Over the last five years, there have been nearly 1,000 food and beverage recalls triggered as a result of the presence of harmful pathogens. Of the 130 food product recalls for pathogens in 2021, more than half of them involved food products that had been produced over the course of multiple days, weeks or months. In 2022, there have already been 19 recalls of food products containing pathogens. Of these, 13 (a whopping 68%) involved products that had been produced over multiple days, weeks and months.

What this means is that the old thinking of characterizing a recall of products as one which involves a single failure during a single shift of production no longer applies. Rather, the root source of these recalls is increasingly being proven to be a persistent (or, put differently, a “resident”) pathogen which has firmly established a permanent residence somewhere in the processing environment of the companies involved.

In turn, if we look back over the last 1,000 recalls caused by pathogens, many were announced by companies with extremely sophisticated food safety experts, plans and environmental monitoring programs. In virtually every instance, the companies involved were, in fact, detecting pathogens on intermittent basis, but failing to adequately respond.

What many companies have not yet realized is that the new recall paradigm involves large amounts of products, produced over long periods of time, which are intermittently contaminated with pathogens such as Listeria monocytogenes or Salmonella. These same companies are also failing to understand that, once pathogens enter the food processing environment, they will contaminate food products. Pathogens cannot be controlled within the food processing environment unless they are eliminated from the food processing environment. If they are allowed to persist, they will find their way onto food contact surfaces and, by extension, into food.

Yet, industry as a whole generally lacks a persistence to eliminate persistence. While the “root cause” of positive environmental findings is given (in most cases) an obligatory investigation, very few companies are actually committed to quickly finding the “root source.” If Listeria is found in the drain, the most common root cause is a failure in cleaning and sanitation. The most important question, which is “where did the Listeria come from and how did the Listeria get into the drain," is rarely seriously explored. This is because, to answer these questions truthfully, production needs to halt, equipment needs to be disassembled and treated, and production suffers.

Instead, many companies push forward mindlessly, conducting minimal vector sampling and obtaining a few consecutive negative results from the areas in question. When that occurs — and it should, since the areas in question have been nuked with chemicals and sanitizing agents — the real source of the pathogen remains elusive. It survives another day, safely in its real home, ready to pounce and wreak havoc once again.

The food industry can reduce the numbers of recalls and outbreaks caused by harmful pathogens by becoming more persistent in the face of persistence. If you see pathogens in the environment, in many cases it is because they are living in the environment. If they are living in the environment, they will spread and contaminate food. If they contaminate food, it is only a matter of time before people become sick.

We should not “expect” to find pathogens like Listeria in the environment. And, if we do, we should sound all alarms and eliminate the emerging cancer at all costs. Complacency kills. Persistence prevails.

Getting persistent about persistence

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