Monday, February 22, 2010

The Salami Maker Who fought the law

The reading in Best Food Writing discusses a situation that occurs relatively often in a time where the guarantee of food safety is a number one priority. With the outbreaks of e-coli and other food born pathogens, the USDA has made sweeping changes to standards of production, especially in the meats and produce sector. According to Sarah Digregorio, these regulations are written with the intention of regulating large companies like Hormel or Kraft who are already held to a very high standard because of the volume and potential fallout from a mistake. Unfortunately for the corner butcher who has been curing his meats for years, these regulations force him to show proof of safety that naturally he can’t.

Many major government regulating departments are seem to not understand the scope of their actions when the institute new regulations. They become aware of a specific incident like an outbreak of e-coli and instead of investigating thoroughly how this situation occurred they pass blanket laws that kill the little guys. In fact the only way that Marc Buzzio was able to continue to sell his salami and other aged products was to spend almost 100 thousand dollars and get a lab to individually test it. What happens to the other butchers who can’t afford that? They stop selling their products and possible go out of business.

Discussion Questions:

How can the Government act quickly and deliberately against any food born pathogens but at the same time with enough control that they don’t leave “destruction” in their wake?

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