It was a fellow from our local co-op, and he asked for me by name. Fair enough, I thought, I just wrote them a missive about some changes in the deli, and thought this might be a follow-up to my email. Though probably not, since I had already received a well-thought-out reply the same day to that one.
Nope, this cordial fellow wanted to let me know that the sun-dried tomato and chicken sausage I bought last week--and ate last night--may have contained traces of turkey that were not included on the label. No problem here, no allergies to that particular bird. My guess is that they didn't clean the machine well enough between batches. Says the woman who uses the same workbowl on the food processor for slicing the parsnip chips and making the dip.
Even if it is kind of scary that the co-op knows that I bought it, but even that's not really scary, because I was using my member discount that day, so they scanned my membership card. So of course they knew. That they put together the data is nothing that mainstream supermarkets don't do when they extract demographic data to drive their marketing efforts by asking you to swipe your club card.
Of course, recalls were on my mind this week, as I just filed a spate of FDA recalls (and yes, Virginia, they are a daily occurrence, it's not just you). This batch featured a voluntary recall of Hydrolyzed Vegetable Protein (HVP) tainted with salmonella that's an unlabeled additive in many items, including spice mixtures that are sold as is or contained in other processed foodstuffs. Already I've seen recall notices for bouillon cubes, pretzels, Pringles, ready-to-eat bacon, and a curry spice powder sold in bulk. More will come.
In this case, the apparent abuse of the voluntary nature of the recall system and the hidden nature of the ingredient (the FDA does not require disclosing it on the label) is a particularly nasty combination, and one that food writer Marion Nestlé blogged about this morning. Her piece quite rightly calls for a stronger FDA, one that does not have to beg manufacturers to do the right thing.
So it is a reaffirmation that the co-op is doing the right thing: calling me to check and make sure things are right when they made a mistake. While it was good of them to call (wouldn't you call your friend if you found out something you made for them was bad?), I also applaud their use of media channels to get the word out: they issued a notice on their website, and used Facebook and Twitter to spread the word. All things that, by the way, cost them nothing at all to do. I got to thinking that this is probably what was intended when the system of voluntary recalls was developed. Unfortunately, like all reasonable institutions, it is open to abuse by those who play the system to their own benefit.
If we had been talking about two schoolchildren, one who owned up to making a mistake and did their best to make it right, and one who had obfuscated a deed for their own benefit, the teacher's course of action would have been clear: reward the virtuous child, and both remove the privilege of trust and require retribution of some sort from the other. To subject both of them to a harsher regime would be a mistake, and the fallen angel must have a chance to re-earn his wings.
