Idiot Inspector for Idiot Corporation?
TheDay.com - Food safety problems slip by auditors
You might remember my
rants about the Idiot Corp… I mean Peanut Corporation of
America. Just saw now in the news that they had an “inspection”
that, upon closer inspection, is either dishonest or incompetent.
My wife and I often have philosophical discussions about bad things
happening and thinking through the alternatives:
- People are intentionally doing something wrong
- People are dumb
You can have this same discussion about so many topics — financial
meltdown — corrupt or dumb? I often reach the conclusion that I’d
feel better if people are corrupt and screwing you, because that’s
better than people being dumb. At least smart people have a chance
of being ethical…. “you can’t fix stupid” as a friend of mine
says.
So what happened in this peanut case? Remember, this led to nine
deaths and many cases of illness. The inspector’s name is Eugene A.
Hatfield.
The peanut company, though, knew in advance that Hatfield was
coming. He had less than a day to check the entire plant,
which processed several million pounds of peanuts a
month.
Planned inspections are very problematic. In manufacturing, any
time a vice president or executive comes to visit a plant, it’s
often highly choreographed and scripted. They don’t see the reality
of the real “gemba.” Things get cleaned up, problems get hidden.
The same can be true with hospital accreditation or certification
inspections. You know in advance that people are coming, so
problems get hidden. Any of these outside visits really need to be
unplanned to be effective, I believe. Planned visits run the risk
of everyone going through the motions, rather than really meeting
goals for improved safety and quality.
Hatfield, 66, an expert in fresh produce, was not aware that peanuts were readily
susceptible to salmonella poisoning - which he was not required to
test for anyway. And while Hatfield was inspecting the plant
to reassure Kellogg and other food companies of its suitability as
a supplier, the Peanut Corp. was
paying him for his efforts.
So we have an inspector who didn’t have enough time and probably
wasn’t trained well enough for his job. So he’s probably not an
idiot. I’ll be fair to him, other than my headline. He’s just a bit
player in the overall system. Why wasn’t he required to check for
salmonella?
There’s a glaring conflict of interest in Peanut Corp paying for
the inspector. Sort of like the conflict of interest in home
appraisals. When we bought out first house, in Phoenix in 2002, the
market was booming. I questioned why the appraiser was basically
paid by the parties involved in the sale. That’s not an independent
opinion. That’s bound to be skewed…. and people might get
screwed.
”The overall food safety level of this facility
was considered to be: SUPERIOR,” he concluded in his
March 27, 2008, report for his employer, the American Institute of
Baking, which performs audits for major food companies. A copy of
the audit was obtained by The New York Times.
SUPERIOR?? Oh come on.
I’m not one to rush to the conclusion that the government needs to
protect us, but I think it’s time for the FDA to step up their
inspections. I’m a huge fan of the free market, but it’s clear the
free market isn’t protecting our food supply.
”The contributions of third-party audits to food
safety is the same as the contribution of mail-order diploma mills
to education,” said Mansour Samadpour, a Seattle consultant
who has worked with companies nationwide to improve food
safety.
Another
way the system is broken can be tied back to Dr. Deming’s
teachings:
The rigor of audits varies widely and many companies
choose the cheapest ones,
which cost as little as $1,000, in contrast to the $8,000 the Food
and Drug Administration spends to inspect a
plant.
Do not choose a supplier based on price alone! Sigh, people still
don’t listen to Dr. Deming.
Costco, thankfully, is stepping up as a strong player in
the free market, banning the use of the audit company that Hatfield
worked for:
The retail giant Costco, which had already limited the
institute’s audits to bakery vendors, has now told suppliers to
stop using the group altogether.
Look at
this other example, chock full of dysfunction:
Robert A. LaBudde, a food safety expert who has consulted with
food companies for 30 years, said, “The only thing that matters is
productivity.” He added that “you only get in
trouble if someone in the media traces it back to you, and that’s
rare, like a meteor strike.”LaBudde said a sausage plant hired him five years ago to
determine the species of bacillus plaguing its meat. But the owner
then refused to complete the testing. “I called them “anthrax sausages,’
and said they could be killing older people in the state, and still
they wouldn’t do it,” he said, declining to name the
company.
Quantity over quality. Don’t shut the line down. The only thing
that matters is productivity? That’s not uncommon thinking, sadly.
Again, people still haven’t learned about quality and Dr. Deming’s
teachings.
Rather than blaming the inspector, we need a better
system.
