@Risk

Last week, Nestle announced that it will begin using heat-treated flour in the manufacture of its Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough.

This move came two days after routine testing found two samples of Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough manufactured at the company’s Danville, Virginia facility were contaminated with E. coli O157:H7. The finished product involved never left the factory or entered the supply chain. None was shipped, and no product is being recalled.

However, this new incident certainly serves as yet another wake-up call that more needs to be done to make this product –and by extension, the entire food supply –safe. (more…)

The editorial “Say No to Raw Cookie Dough,” in Monday’s New York Times, urges Congress to act quickly and approve a bill that would strengthen the Food and Drug Administration’s powers, giving them both more money and more authority, including new clout to recall products and more easily review food safety records or consumer complaints. But –after the string of recent problems with tainted tomatoes, peanuts, pistachios, pot pies, beef, and now cookie dough –will the infusion of power and more than $1B contained in the Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 be enough to overcome consumer skepticism?

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The recall of Nestle Toll House refrigerated cookie dough last Friday underscored two important points regarding the safety of the nation’s food supply and the complexity of supply chain risk management. First, it appears that no one food is more, or less, risky than another. Second, consumers often don’t, or can’t, follow the food safety instructions found on the packaging label.

Nestle USA issued the recall late last week after health officials linked the cookie dough to a national outbreak of illness from the bacteria E.coli 0157. As many as 65 people in 29 states have been sickened. 25 have been hospitalized. But, what’s truly puzzling investigators here is that E.coli 0157 lives in the intestines of cattle –meaning that outbreaks are typically associated with contaminated meat. How could this particular bacteria, E.coli 0157, have ended up in refrigerated cookie dough? (more…)