In the news

The source of the largest outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 in more than a decade is still unsolved. It caused tremendous human suffering, many lawsuits, 45% drop in consumption of romaine lettuce. It also resulted in losses to growers, retailers, and restaurants. The FDA (@https://blogs.fda.gov/fdavoice/index.php/2018/05/fda-update-on-traceback-related-to-the-e-coli-o157h7-outbreak-linked-to-romaine-lettuce/?utm_campaign=FDA%20Voice%20FDA%20Update%20on%20Traceback%20Related%20to%20the%20E.%20coli%20O157%3AH7%20Outbreak%20Linked%20to%20Romaine%20Lettuce&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Eloqua) in their letter shows their approach to traceability. As shown in the image, it is designed to find points of convergence from several well-identified clusters of illness with a common point of exposure, such as a restaurant or grocery store. When that point of convergence is identified, efforts can then focus on how the contamination occurred at that location. However, this effort did not yield the desired results. Perhaps the effort should focus on the reduction of the chances of a new one happening.

Industrial Microbiology Market Report, 5th Edition (IMMR-5), by Strategic Diagnostics provides detailed testing practices and test technologies on six sectors (Food Safety, Beverage, Pharmaceuticals, Personal Care/Cosmetics, Environmental and Industrial processing) on a worldwide basis, as well as market data and analysis from five world regions: North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and Rest of the World. The industrial microbiology market will exceed 2.4 billion tests in 2018. Food microbiology testing, especially the detection of food pathogens, will lead this sector’s growth with worldwide test volumes approaching 1.3 billion tests and with a market value of greater than US $4 billion. Demand for food safety laboratory services is growing even faster — at double digits – and leads the food safety sector as food processors increasingly outsource food pathogen analysis to food commercial laboratories. @ https://www.foodsafetymagazine.com/news/worldwide-industrial-microbiology-testing-market-to-grow-to-more-than-3-billion-tests-by-2023/

Beyond the human suffering (one person killed, 75 hospitalized and 172 sick), the E. coli outbreak caused enormous losses to growers, retailers, and disrupted supply chains as restaurants scrambled to find romaine lettuce alternatives. “During the week of April 14 (the week the news broke), romaine dollar sales fell 20%, which pushed total lettuce performance down by double digits: iceberg lettuce dollar sales were down 19%; red leaf lettuce dollar sales fell 16%; and endive dollar sales dipped 17%,” according to a Nielsen report on National Salad Month. In May, Romaine sales fell nearly 45%, according to the WSJ, iceberg fell 22%, and red leaf fell 17%. Prices for whole heads of romaine lettuce were down 60%. @ https://fortune.com/2018/05/30/romaine-lettuce-e-coli-outbreak-impacts/

The congress adopted a new mandatory label for foods requiring food manufacturers to label food for retail sales to include information about bioengineered (BE) food and food ingredients. This new requirement will cost in the first year to the food industry and ultimately consumers $600 million to $3.5 billion. The ongoing costs, though, would be less at $114 million to $225 million each year. The National Academy of Sciences reported that genetically engineered (GE) food is as safe to eat as non-GE food. @ https://www.foodsafetynews.com/2018/05/be-label-launch-may-cost-more-than-feds-yearly-spend-on-food-safety/#.Ww7U9EgvyM8