Food recalls getting more complex

Food recalls getting more complex

Despite the headlines and public perception, Canadians aren’t being forced by more food recalls to purge their pantries of questionable food, a Brock University professor says.

But Michael Armstrong, who teaches courses in quality and operations management, said the recalls Canadians are being hit with are becoming more complex, thanks to seemingly never-ending additions to lists of products containing questionable ingredients.

Take the recall of peanuts contaminated by salmonella. The initial recall of Peanut Corp. of America nuts was issued in January.

Armstrong, a regular visitor to the website of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which issues the recalls, said another notice about products that may contain the dodgy nuts was posted in June.

Armstrong started crunching the CFIA’s recall numbers earlier this year after hearing people muse that warnings about contaminated food seemed to be more common.

Since 2004, the CFIA has issued 696 alerts, Armstrong found. Fifty-six per cent were “Health Hazard Alerts” — food recalls — while 41 per cent were allergy alerts. Only three per cent contained other advice.

Suspected contamination by bacteria was the cause of 67 per cent of those recalls, including listeria (22 per cent), salmonella (19 per cent) and E. coli (10 per cent).

While Armstrong discovered that the average number of alerts the CFIA issues each month has tripled from an average 7.5 in 2004 to 20.7 in early 2009, they aren’t all about a new problem. Some described expansions or updates of previous alerts, implying the recalls increased in size and complexity more than frequency.

“There were so many alerts because there were so many products, so many brand names, and unfortunately, some of those companies don’t access their records as quickly as others,”
Armstrong said. “Not very good traceability in those cases.”

His point isn’t to cause panic, he said.

“I don’t think it’s something consumers should go home worrying about but ... we should be asking our companies and our governments to put more resources into making sure this is investigated and taken care of,” Armstrong said.

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