Guest Column: Learning Points From The Largest U.S. Food Recall In History

By Bruce Achterman, Technical Director, In-Quiz-It Software

Events earlier this year prove the consequences of dismissing the importance of pest management. Pests are the very basic threat to health and product quality. They spread hundreds of diseases and destroy billions of dollars worth of products each year.

One of the companies involved, Peanut Corporation of America's (PCA) products was linked to nine deaths and caused hundreds of cases of salmonella illness caused by a breakdown in pest control. This prompted the largest food products recall in U.S. history. It resulted in the bankruptcy of PCA simply because they were providing a minimal pest management effort which had little to no oversight. Why? Was it cost or lack of understanding of the importance of pest management?

Hopefully it was not cost because the cost of even an excellent pest management program would have been completely insignificant to the bottom line for a company such as PCA. Now PCA doesn't have a bottom line. Their pest problems put them out of business as a result of the hundreds of lawsuits that were filed.

These events should also raise QA and Sanitation Managers' concerns about their suppliers' efforts. Managers need to assure that they are not receiving more than just the product with the suppliers' deliveries.