MoreOK, readers, what’s going on out there? I am very surprised to report four food and beverage quality issues that occurred on consumer purchases I made in the past six weeks.
This morning, I discovered a 12-can fridge pack of carbonated beverages I purchased at a major supermarket chain contained one empty can.
A box of popsicles I purchased last week at Walmart displayed the normal nutrition panel, but the area that’s supposed to contain calories and nutritional percentages was blank.
A box of crackers I purchased recently at Redner’s Warehouse Markets that normally has two sleeves of crackers contained only one sleeve.
I found several pieces of empty foil material in the bottom of a package of chocolate foil-wrapped Easter eggs I brought at Genuardi’s in late April.
I began to wonder if my recent thrifty shopping habits at the discount chains had anything to do with the errors. Then, I noticed several non-food household items (paper towels for example) I purchased at a discount store seemed to have lower quality than the same brands I had purchased at Genuardi’s or CVS for years.
My nonscientific research shows slightly more than half of the defective or lower-quality items came from a discount chain. Everyone knows Walmart would not allow subpar performance from its suppliers, and I doubt the other retailers would either. Of these four food or beverage items I purchased, three were made by processors on the world’s top 100 food and beverage companies list.
Are budgets being stretched too thin? Are these companies short-staffed? Are operations moving too fast? Is operator performance a problem? Are processors sacrificing accuracy for the sake of food safety?
After receiving decades of quality products from the food and beverage manufacturing industry, I have to wonder what is happening. I hope this is just a strange coincidence and not a harbinger of quality problems. What do you think?
This morning, I discovered a 12-can fridge pack of carbonated beverages I purchased at a major supermarket chain contained one empty can.
A box of popsicles I purchased last week at Walmart displayed the normal nutrition panel, but the area that’s supposed to contain calories and nutritional percentages was blank.
A box of crackers I purchased recently at Redner’s Warehouse Markets that normally has two sleeves of crackers contained only one sleeve.
I found several pieces of empty foil material in the bottom of a package of chocolate foil-wrapped Easter eggs I brought at Genuardi’s in late April.
I began to wonder if my recent thrifty shopping habits at the discount chains had anything to do with the errors. Then, I noticed several non-food household items (paper towels for example) I purchased at a discount store seemed to have lower quality than the same brands I had purchased at Genuardi’s or CVS for years.
My nonscientific research shows slightly more than half of the defective or lower-quality items came from a discount chain. Everyone knows Walmart would not allow subpar performance from its suppliers, and I doubt the other retailers would either. Of these four food or beverage items I purchased, three were made by processors on the world’s top 100 food and beverage companies list.
Are budgets being stretched too thin? Are these companies short-staffed? Are operations moving too fast? Is operator performance a problem? Are processors sacrificing accuracy for the sake of food safety?
After receiving decades of quality products from the food and beverage manufacturing industry, I have to wonder what is happening. I hope this is just a strange coincidence and not a harbinger of quality problems. What do you think?
The Food Defense Strategy Exchange (FDSE) is a forum for food defense professionals to interact and share their knowledge and experiences. At the most recent FDSE, a poll of attendees revealed that approximately two-thirds were either re-evaluating their existing food defense plan, or implementing new food defense plans. In this podcast, Don Hsieh, Director of Commercial and Industrial Marketing at Tyco Integrated Security, discusses this topic and other findings from the exchange, and offers some best practices to proactively protect a company’s brand from food adulteration.
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