Costco: Listeria Outbreak Shows Cantaloupe Growers Need Better Food Safety Practices
After the cantaloupe Listeria outbreak took on the grim mantle of “deadliest U.S. foodborne illness outbreak in more than a decade” this week, a Costco official told the New York Times that cantaloupe growers and shippers need better food safety practices.
“I don’t think the cantaloupe industry can continue on doing the very same thing and expecting a different result,” Craig Wilson, head of food safety for Costco, a Seattle-based warehouse retailer, told the New York Times. “It’s time for companies to get more aggressive. If they know this is going to happen, let’s step up and not let it happen.”
Costco would consider setting standards for how melons are grown, cleaned and handled, and requiring suppliers to demonstrate that melons are pathogen-free, he said in the story. He said the cantaloupe industry needs to be responsible for creating better food safety practices.
Stephen F. Patricio, a melon shipper and the chairman of the trade group California Cantaloupe Advisory Board, agreed saying sales of California-grown cantaloupe have fallen even though melons from Jensen Farms in Holly, Colo. are the source of the outbreak.
California cantaloupes have never been the source of a foodborne illness outbreak, the trade group’s website claims. Still, Patricio says in the story, California growers suffer every time lax practices by other growers cause an outbreak. “The entire melon category needs to look at the best practices and research that’s been done by the California industry and others to best analyze their own risks,” Patricio told the New York Times. “Or we’re all going to continue to suffer.”
