There are several items I thought you might find interesting today. First, there’s been a recall of contaminated food in China:
SHANGHAI: A company in eastern China was ordered to stop production after food-safety officials found it was repackaging the filling from two-year-old rice dumplings, an official said Tuesday.
Chinese officials in the eastern province of Anhui ordered a recall of all “zongzi” – a traditional snack made of glutinous rice and other fillings, usually wrapped in bamboo leaves – made by the manufacturer, Wan Maomao Frozen Food.
“We are still investigating,” said an official with the Quality and Technical Supervision Bureau in the capital of Anhui, Hefei, who would give only his surname, Wu. “The company will be punished according to law after the investigation,” he said.
Calls to the number listed for Wan Maomao Frozen Foods rang unanswered.
There have been no reports of anyone falling ill from eating the dumplings. But the recall comes amid an uproar over problems with tainted foods and medicines that have spread to other countries following the discovery of toxic chemicals from China in medicines, pet foods and toothpaste made or sold overseas.
The reason I think this is interesting in the context of the pet food recall is the issue of re-packaging, which I’ve mentioned from time to time. Inspections aren’t enough; recalls aren’t enough. The recalled foods must be destroyed. Otherwise the incentives are such that the tainted product will be re-packaged or sold by another vendor and the whole process starts over again.
Speaking of inspection, there’s a press release from the American Society for Quality to the effect that increased inspection won’t improve quality—a change in the modality of inspection, more effective inspection is necessary. I found this snippet particularly interesting:
The recent sickening of pets from toxic ingredients blended into pet foods was more a failure of corporate supplier quality programs than a failure of regulatory systems.
It’s pretty clear that the pet food brands and manufacturers did not feel that ensuring that the product they were selling was what it was supposed to be was their responsibility. Where could they get such an idea? One possibility is the conflict of interest on the part of both the FDA and USDA, which have dual, intrinsically conflicting responsibilities as industry boosters and industry watchdogs.
