Can You Recall? Understanding & Addressing the Modern Food Recall Epidemic
We’ve seen it all before. Empty grocery shelves. Frightening headlines. Ambiguous status updates. And the lingering consumer fear factor. Such is the nature of a food recall. It seems like every day there is a new food recall. Between 2013 and 2018, food recalls have increased over 10 percent, and they are not just impacting the usual suspects like beef and poultry. Herbal teas, spices, and fresh vegetables have all been recalled in the last few weeks due to a variety of health concerns, ranging from Salmonella to Listeria to even lead contamination.
Even more disturbing than the sheer pervasiveness of product recalls are the equally pervasive difficulties the industry seems to have with identifying and isolating the source of contamination. This results in costly, drawn-out recalls, as companies must overestimate and pull every product from store shelves to prevent the risk of missing a compromised batch. The rising tide of product recalls not only threatens consumers health and safety, but also damages brand equity in the following months.