The question we asked ourselves was: “who needs to know this information and when?” The immediate concern was whether we should be leaving our meeting and going directly to the president of this customer’s firm. That is when this particularly astute food safety expert commented “You cannot not know what you now know”. She then talked about how it would be putting their president and company at risk if the president was informed and did not take immediate action. In our case the customer acted.
Unfortunately, this question is one that the food industry deals with daily. Let me explain: Everyone in the food industry knows that Listeria is rampant in grocery stores and butcher shops across the retail segment. To my knowledge Listeria is the leading cause of deaths related to food borne illness in North America. I know the governments in North America are aware of this statistic and yet we continue to serve food products.