juice contamination
Frederick R. Magdoff (fmagdoff@zoo.uvm.edu)
Mon, 5 Jan 1998 09:25:45 -0500 (EST)
Hi,
Thought sanet-mg folks would be interested to know some more about
the article in yesterdays (1/4/98) New York Times referred to in an
earlier
post (regarding the lettuce contamination). Much of the article deals with
the bacterial contamination of Odwalla apple juice last year - you all
prbably remember that there was one dead and many ill because of the
problem. It turns out, according to the story, that not long before the
incident, profits were lagging and the company went on a cost control
strategy which included being more lax on quality control. An inspector of
the batch used to make the juice in question (October 7, 1996) indicated
that the fruit was too rotten and at least one apple with a worm in it was
found and discarded. The inspector suggested taking extra precaution to
weed out the worst apples. There were some bins that had as high as 25 to
30 percent defective fruit. The inspectors request to reject some of the
fruit went unheeded as did her concern of letting some of the fruit sit
another two days (over a weekend) in a cooler before use.
So, because of VERY poor procedures by one company, the pressure
is on for many small producers of juice such as the apple cider makers in
the Northeast to pasteurize their products.
FRED
*******************************************************************************
Fred Magdoff
Northeast Region SARE Program
Hills Building
University of Vermont
Burlington, VT 05405
tel:802-656-0472
fax:802-656-4656
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