Today’s post is by Gayl Southard, Administrative Consultant, SafeSourcing.

Salmonella, a type of bacteria that causes serious illnesses and deaths, particularly among children and elderly people has caused Rose Acre Farms to recall their eggs after federal officials tied illnesses to the company’s facility in North Carolina. Twenty-two people on the East Coast have been sickened by Salmonella braenderup, however, no one has died.

The Food and Drug Administration conducted an investigation of the farm, which is located in Hyde County, N.C., and produces 2.3 million eggs a day from 3 million hens. Eggs produced at the farm are distributed to retail stores and restaurants in Colorado, Florida, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia and the Carolinas.

The contaminated eggs were sold under brand names such as Great Value, Country Daybreak, Glenview and Food Lion. They were also sold to Waffle House restaurants. Rose Acre Farms, a family-owned company headquartered in Seymour, Indiana, and has 17 facilities in eight states. This is the largest recall since 2010, when a major salmonella outbreak tied to Iowa egg farms sickened more than 1,500 people, said Bill Marler a Seattle-based personal injury attorney who focuses on food-borne illness litigation.

“More than 500 eggs from two Iowa farms owned and controlled by Austin J. DeCoster were recalled that year. DeCoster and his son, Peter DeCoster, each pleaded guilty to one count of introducing adulterated food into interstate commerce. Authorities said the DeCosters’ company, Quality Egg, Marler said this most recent outbreak involving Salmonella braenderup, unlike the one in 2010, was detected far more quickly, preventing dozens more from being sick. That’s partly because the type of salmonella bacteria is less common, so investigators were able to isolate it quicker, he said.”1

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, salmonella causes about 1.2 million illnesses, 23,000 hospitalizations and 450 deaths every year in the United States.

Allow SafeSourcing to help your business be more competitive with your sourcing needs. For more information on SafeSourcing, or on our Risk Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you.

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1 Kristine Phillips, Business, 4/15/2018

Todays post is by Ronald D. Southard, CEO at SafeSourcing Inc.

Our regular readers are certainly aware that we have challenged the government for years to take the necessary steps to make measureable progress on food safety. In fact here is a link to our Sourcing Safe Foods blog category where you will find 100’s of posts covering everything from BPA to Foodborne illness posts.

However, let’s get back to our original subject. I was reading of USA TODAY and came across a great advertisement on page 5A that was paid for by the Pew Charitable Trusts in support of the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act. And by the way; the current administration has not yet managed to get enacted. The advertisement recommends that readers go to MakeOurFoodSafe.org to urge the current administration to take action to enact this legislation. SafeSourcing completely supports this message.

The Make Our Food Safe coalition includes public health and consumer advocacy organizations, as well as groups representing the families of victims of foodborne illness. The coalition pressed for enactment of historic food safety legislation that provides the U.S. Food and Drug Administration with improved authorities to oversee the safety of the nation’s food supply, and will advocate for full implementation and funding of the law.

If you’d like to learn more as to how SafeSourcing supports food safety in our sourcing initiatives, please contact a SafeSourcing customer services representative.

We look forward to and appreciate your comments.

Today’s blog is by Gayl Southard, SafeSourcing Administrative Consultant.

Many years ago there was a pet food recall that affected many brands.  My own dog got extremely ill and required medical attention.  Since then we cook protein for him and supplement his diet with an organic dry food.  Many people view their pets as family members…I am one of those people!

Evanger’s Dog and Cat Food, of Wheeling, Illinois, has recalled specific lots of its Hunk of Beef pet food.  The recall is due to potentially contaminated product with a lethal sedative.

Evanger’s Hunk of Beef Au Jus detected Pentobarbital in one lot.   The FDA reported one dog has died and four others became ill after eating the product,

The recall affects 12-oz. cans of Hunk of Beef:

• 1816E03HB
• 1816E04HB
• 1816E06HB
• 1816E07HB
• 1816E13HB

The expiration date of June 2020 is indicated on the product. The second half of the barcode reads 20109, which can be found on the back of the product label.

The products affected were sold in stores and online in Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Illinois, Washington, California, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, and were manufactured the week of June 6 – June 13, 2016.

Pentobarbital, in high doses, can be used for euthanasia. Side effects of non-lethal doses include drowsiness, dizziness, excitement, loss of balance, or nausea.

“All Evanger’s suppliers of meat products are USDA approved,” the FDA said. “This beef supplier provides us with beef chunks from cows that are slaughtered in a USDA facility. We continue to investigate how this substance entered our raw material supply.”

For more information on how SafeSourcing can assist your team with this process or on our “Risk Free” trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.

Today’s blog is by Margaret Stewart, Executive Assistant at SafeSourcing.

Most people know that being green is important at home and work. Not only does it provide energy savings, but also benefits the environment, making energy sources more sustainable. Early in school, most are taught about how plants work with our atmosphere, cleaning and providing the air we breathe. This should be reason enough to be green, but there are also numerous benefits to keeping trees around that many don’t even realize. Bark is just one part of the tree that has a multitude of uses that our lives would not be the same without.

First, an annual autumn favorite is anything Pumpkin Spice. So, what makes it so good? Pumpkin alone can be bland, so other spices are usually added, hence the name Pumpkin Spice. Nutmeg, ginger, and cloves are all added in small amounts, but mostly cinnamon is added. While ginger and cloves come from other plants, both nutmeg and cinnamon come from trees. The nutmeg spice is derived from the seeds of a few trees found in Indonesia. A significant ingredient in anything pumpkin flavored, cinnamon comes from dozens of trees found mostly in Indonesia and China, specifically from the inner bark of trees. So, if you have ever tried cinnamon, you have eaten bark. Without cinnamon, pumpkin spiced treats would not be the same, and one can only imagine a world without cinnamon rolls, cinnamon toast crunch, Big Red chewing gum, or even many liquors.

Second, a household staple, believed to be a life saver for many people, and originally came from bark is aspirin. Stemming back to ancient Egypt and even mentioned in works of Hippocrates, people with pain or inflammation would find a willow tree, scrape the bark off, and brew a tea. The willow bark contained a chemical called Salicin (which is metabolized into salicylic acid), which temporarily reduced fever and aches. In our modern society, the active ingredient has been isolated and synthetically manufactured under the name aspirin. The name “Aspirin” was originally a brand name coined by the Bayer Company, but has since become a generic term for the pain reliever. [i][ii]

The non-edible uses for tree bark could be compiled into a long list, many uses we may not even realize, like adhesives, cork, and natural latex. When sourcing any of these products, we at SafeSourcing do the research to find out as much as we can about a product, because sourcing a product is more than just finding someone who sells it. It involves digging in and doing the research. We all know that being green is important for a multitude of reasons, and the uses of tree bark is included.

For more information on how SafeSourcing can help think or green, help researching your products, or on our Risk Free trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service representative. We have an entire team ready to assist you today.

[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willow

[ii] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin

Today’s post is by Ryan Melowic; Sr. Director of Procurement Process Improvement at SafeSourcing.

Food libel laws are laws that were passed between 1991 and 1997 by thirteen U.S. states that permit food manufacturers to sue anyone for libel that say anything negative about the food they manufacturer. The thirteen states that have these laws are: Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota, and Texas.

With Food libel laws, the legal standard for guilt is lower; therefore, to avoid being found guilty in this sort of civil liability suit, the defense employed must be stronger than even a criminal liability suit. In some states the burden of proof is on the party being sued. In addition, regardless of the outcome, punitive damages and attorney’s fees for plaintiffs are allowed.

With all the debate surrounding the foods we eat, it is important that you remember the Food libel laws when you share your stance. These laws are meant to sit on the books and discourage public speech by their mere presence; however, many would not pass constitutional scrutiny,

For more information on how we can help you with your procurement needs or on our “Risk Free” trial program, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative. We have an entire customer services team waiting to assist you today.

We look forward to your comments.