You order a salad from a drive-thru, and within hours of eating it, you start to feel stomach cramps. Before you know it, you have diarrhea, you’re vomiting, and you’re rushing to see your doctor. Then you see on the news that one of the ingredients in that salad you had days ago may have been contaminated. Who do you blame for it?
The drive-through, right? They sold you the salad, so it’s obvious they’re who you should blame.
The problem is that cases of food poisoning aren’t that black and white. That ingredient could have gotten contaminated ata farm it was grown on, at a processing plant where it was washed and chopped, at a distributor’s warehouse, etc.
The fact is that, by the time it got to your plate, it was touched and handled more times than you can count, which is why these cases are so complicated.
Who in the Food Supply Chain Could Be Responsible?
There’s research suggesting that 1 in 10 people (10%) globally get sick each year from consuming contaminated food. And while that number is worrying, it’s not hard to see why this happens.
The entire food chain is made up of a lot of steps. And unless all these steps are in perfect sync and are all done perfectly, the food can easily get contaminated.
Here’s how:
Farms and Commercial Growers
See that lettuce on your counter? It spent months being exposed to soil, water, workers, animals, and equipment used for harvesting. And any of those may have contaminated it.
This is why the grower is the obvious place to start when you’re trying to track down the source of contamination, but keep in mind that it doesn’t automatically make them responsible.
You’d have to test both water and soil, check inspection reports, and compare harvest dates with the batches of lettuce that are affected. And if the same processor gets produce from a few different farms, this turns into an even bigger headache.
Food Processors and Packaging Companies
Let’s say a processing plant got lettuce from several farms. They wash, chop, and pack it using the same equipment, and usually in large quantities. If there’s even one contaminated batch, that batch can contaminate everything it touches.
But the plant itself can be a source of contamination if its equipment isn’t clean, if the water they use for washing is contaminated, if there’s no proper temperature control, and so on.
The way to work out what happened is to look at production schedules.
Those show when equipment gets cleaned, and lot codes show where packaged produce goes. If food came in okay and it got out contaminated, the processor is in a real pickle.
Distributors and Wholesalers
You probably don’t know who the distributor is because you never see their name, but they might be responsible for the contaminated shipment getting to restaurants and supermarkets across several states. Distributors get huge amounts of food that they store in their warehouses, divide them up into orders, and send them off to their customers.
Their invoices and delivery records are very useful because they can show where the bad batch went. The distributor itself can be the cause of the issue, too. If they don’t keep food at proper temperatures or they damage the packaging, it could be a problem.
Keep in mind, though, the distributor’s responsibility depends on what they handled, what they knew, and what they did.
Restaurant Chains and Franchisors
You see a name that’s known all over the country above the door, and you figure this is a safe place to eat. It’s a big company, after all, and they probably control all of their restaurants. Except… What’s in front of you might be a franchise. The larger chain makes all the big decisions, like choosing suppliers and menus, but it’s the local business that runs the restaurant, and that includes the kitchen. So, the responsibility is messy here.
If you’ve paid attention to the recent Rosenfeld Injury Lawyers Cyclospora case updates, then you’ll have seen how complaints connected to one outbreak can involve both the restaurants and supply businesses in different jurisdictions.
Grocery Stores and Other Food Retailers
The supermarket can just place a sealed bag on their shelf and call it a day. In that case, they can’t be responsible for the food being contaminated. But if their employees cut, mix, cook, or repackage it, that’s a different story.
Another way that stores can cause issues for themselves is when they don’t remove recalled food on time.
Conclusion
There could be many businesses responsible for you having to hug the toilet for the last few days. Unfortunately, knowingwho’s responsible for it would require an investigation, and even then, the answer might not be 100% clear. The food supply chain is long and complicated, and too many things can go wrong in the process.
That’s not an excuse, though, but it does explain why finding the answer can be so lengthy and hard.