Manufacturing a safe food product, as with anything good in life, requires hard work. It requires compassion, commitment and diligence. It requires a deep understanding of risk and an appreciation of the consequences of complacency. Those consequences can range from large-scale food product recalls to high-profile foodborne illness outbreaks, which can sicken or even kill consumers.

Too often, food companies believe that recalls or — even worse — outbreaks are rare events that happen only to other companies. But the stark reality is that, if we study the larger recalls and outbreaks triggered because of pathogens over the course of the last 10 years, the majority of recalls and outbreaks involve large amounts of product intermittently contaminated with pathogens produced over long periods of time.

In most of these examples, the companies involved were sophisticated companies which had developed and implemented robust and well-designed food safety programs. Or so they mistakenly thought.

So, what went wrong in each of those cases? Was it a lack of compassion, a lack of commitment, or a lack of diligence? Likely, all of the above.

Unless the food industry is resigned to the conclusion that recalls and foodborne illness outbreaks simply cannot be avoided (they can), then we need to do a better job challenging ourselves as an industry. We need to become dedicated students of recalls and outbreaks and study the series of events that caused them to occur. With a better understanding of past mistakes, we can ensure those mistakes are not repeated.
So far in 2021, which has been a slow year for recalls, there have already been more than 80 recalls for the presence of harmful pathogens. In 2018, there were 270 recalls triggered by pathogens. Here too, in each example, the companies involved sincerely believed that they were doing everything right. In many cases, there were doing a lot right, but not everything, and the pathogens quietly gained ground.

Where was (and is) the gap? In my view, it is believing that finding pathogens in the environment is to be “expected.” Believing that detecting pathogens in the environment is the “routine,” “anticipated” and “unavoidable outcome” of a well-designed environmental monitoring program is problematic. It means that we, as an industry, have become resigned to finding pathogens and thus resigned to their presence.

It’s also the reason why most companies refuse to routinely sample Zone 1 food contact surfaces for pathogens during each shift of production. It’s not because the data wouldn’t be useful — it would — but because companies are afraid of what they will discover. And frankly, if it was my company, I would be concerned too. After all, we all know that, the more the industry tests for pathogens, the more pathogens the industry will find.

Thus, merely hoping that the pathogens that your QA techs discover on the floor or in a drain in a food processing room will not get onto processing equipment or into a finished product is a prime example of “wishful thinking.” Long gone are the days when we taught, and believed, that if we can only keep harmful pathogens in the floor drains, our processing floor will remain “under control.” I think we now understand that if we detect any pathogens (250,000 of which can fit on the head of a paperclip) anywhere in the environment, both our equipment and our products can (and likely will) become compromised.

Wishful thinking is never a good strategy. Work hard to convince your company leadership that a single positive is something to be feared and avoided at all cost. If we collectively fear pathogens, rather than blissfully thinking that, if present, they will leave us alone, we can make a difference in the overall safety of the food supply. Let’s not “wish” pathogens away, let’s “will” them away with compassion, commitment and unrelenting and untiring diligence.

“Wishful thinking” is never a good strategy

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