E. Coli in Nestle Cookie Dough: More Proof System is Broken

Here we go again. People get sick, the company whose product is responsible gets criticized for its food safety protocols, and the company defends itself by saying everything it did is entirely lawful. Not only is it lawful, in fact, but it “isn’t out of line with the rest of the food industry.”

Is that supposed to make us feel better?

This time around, it’s Nestle Toll House raw cookie dough products. The Food and Drug Administration just confirmed that samples do indeed contain E. coli O157:H7 bacteria. The FDA had already suspected the products after it realized a majority of the people who’ve gotten sick from E. coli in the past few months reported having eaten raw Nestle cookie dough.

Upon learning of the possible connection, Nestle recalled all related products (another voluntary recall, of course, because the FDA has no authority to mandate a recall on its own), on June 19.

The following week, the Wall Street Journal revealed that the Nestle plant implicated in the outbreak had for years refused to provide the FDA with complete records regarding food safety.

In a September 2006 visit, for example, managers at the Danville, Va., plant refused to allow a Food and Drug Administration inspector to review consumer complaints or inspect its program designed to prevent food contamination. The inspector found dirty equipment and “three live ant-like insects” on a ledge but nothing severe enough to give the plant a failing grade.

The article stirred up some negative publicity for Nestle, but the company was not breaking any laws. “Companies have the right to make conditions on what they will or will not permit during an inspection,” an FDA spokeswoman said. “Some companies have a policy that they outline for the investigator at the beginning of an inspection.”

Sigh. It seems to me stronger regulations would benefit the industry. Less than 20 percent of consumers trust food companies at this point, according to a recent IBM survey. High-profile outbreaks have a lasting mark on the reputation of the affected companies and products, and often take their toll on uninvolved companies as well — only Peanut Corporation of America products were tainted in the salmonella contamination scandal early this year, for example, but other peanut butter makers still saw a significant sales drop.

But it’s hard to justify the cost of raising safety standards when your competitors aren’t doing the same. Better to raise the bar for food safety equally across the board.

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