What we are seeing now in the latest peanut butter recall and the problem with hazelnuts is this continued change in illness patterns from animal derived foods, to plant derived foods. See Bill Marler’s blog on the topic.
The situation is fueled by increased consumption, scrutiny, better detection methods and more industry testing. Small outbreaks and recalls ( small-if numbers remain low) remind us that the pathogens are poised to contaminate foods wherever they can. We seem to be catching the problem earlier but the reservoirs of infection persist.
Of chief concern to me is whether our preventive techniques are working and how well.
De Franco was certified, I would be surprised if the Skippy plant was not licensed and inspected.
So where does this leave us in prevention, what do we have to do to reduce the potential for outbreaks further so that intermittent sporadic episodes like this do not occur, or occur so infrequently that we can consider it acceptable? We are far from there, but I would like to be sure we are going in the right direction and so am interested in what further issues might be revealed by these incidents.