I've been writing for the past week about knowing the source of your food as a macro trend that just keeps going and going. What I didn't know is that the government has been looking closely at this too--from a public safety perspective. Today, tne NYTimes reports that the Obama admin is concerned about the ability to trace food back to its source, What has been a marketing advantage now becomes a heightened safety issue and a future hurdle for many food manufacturers who have been missing the boat! I'm somewhat incredulous that many food suppliers are not able to trace their supply chain. Yikes!
Excerpt from NYTimes article:
"federal investigators bought 40 products — including tomatoes, oatmeal and yogurt — from retail stores 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. Three of the traced products were egg cartons whose supply chain included only a farm and a retailer. For a tomato, a bag of ice, a bottle of fruit juice and a bottle of water, investigators were not able to even guess the product’s supply chain. For 31 other products, investigators were able to identify only the likely suppliers.
The investigators contacted 220 food facilities to ask about their supplier records....(Among) 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...According to an estimate from a manager at a grain storage facility, if grain from one farm were contaminated, millions of bags of flour would be at risk and might have to be removed from retail shelves,”
Source: New York Times: Investigators Find Source of Many Foods Untraceable, GARDINER HARRIS,March 25, 2009
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