Entire System

Issue topic: “If you were running a peanut butter company, what should be the level of required safety? Test every batch for contamination? Test every jar? Test every peanut? Etc.) At some point testing will hurt your bottom line, right?”

After reading the article titled 2009 Peanut Butter Outbreak: Three Years On, Still No Resolution for Some, it is clear that this article highlights the breakdown of an entire system, not just the negligence of one company. A significant portion of the article focuses attention on one company—Peanut Corporation of America (PCA)—and the debate as to whether the company knowingly distributed contaminated peanut product to other manufactures, which resulted in 714 individuals, across 46 states becoming ill (Andrews, 2012). In addition, the article also focused on the outrage by individuals who could not believe that there still haven’t been any charges filed against PCA. While this frustration and outrage is understandable, especially since it appears that PCA engaged in negligent, irresponsible business practices, attention needs to be focused on the bigger issue.

So who is to blame? To begin, let’s focus on PCA. Whether or not Stewart Parnell (CEO) really did send emails ordering his employees to send salmonella contaminated peanuts out to manufactures, PCA is still liable for the product it distributes. Thus, PCA should be held responsible for the outbreak that occurred. However, all the other companies who used PCA products in the production of their own goods are also to blame, and should be held liable too. This point was brushed upon in the article when U.S. Rep. Bart Stupak stated “that while PCA was responsible for distributing contaminated products, placing all the blame on PCA would than mean that other food manufacturers such as Nestle, King Nut and Kellogg would not be expected to verify the safety of their ingredients” (Andrews, 2012).  This statement underlines the bigger breakdown in the food safety system that occurred here.

It is a little hard for me to believe that these other manufactures unknowingly used contaminated ingredients in the production of their products. At least from personal experience, I know that many companies take samples of their ingredients when they receive them for both safety and quality control testing, prior to using them in the manufacturing process. Or at the very least, will stop production on a line that has contaminated ingredients, clean the line and dispose of the contaminated product, and then start production again. With that said, the other manufacturers should be held just as liable for the outbreak and illness as PCA.

Another interesting and alarming point that was mentioned in the article was the fact that PCA was allowed to test retest batches of nuts that had originally tested positive for salmonella, and then use that product upon negative retests. This is something that makes very little sense; it’s not like something magically happened to make the salmonella go away in between testing. Which is why in my opinion, the regulations should be tightened, and require all product batches that contains a positive contaminated test sample be ban from use with retests.

Furthermore, other interesting points regarded statements made by Peter Hurley, a police officer in Portland, Oregon, and Lou Tousignat, a son of one of the individuals who died from contracting salmonella. Peter Hurley stated that “under Oregon law, the role Parnell allegedly played in the Salmonella outbreak could be considered criminal negligent homicide.” Furthermore, Peter Hurly stated, “he was disheartened by the lack of charges against Parnell or PCA after all the time that has passed” (Andrews, 2012). In my opinion, these statements highlight were our societal priorities when we appear to pick and choose who we hold accountable and when. That is, we tend to focus on issues that are perceived to be more violent types of offense, which typically tend to be street level crimes, and both pursue and give out more strict penalties for those. It is something we see all the time, and that I have learned about throughout my criminal justice studies when it comes to corporate and white-collar crimes. For example, if someone killed another person with a gun in a robbery, it stands a high probability that the case would have a much stricter/harsher outcome, than cases in which we have seen individuals knowing admit to intentionally harming others. One of the big reasons for this is the fact that these types of crimes are very hard to prosecute, because they are very hard to detect, and there are so many loopholes that allow for a diffusion of responsibility. This is the reason why I believe that our food safety laws need to be reexamined and tightened up.

Kind of playing into this was a statement made by Lou Tousignat, “They don’t care about the fines, but if there were some criminal charges brought against them, that would have teeth…..That would perhaps have a little bit more of an impact. I think it’s a joke that nothing’s happened on the criminal side” (Andrews, 2012). Again, another statement that demonstrates there is a huge issue in the safety system when it’s often easier and less expensive for companies to just pay the fines, than it is for them to actually address and fix the safety problem. A practice that is both morally and ethically wrong. And again, why I believe the entire system needs to be overhauled.

Food safety has been around for a while now, this is not the industrial revolution when safety standards were just starting to improve. This is also the U.S., unlike other countries who may not have the capacities and/or resources to ensure food safety regulations are met and follow, we shouldn’t have to worry about our food killing us.

If I were running my own peanut company, I would be more concerned about the safety and quality of my product than focusing my attention on profits. In the end, I think it’s safe to say that the money saved in using contaminated product, or skipping out on testing, is far less than what it would end up costing in legal settlements, court costs, legal fees, and the lost revenue that would occur after getting people sick from contaminated product. In my opinion, these companies that engage in unsafe food practices are not concerned as much about their bottom lines as they would like us to believe. After all, these companies for the most part seem to be multimillion dollar companies and not “mom and pop” type small businesses. With that said, in my opinion, I believe it comes down to outright greed, in trying to make every last profit they can.

Given that context, if I were running my own peanut company, I would require that product was tested before it entered the facility, as well as that each batch of the final product was tested before it left the facility. This would increase the probability of detecting contaminated product, as products that may have been initially demeaned clean, could be ensured that nothing was missed along the way from ingredient to final product and distribution. In addition I would have tests consist of more than one sample, and that they be taken from multiple areas along the process.

In an ideal world, testing every jar would be the best approach, but with labor costs and the cost of testing, it is simply not practical for a business to operate like that. However, there are more effective ways (as mentioned in my last paragraph) to ensure a safe product, unlike what was done by PCA.