Foodborne illnesses are something that have become more and more prevalent in today’s society. FDA’s CORE (Coordinated Outbreak Response and Evaluation) Response team has been tracking outbreaks within the Unites states for years. There have been different outbreaks that have started in certain areas and spread outwards throughout the nation. In order for the FDA to snip an outbreak from spreading even more, they must be one step ahead of different means of transportation and contact. There have been outbreaks that started on the east coast and have made it to the Midwest within days. Following along these outbreaks and determining how they could potentially be avoided in the future. The outbreak that will be discussed is the Salmonella outbreak from Bright Farms Packaged salad greens in the upper Midwest area (U.S. FDA, 2021).
According to the FDA (2021), their CORE Response team located an outbreak after Bright Farms recalled some of their packaged salad greens on July 15th, 2021 out of their Illinois facility. Within days of them recalling this product, it had spread to the surrounding states of Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and even over in Pennsylvania. Most of the cases were in the Illinois state, with 11-18 ill people reported from this recall. Overall, there was 31 people that got sick from this outbreak. It was a small outbreak, but it could have been worst if the recall didn’t happen sooner. Moving this product out further could have been worst to anyone that decided to eat this product.
To prevent something like this in the future, the company needs to be more precarious with their products during production and packaging. Keeping each harvest of leaves in its own segregated area will help with cross-contamination to other harvests. Since Bright Farms had to do a second recall on some of their spinach leaves, they obviously didn’t keep things segregated. Another way would have completely sanitized the area that the leaves were proceeded and packaged. Stripping everything down and cleaning it, from the cutting boards, to the machine that weighs and packages this product. It may take time to do these preventative measures, but it is better than continuously putting out tainted products. That is something that Bright Farms has done, is completely clean out their warehouse, and sanitize literally everything within the facility. Trucks that delivered the product would have to of been sanitized as well.
The impact on the global food market would be tremendous if it would have gotten out even further. Let us put it on a large scale, and say it made it to other corporations and restaurants that used this product. Putting the leaves on their sandwiches, selling to customers, or even making small “house” salads at restaurants could have made this outbreak expand even further. A large outbreak like that would shut down every company that was in contact with this product, whether it was a company, restaurant, or small deli. This could have been detrimental to the restaurants because they would have had to throw away all their product, clean their whole kitchen, and lose out on revenue for the duration of time. The global market could have slowed down if a supermarket/hypermarket were to sell these tainted leaves, and their stock potentially plummeting.
So, in conclusion, if it wasn’t for the FDA’s CORE Response team, most foodborne outbreaks could spread across the entire nation. The one outbreak that has been tracked is the Bright Farms Spinach leaves that was giving people Salmonella in the midwestern area. Iowa, Illinois, Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania all got affected by this recall. If the company took the proper precautions when packaging their product, then they could have avoided this outbreak in the first place.
-Cyral I Callender III
References:
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2016). Estimates of foodborne illness in the United States. Retrieved from: https://www.cdc.gov/foodborneburden/attribution/attribution-1998-2008.html
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. (2021). Outbreak Investigation of Salmonella Typhimurium: Bright Farms Packaged Salad Greens (July 2021). Retrieved from: https://www.fda.gov/food/outbreaks-foodborne-illness/outbreak-investigation-salmonella-typhimurium-brightfarms-packaged-salad-greens-july-2021
Health and Wellness Repertoire 
Leave a comment