The magnitude of a problem is often determined by how much attention it gets. Recently the food and beverage industry has been receiving more attention than it might like, as contaminated products and subsequent recalls continue to make headlines. While any products under suspicion start vanishing from grocery store shelves and produce aisles, once the media latches on to the story customers start disappearing, too.
Each of these stories not only hurts consumer confidence in a particular company, but they also serve to harm the public's perception of the nation's food supply as a whole. That's one reason why food and beverage manufacturers take these events just as seriously as anyone.
"Any time there is an event in the industry, the first thing we do is convene our food safety council and try to understand what happened and why," says Bryan Farnsworth, vice president of quality management for Hormel Foods Corp. "We discuss whether it could happen to us and determine if we have the appropriate controls in place to prevent it. They're used as learning tools."
Source: Industry Week