2Sustain

The New York Times has an excellent recap of yesterday’s hearing of the Congressional subcommittee that’s investigating the Salmonella outbreak which has killed eight, sickened more than 600, and spawned one of the largest food recalls in U.S. history. Even though the tainted peanut products have been traced back to one manufacturing plant in Georgia, the entire peanut industry is now reeling (some estimates say sales of peanut products are off 25%). From a supply chain perspective, there’s a critical lesson here: even a single source supplier can send shock waves through a diverse network of supply chains, or even through an entire industry, as consumers react prudently.

Of course, another obvious lesson is this: know your suppliers. I have posted about this before, but as this horrible scenario plays out before us, it bears re-stating. Don’t assume you know your suppliers, find out. Visit. Assess. Evaluate. Double-check. Without question, supplier information and risk management systems are becoming increasingly critical as supply chains become more complex, but even so, you cannot underestimate the importance of knowing your suppliers. It's fundamental.

You can find more outstanding coverage of the Salmonella outbreak at Supply Chain Matters, and the FDA’s multiple missteps are carefully outlined in the post “Annals of peanut butter: it keeps getting worse,” over at the blog of the Scientists and Engineers for America. 

Also, if you find yourself wondering what Mr. Parnell, the president of the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), should be doing to respond to the allegations made against him and his company, here’s some sound advice from Bill Marler, one of the nation’s leading food-borne illness attorneys. He’s representing a few of the people who were sickened by eating tainted peanut products, and he posted these five specific suggestions for Mr. Parnell on his website:
 

1. Say that you are sorry and that you are at fault. What do you have to lose, you are in fact at fault;

2. You should pay the medical bills and all related expenses of the 575 victims and their families;

3. You should offer to pay the cost of all related Health Department, CDC and FDA investigations;

4. You should provide all bacterial and viral testing of all recalled product and any other tested product (before and after recall), and;

5. You should release all inspection reports on the plants by any Governmental Entity or Third-party Auditor.

And that brings me to the third lesson of the day: As Marler says, “Sometimes it is better to get ahead of a train that is about to hit you.”

P.S. An updated U.S. FDA peanut product recall listing is available here.