The importance of food safety
“Consumers view food safety and quality as important issues and are looking to manufacturers, food companies, and government regulatory bodies to drive communication as well as tackle food quality and safety issues.” states Pat Conry, a U.S. Consumer Products Practice Leader and Vice Chair of Deloitte. According to the company’s survey, 65 percent of respondents were concerned about food quality and 90 percent believed food recalls have risen or at best, remained the same. We have a government-issued energy czar and a security czar and a drug czar … do we need a food czar?
Most food manufacturers and producers answer to some government agency and in some cases, may respond to several that have a supervisory capacity in some part of the food chain that links farmers to consumers through wholesalers, processors, packagers, and retail sales outlets. These agencies include the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) the Food and Regulation Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and now, with packaged, processed food and the increased prevalence of genetically modified organisms in the food supply, the United States Patent Office, among others. This alphabet soup of bureaucracy from within the beltway is supposed to be good for what ails us, at least as far as food safety in concerned.
Members of the Presque Isle Farmers Market, now open in the Aroostook Centre Mall parking lot on Saturday mornings, invested some time in the preseason to what they consider to be a better idea. Next week, you can read about it in a continuation of this article.
Editor’s note: This weekly column is written by members of the Presque Isle Farmers’ Market. For more information or to join, contact their secretary/treasurer Steve Miller of Westmanland at 896-5860 or via e-mail at beetree@xpressamerica.net.
