San Juan Bautista
– Natural Selection Foods announced yesterday it would be
implementing new safety measures to inspect spinach before it’s
brought into the packaging facility.
San Juan Bautista – Natural Selection Foods announced yesterday it would be implementing new safety measures to inspect spinach before it’s brought into the packaging facility.
Charles Sweat, the company’s chief operating officer, said the Food and Drug Administration had inspected Natural Selection’s plants and found no E. coli-157, meaning that the infection must have originated in the field.
“We don’t know the source at this point,” Sweat said. “But we’re confident that the source did not originate in our facility.”
The decision comes after E. coli was found in a number of packages of Dole brand baby spinach from the company’s plant in San Juan Bautista, including two discovered yesterday in Wisconsin. The other packages were found in Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Pennsylvania.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, 183 cases of E. coli infection were reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as of Sept. 26, resulting in 95 hospitalizations and one death.
Sweat said Natural Selection’s new safety measures are based on the standards for beef developed by the International Commission of Microbiological Specifications for Food. Under these measures, a statistical sample of spinach coming into a plant would be tested for E. coli before being packaged.
“We’re going to put a firewall between the fields and growers we purchase from and our processing plants,” Sweat said. “This is an unprecedented move.”
He added, “We do not believe food safety is a competitive advantage. We’re going to share everything we learn with the industry.”
The discovery of E. coli has had a serious effect on the company’s finances – Natural Selection announced last week that sales were down 40 percent. The company is also withdrawing from an earlier plan to acquire a San Juan Bautista plant owned by partner Pride of San Juan; Natural Selection has been operating the facility since April. Both Sweat and Natural Selection spokeswoman Samantha Cabaluna emphasized that the decision was not based on any concerns with the facility’s sanitation.
“It’s not because anything’s wrong with the plant,” Cabaluna said. “It’s because of the change in our business outlook; we’re no longer in that expansive mode.”
When asked about the possibility of layoffs among Natural Selection employees, Sweat said there were no plans for any changes to the workforce due to the E. coli outbreak, although the company will soon see its normal seasonal layoffs due to a shift in operations to Arizona. He confirmed that Natural Selection will not be purchasing any more spinach from its growers this year.
A family in Ohio is suing Natural Selection after family members were sickened by E. coli. Sweat said the company is also planning to reach out to those who have been affected by E. coli. In particular, Natural Selection plans to reimburse them for their out-of-pocket medical expenses.
“We know it’s the right thing to do,” Sweat said.
Anthony Ha covers local government for the Free Lance. He can be reached at 637-5566 ext. 330.
