A tragic salad

Big lessons can be taken out of Europe’s food safety nightmare. The story about the e.coli crisis in a salad vegetable is far from over – people were still dying over last weekend in Germany where the death toll went into the 30s, with thousands ill across several countries. The episode sprang from people eating affected food about a month ago in a number of outlets in German and Eastern Europe.

Consumers across Europe are shunning fruit and vegetables, and German warnings against eating cucumbers, tomatoes, lettuce and sprouts are still in place.

There will be many that use the benefit of hindsight to lay out the unholy mess in the EU’s food safety alert system and how the issue was handled from the time people started checking into hospitals. That might be a tad unfair, as the outbreak was detected over a large area over several days, as the unsafe products were had been distributed to a number of food service outlets in several countries.

As the drama rolled on it has been conclusive proof that has evaded scientists and regulators. Several strains of the bacteria have been found – not all have been killers.

The European Commission quickly laid the blame on Spanish cucumbers which tested positive for the bacteria – but unfortunately it wasn’t likely to be the strain causing death and illness. Growers that suddenly lost their livelihood sought compensation. As the Germans and EU authorities fumble for a definitive trail and source, the mounting compensation bill is approaching $A1bn.

After initially blaming cucumbers, then tomatoes and lettuce, investigators narrowed their search for the source of the killer bacteria to bean sprouts from an organic farm in northern Germany.

The issue quickly escalated with some predictable and exaggerated trade responses. Russia, which is always quick to use trade barriers to make a point, claimed the need to protect its citizens in the confusion as to the actual cause of death and placed a ban the importation of any fruit and vegetables from Europe. The EU has since negotiated a back-down from the Russians.

The two big takeaways from the tragedy have been about regulatory ownership and communication.

The greatest difficulty faced by consumers and producers as authorities raced to identify the relevant strain of the bacteria and its likely source, was the lack of coordination across regional and national governments.

Germany has 16 states, each with broad powers over health and safety may have slowed response to the E. coli outbreak, with no single federal agency responsible for tracking the bug and assigning the blame. Each of the 16 states – which apply varying levels of resources - is responsible for tracking cases inside their borders. Confusion was escalated as different states were issuing parallel alerts for different vegetables.

Expect a complete overhaul of European food safety management and even a reactionary stiffening of approaches in a host of other countries.

The other problem might be harder to fix – it about keeping pace with how people are now communicating with each other. Health authorities struggle when working with conventional media communications, which compete with the lightning speed at which news and opinions spread through the community through social media networks. Luring consumers back to complete trust of fresh food will need some mastery of these channels.