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Food Companies Try Shifting The Onus For Safety

By PritzkerLaw

Reporter Michael Moss of The New York Times has written a compelling story highlighting a sickening trend in the food industry: Shifting the onus for food safety onto consumers with cooking instructions and warnings on product packaging.

As Mr. Moss illustrates, it has started with frozen pot pies. It seems that manufacturers cannot make a safe product, so instead of correcting the problem or stopping production, they pass the problem to consumers. It's as if to say: "Here, you fix it. It's your responsiblity to cook it in such a way that it won't kill you.'''

Pot pies are food products.  As such, they are subject to the same product safety analysis that all product sellers and designers must utilize:

1. Design out the defects.
2. If the defects cannot be designed out, utilize an appropriate guard to protect users from the danger.
3. If the danger cannot be designed out or guarded against, then, and only then, are you allowed to warn consumers of the danger. When warnings and instructions are the only option, they must be robust, legible and clearly advise people of the danger involved.

Even if the danger of foodborne illness cannot be designed out and guarded against (a debatable proposition), the food industry is hardly complying with a century of knowledge about adequate instructions and warnings.

If it were -- and we shouldn't hold our breath -- frozen pot pies would be required to carry a warning such as this:

DANGER: THIS PRODUCT MUST BE PRESUMED TO CONTAIN LIFE THREATENING PATHOGENS. IF YOU DO NOT FOLLOW THE ENCLOSED INSTRUCTIONS EXACTLY,
CONSUMPTION OF THIS FOOD PRODUCT MAY CAUSE DEATH OR SERIOUS INJURY.

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The author, Fred Pritzker, is founder and president of national food safety law firm Pritzker Olsen Attorneys. The firm is involved in practically every major outbreak of E. coli  O157:H7, Salmonella, Campylobacter, Listeria, Shigella and other foodborne illnesses. Mr. Pritzker and his associates have won millions of dollars for the victims of food poisoning and their families. For more information, contact Fred at 1-888-377-8900 (toll free) or write to us for a free case consultation.

Full post as published by Food Poisoning Law Blog on May 15, 2009 (boomark / email).