If you can’t tell already from reading some of my previous blogs…I’m big on change. Not for change sake, but for fixing antiquated, outdated, broken things. So, here’s some food for thought for you today.

As another blogger put it “If you’re a millennial, snail mail is, at best, one of life’s many minor annoyances. Nearly everything that once necessitated sending physical document through the mail…can now more efficiently be conducted over the internet.” So, imagine my surprise this past weekend when I received a recall notice via mail! Much like this other blogger, I never check the mail (unless I’m expecting a check of some sort). My husband (who is on the border of millennial/genX) almost always checks the mail, and takes joy in it, while I think of it as one of life’s little chores.

It was from a club store that I am a member of, so they had all my information to send this to me, including my email and phone number. I guess I should be thankful I got any notice at all, as I am a bit numb to paying attention to recall notices in the media; especially ones that are not directly related to pathogen food safety, my area of work. There’s so much noise out there related to recalls, and they are often things that do not affect me like possible allergen introductions or mislabeling. This one was for a box of fig bars that I purchased, and they were recalled because of the possible introduction of hard white plastic baked into them. This quickly got my attention, but not for the reasons you might think.

Yes, I was concerned for my children because they often consume this product, but I was perhaps more concerned that the letter was dated (and presumably sent) on 2/12, but I was just receiving it 3/2, two and a half weeks later. I’ll cut the company some slack as I have moved during this period and so the mail forwarding process probably caused some delay, but surely there was a better way to reach me.

We talk a lot in this business about using technology to communicate product benefits and differences or tell the farmer’s story to consumers who want more and more transparency; but what about keeping them safe?

Some will forget that the blockchain movement began to reduce the time it took to traceback in the event of recall; a food safety tool for our toolboxes. While there has been so much buzz and effort put in to helping suppliers of meat and poultry offer greater transparency to consumers via blockchain, there’s hasn’t been much on the downstream notification of consumers.

With all the technology we have, why are we still relying on snail mail, newspaper articles and TV news to inform consumers of something as important as a recall?

Now that most retailers have loyalty cards of some sort to identify consumers who have purchased specific products, why are we not using it for more than just marketing promotions? The time (and money) it took the company to mail me a recall notice, they could have sent me a [free] email and I would have seen it sooner; or even a text message.

By now you probably understand what this blog is about; food safety, yes, but also about the disappointment I have in the food and retail industries for not adopting technology as fast as some other sectors. It’s about putting the consumer first and recognizing that consumers have changed. No matter what you’re doing: marketing meat, food safety, retail operations; we must continue to challenge the status quo and fix old processes in this technology driven new world.

It could prevent people from getting sick and even save lives.

Snail mail and blockchain

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