A Tale Of Bad Flour

Another product recall has occurred, this time it was unbleached flour.  You know, that stuff you bake and coat food with.  Once again salmonella is the culprit of food recalls.  It seems that no food product is safe from this nasty little bacterium, even packaged food products.  Health departments are flummoxed by these outbreaks and care rarely identify their source.  While it may not be related, some serious concerns have arisen regarding food packaging plants.

I want to share with you some experience that I have with food packaging plants and related facilities.  Recently, I spent 90 days doing a project for a food packaging group in the Midwest.  My first day inside one off the plants resulted in a “shock and awe” moment, the drop of the jaw and the “you’re freaking kidding me, right?” reaction.  The first plant I visited loaded baking products and the place resembled what I believe would be hell if there is one.  The temperature inside the plant was stifling and the air was so full of dust that you needed Neil Armstrong’s moon suit to survive.

Most of the people inside of these plants were not wearing dust masks, when asked why, most responded with “they are not OSHA required”, –holy shit!  Despite constant sweeping of the flours, they remained filthy, and the place resembled a sand dune from a science fiction movie.  A remarkable thing was that the outside temperature was only 80 degrees that day but when the mercury climbs into the 90s the place is twice as unbearable.  Couple that with the fact that most these workers made less than $9.00 per hour, well below the desired minimum wage of $15.00, and you have all the makings of a prisoner of war movie.

But here is the part that most relates to this blog; the plants that I visited had a serious issue with rodents and birds, now, if memory serves here, isn’t that two of the biggest offenders in the salmonella world?  When I asked some of the plant workers how pest control is handled in these plants, I was told that the company designates an employee (in good standing) to oversee those duties.  “You don’t use an outside pest control company?”  “Nope”.  Yikes!  “Are the employees trained?”  “A little”.  Double yikes!

The experience left me a little dazed, it is an absolute wonder that more people do not get sick or die from food packaged in some of these places.  Isn’t it bad enough that many of the ingredients in processed food today are not good for us?  Then you add unsanitary packing conditions and introduce bacteria that make us sick.  All these plants package low-cost name brand and generic foods for discount stores.  I have been watching a timepiece series that shows how bad the food was back in the castle and kingdom days, you know, where the peasants were told: “let them eat cake”.  I believe we may be back in those days.

Let’s be honest here, low paid workers packaging food for other low wage earners, this isn’t going to end well.  As salaries stagnate and companies continue to use cost-cutting measures, I believe we will see an increase in salmonella and possibly other contaminations in the very near future.  This is how things are for the lower income family customers—-let them eat salmonella!

Talk To Ya Later

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