Personal Injury Law

"Blaming The Victim" Strategy Remains In Food Industry's Playbook

By Bill Marler, Esq.

 We do not want to be accused of speaking ill of America while being on foreign soil, but we are still trying to read the New York Times daily and today's story titled "Increasingly, Food Companies Cannot Guarantee Safety" by Michael Moss makes it clear that the U.S. food industry cannot get off its "blame the consumer" soap box.

 Mr. Moss looks at the aftermath of the pot pie salmonella outbreak of 2007 that sickened at least 15,000 Americans.  After going through the background of the outbreak and the difficulty pot pie makers were having in being certain their products were being sold pathogen-free, the New York Times reports this:

"So ConAgra — which sold more than 100 million pot pies last year under its popular Banquet label — decided to make the consumer responsible for the kill step. The 'food safety' instructions and four-step diagram on the 69-cent pies offer this guidance: 'Internal temperature needs to reach 165° F as measured by a food thermometer in several spots.'

Never a newspaper to resist a challenge, NYT headed for their kitchens with the instructions.  Alas, there was a problem:

But attempts by The New York Times to follow the directions on several brands of frozen meals, including ConAgra's Banquet pot pies, failed to achieve the required 165-degree temperature. Some spots in the pies heated to only 140 degrees even as parts of the crust were burnt.

A ConAgra consumer hotline operator said the claims by microwave-oven manufacturers about their wattage power could not be trusted, and that any pies not heated enough should not be eaten. 'We definitely want it to reach that 165-degree temperature,' she said. 'It's a safety issue.'

Much more in this story, right here.

Full post as published by Marler Blog on May 14, 2009 (boomark / email).