The Salmonella Outbreak in Sushi: A One-Off or Something to Worry About?

Having said that, Dr. Marshall noted that outbreaks are not going to go undetected. “What has to happen is to have conditions that encourage the growth of the initial contamination so that the population levels of Salmonella grow (to exceed safety thresholds).”

“The FDA inspection report for the facility in question detailed numerous HACCP, as well as manufacturing, practice issues,” said Dr. Marshall, adding that lab results indicated a gross contamination of product. In other words, “This was not a low-level event.”

Because the FDA cited multiple violations of industry standards, Dr. Marshall said he couldn’t determine which specific safety precaution was the culprit. In fact, he said, the outbreak may have involved a combination of missteps.

Dr. Marshall offered some sage advice to help prevent future outbreaks, but he also expressed concerns about one particular issue. He said it was important for food companies to regularly consider the “pillars of food safety.”

• GMP. “It’s fun to think about all these high-tech innovations that might improve food safety, but if the manufacturers aren’t really doing the fundamentals, it won’t matter,” he added.
• Sanitation SOPs.This means codification of procedures and having records of performance of sanitation.
• HACCP. “I’ve gone in to many manufacturing facilities that have beautiful laminated HACCP plans, yet they’re not actively monitoring control points,” he noted. A robust environmental monitoring program. For the companies truly concerned with controlling pathogens, deploying a simple $40 Salmonella or Listeria food contact surface test would detect a lot of these problems before a contaminated product is released.

And the concern? “If you step further down the supply chain, I would bet that no one who handled or purchased this (tuna scrape) product did any testing at all on it,” Dr. Marshall said. “So much of what is done in the industry is based on trust, so very few people see the need to do verification. I hope that this outbreak serves as an example where verifying your suppliers would have been very beneficial in reducing the risk profile.”

And, given the global nature of the market today, Dr. Marshall encouraged importers to do a bit of homework as well. For instance, one study claimed that 52% of the seafood supply from the Kerala state in India (home to Moon Fisheries) is contaminated with Salmonella.

“So, if I am out there hunting for seafood and I have the opportunity to source some RTE from southeast India, I might want to ask the question ‘Does it make sense for me as a prudent business person to want to source product from a region that has that kind of history?’” Dr. Marshall asked.

Neil Canavan is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn, N.Y. Reach him at [email protected].