OTTAWA - When the Canadian Food Inspection Agency first announced a recall of foods containing pistachios in early spring, 25 products sold under three different brands were ensnared in the salmonella scare.
By the time the food-safety investigation was finally completed in June, the recall captured 70 products and 18 brands in Canada - all containing potentially contaminated pistachios from Terra Bella Inc. of California.
At the end of it all, the second largest pistachio company in the United States admitted it did not know salmonella contamination could occur on raw pistachios.
The striking revelation, made on the heels of a recall that was drawn-out because it took time for manufacturers to figure out whether they used the tainted ingredient, is hardly a boost of confidence for consumers who are still digesting a string of listeriosis post-mortems about how Canada's food system failed Canadians last August.
Twenty-two people, most of them elderly Canadians living in provincial long- term care facilities or hospitals, died after consuming deli meats contaminated with listeria produced at a government-inspected plant operated by a leading food company.
And on the eve of the one-year mark of the outbreak, the verdict is still out on how far we've come to improve the food-safety system in the intervening year.
``Oh, hell no,'' Rick Holley, University of Manitoba microbiologist and member of the academic advisory panel at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), says bluntly when asked if we're better off.
Mansell Griffiths, director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety, is more measured, but hardly makes a definitive pronouncement about the shape we're in today.
``In some respects yes, in some respects no,'' says Griffiths, a professor in food science at the University of Guelph.
``Whether the listeriosis outbreak has led to an overall improvement in the awareness of food safety among industry is maybe arguable. Certainly it had everybody's attention when it happened, but outbreaks of this kind have happened before and we haven't really learned all the lessons that we should have from those outbreaks. Hopefully, this time will be a little bit different. ''
There's no doubt more rigorous tracking of listeria and sophisticated sanitation protocols are in place at Canada's federally regulated meat plants, where operators were shaken by the realization that steps taken at Maple Leaf Foods Inc., an industry leader in food safety, weren't as good as they needed to be to deal with the ubiquitous bacterium.
But the agency is still wrestling with a resource problem that sees one meat inspector responsible for an average of five facilities, while struggling with a new oversight system that favours auditing of company paperwork over time on the plant floor.
And the food safety system is much more than listeria and ready-to-eat meat plants, especially as the system becomes increasingly globalized and the ingredient chain in processed foods becomes more complicated.
The growing global ingredients market is expected to exceeded $34 billion US next year.
``I think the food system is way safer than it used to be, it's when things go wrong, it has a bigger impact then it used to, and that's a function of the new worldwide distribution system,'' says Dr. John Carsley, medical health officer for the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and member of the Listeriosis Investigation Expert Advisory Group.
``It can get very difficult to unravel.''
Already, consumers in Canada are bombarded with regular postings about fresh produce or nuts contaminated with salmonella or beef tainted with a deadly strain of E. coli.
Or it could be listeria in deli meats, campylobacter in chicken or Vibrio in seafood.
Public health officials believe cases of food-borne illnesses affect between 11 to 13 million Canadians every year and kill up to 500 people.
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State of Canada's Food-Safety System Still Hotly Debated
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By Sarah Schmidt
Canada.com, August 15, 2009
Straight to the Source
