00:00 The Food and Drug Administration recalled more food last year than it had in five years.
00:07 That includes all kinds of groceries like vegetables and ice cream.
00:12 And that's scary for consumers like you and me because last year more than 1,000 people
00:17 got sick through recalled food products.
00:19 And six people even died.
00:21 So let's unpack how a food recall works and how it impacts us.
00:26 I'm Katie Anatopoulos and I cover business and culture.
00:30 First off, there are two main organizations that regulate our food in the U.S.
00:35 The Food Safety and Inspection Service oversees most of our meat and poultry products and
00:40 the FDA checks just about everything else.
00:43 These agencies inspect production lines and plants and test products to confirm that they're
00:47 okay to eat.
00:49 Companies can also conduct their own food safety inspections.
00:52 It's in their interest to catch a bad product before it's out on store shelves.
00:57 But all these safety checks are still not enough to keep faulty food off our plates.
01:02 And occasionally customers end up with wood chips in their ice cream or a dead bat in
01:08 their salad.
01:09 Yum.
01:10 There are many reasons why items are recalled.
01:13 Food can be contaminated by a pathogen.
01:15 For example, this year Walmart removed 16,000 pounds of ground beef, suspecting traces of
01:22 E. coli.
01:23 An item can also be removed if it has foreign objects in it.
01:27 At the beginning of this year, Trader Joe's recalled its chicken pilaf after customers
01:32 reported finding rocks in it.
01:34 And in April, Trader Joe's discarded over 61,000 pounds of soup dumplings, which are
01:39 very good, I've had them, because someone said they found plastic in the item.
01:43 But one of the most common reasons for recalls is failing to list allergens, such as tree
01:48 nuts and wheat, soy, milk, on the packaging.
01:52 It's a major issue because for people with food allergies, it can kill them.
01:56 A woman died at the start of this year after she ate mislabeled cookies containing peanuts.
02:01 Once a product complaint is launched, the government investigates it and determines
02:05 whether or not the food should be recalled.
02:08 It's not an easy decision to make and the FDA's investigation can take months.
02:12 When an item is deemed unsafe, the recall is often voluntarily issued by the company
02:17 that made or distributed the product.
02:19 But if the manufacturer refuses to do anything, then the government can take legal action.
02:24 The FDA has shut down companies that don't comply.
02:27 In 2012, it closed the biggest peanut butter plant in the U.S., Sunland Inc., after its
02:32 products were linked to a salmonella outbreak.
02:35 It made 41 people sick across 20 states.
02:38 And that's a small number compared to another outbreak of salmonella in peanut butter in
02:42 2009 that resulted in 9 deaths and 700 illnesses.
02:47 Whether a recall is mandated by the government or voluntarily done by the manufacturer, the
02:52 next step in the process are to contact the press, warn the public, and reach out to stores
02:57 to remove the item.
02:58 But as you can imagine, the whole process is costly.
03:02 Manufacturers have to pay stores for each product removed.
03:05 It can set them back tens of millions of dollars.
03:08 Some companies can go bankrupt, like Sunland did in 2013.
03:12 That's why manufacturers purchase recall insurance.
03:15 But insurance doesn't save companies from bad publicity, because nobody wants to buy
03:20 from a contaminated manufacturer.
03:23 So why have food recalls spiked in recent years?
03:26 First off, the origin point of our food supply chain has gotten farther and farther away.
03:31 In fact, roughly three-quarters of our fruits and nearly half our vegetables are expected
03:36 to come from outside the U.S. by 2027.
03:39 This makes it harder for companies to trace contaminants because they often don't know
03:43 the exact source of the food.
03:45 We also have to consider that production operations are getting bigger.
03:49 Mega factory farms house hundreds of thousands and sometimes even millions of birds.
03:55 And the U.S. is farming nearly twice as many animals for food as it did 35 years ago.
04:00 The more animals you have in a facility, the more likely it is for them to spread disease.
04:06 But is the government doing enough to protect shoppers from these contaminated products?
04:10 A Politico investigation found that regulating food is simply not a high enough priority
04:15 at the FDA, which also oversees drugs and medical products.
04:19 Past reports have said that the FDA's food division is understaffed and underfunded.
04:24 And that's a problem because foodborne diseases can have some very real consequences.
04:30 In 2022, two babies died and four were hospitalized after drinking contaminated infant formula.
04:37 And it took the FDA and the formula maker five months after the first hospitalization
04:41 to recall the product.
04:43 FDA inspections are down, too.
04:45 The agency inspects production lines and plants at least once every three to five years.
04:50 So consumers and stores are often the ones reporting on safe food rather than inspectors
04:55 catching it before it hits the shelves.
04:58 But there are ways you can better protect yourself from eating contaminated foods.
05:02 Be aware of where your food comes from.
05:05 And whatever you buy, follow the four steps to food safety.
05:09 Clean, separate, cook, and chill.
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