Today, my daughter-in-law dropped off our five month old granddaughter along with a bottle of Abbott Nutrition’s Similac baby formula to supplement the breast milk she pumps. You may remember three years ago, the Similac brand had a major food safety recall due to Cronobacter sakazakii contamination that killed two babies. My wife raised a proverbial red flag questioning whether to feed our granddaughter that brand of formula. Should we trust that brand?

So, I reached out to my some of my food safety network of friends and asked the question “would you feed that brand of formula to your family?” The responses I received were evenly divided with these two being fairly representative :

• “Yes – I would – but everyone’s entitled to their opinion / feelings. I get it. We’ve got to TRUST the system is working.
• “No – I would not. Too many companies give lip service to food safety and just go back to business as usual.”

My effort to get guidance from my food safety network was of no help. Neither answer gave us much confidence or trust in the brand.

Continuing the discussion, I challenged my wife, why do still you buy Boar’s Head cold cuts, even after the Listeria outbreak? She replied “because I know that Boar’s Head set up a Food Safety Council, lead by people we know really well. I trust them.”

I’m not making this up, literally, three hours later I receive a Linked In notification of a post from Frank Yiannas, “Today, Boar’s Head paused production at all of their plants to hold what they’re calling Food Safety Promise Day. Yes, they had a tragic incident &, of course, our thoughts will always remain with those hurt & harmed and their families. I agreed to help investigate the root cause & find solutions to prevent something like this from happening again – not to serve as a defense expert witness. And they’ve allowed me to do just that. In many outbreaks, the reality of what occurred remains elusive & substantive corrective actions are rarely shared with the public. Here’s an attempt to do things differently. ”

Frank and I messaged each other and he told me “While prevention must always be our primary focus, if significant events do occur, I hope what we’ve done serves as the new playbook and expectation – conduct a proper and thorough root cause investigation to determine with specificity what happened, implement science-based and effective controls, and tell that public what you’ve done to prevent it from ever happening again.”

Frank is right and the food industry should learn from this. I would add that the transparency Boar’s Head has demonstrated today will significantly increase consumer’s trust of the brand. Boar’s Head posted this page to their company’s website: https://boarshead.com/foodsafety

Post Script, my daughter-in-law decided against the formula and bought their competitor’s brand. It’s all about trust.