Hundreds of children across the country were sickened by applesauce that was contaminated with dangerously high levels of lead last year.
The contamination likely came from a manufacturer from outside of the country. Three million packets of the applesauce were eventually recalled. A New York Times investigation revealed that many of the inspections and oversights that are supposed to keep our food supply safe had failed.
KNX News’ Chief Correspondent Charles Feldman spoke to Neal Fortin, the director of the Institute for Food Laws and Regulations at Michigan State University, about the applesauce issue.
“One of the reasons that this could happen was that the ingredient supplier, the ingredient supply chain,” Fortin said. “So some of the ingredients were coming from Sri Lanka, they're going into South America, they're being processed there and then products are coming back into the U.S.”
The importers are required to double-check the supply chain under the Food Safety Modernization Act, he said. However, Fortin said that the longer the supply chain gets, the more issues with inspection come up.. He does believe that there were multiple failures in the system.
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“What I'm seeing is a lot of importers are not doing the verification that is required under the law and then facilities that manufacture food, even in other countries, that is going to be imported to the U.S. are required to have a food safety plan that equals what you do in the U.S., so that was also a failure,” Fortin said.
Most manufacturers do try to produce a wholesome and safe product to consume, he said. Contamination problems come from the minority of manufacturers that don’t follow the law and are willing to put people at risk.
“Some people say the marketplace will take care of that, but we have all of recorded history telling us that there will always be people that will exploit the system, including putting people at risk,” he said.
Fortin said that part of the problem is a constant battle over funding the Food and Drug Administration. He said we have a weak, starved FDA that has limited resources.
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