At a National Food Safety Summit in Baltimore in 2014, 216 attendees shared a tainted chicken marsala dish at lunch and became sick. Oh the irony!
In the old days, the inventory tracking of fresh produce was easy. Count the boxes, record the totals and put the product away. Prior to the 1990’s, inventory tracking by grower-shippers was a secondary concern.
As consumers, we generally assume the food we buy is safe to eat. Behind the scenes, making it so, involves an army of people constantly learning, be it from improved science or from audits or, unfortunately, from actual outbreaks.
Supply chain traceability for fresh fruits and vegetables has come a long way, but it still has a long way to go.