Experts: Recalls of food must improve

August 1, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO

Until three years ago, Kenneth Maxwell enjoyed Banquet chicken and turkey pot pies so much, he ate them three or four times a week. They were easy to prepare, and Maxwell could eat one for lunch and quickly return to work as an electrician.

When cases of salmonella poisoning led the pies’ manufacturer, ConAgra Foods, to issue a product recall in the fall of 2007, Maxwell did not hear about it and continued to eat them. He bought several pot pies about two weeks after the recall was launched, when they should have been pulled from store shelves, and became violently ill, he said.

Maxwell’s experience reflects common problems with food recalls: They routinely fail to recover all of the product they seek and, according to experts, sometimes even leave tainted foods in stores, putting consumers at risk of becoming ill from potentially deadly foodborne pathogens.

Two efforts highlight how far short recalls can fall. In July 2009, a Denver processor announced a recall of more than 460,000 pounds of ground beef tied to a salmonella outbreak but recovered only 119,000 pounds. In October, a New York processor announced a recall of 545,000 pounds of ground beef tied to an outbreak of E. coli; it recovered 795 pounds, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Because recalls are described as voluntary, some experts say the owners of supermarkets can mistakenly believe it is acceptable to leave recalled products on the shelves.

And though the federal government publishes notices about recalls, it depends on the media, manufacturers and retailers to spread the news. Many consumers are unaware a product has been recalled.

Some supermarkets and big-box stores use the information they have compiled about customers to notify shoppers who have purchased recalled products, in some instances telephoning them to warn them about potentially tainted food.

But others do not.

The USDA, researchers and food-safety advocates say the urgency and the reach of recalls must be improved if recalls are to be more effective and the number of Americans sickened by foodborne pathogens is to decline.