The media in Australia are hungry for the next food scare, with frozen berries originating from China being linked to outbreaks of hepatitis A.
Australia does not have a frozen berry industry with capacity to supply anywhere near the market demand that has been created.
Local former electronics whiz now 'foodie' producer, Dick Smith, weighed in heavily with the, this is what you get if you expect cheap food kind of statement.
News items ran for several days with product recalls, food testing, berry smoothies, school cooking classes, and possible liver damage all given wide coverage.
Processed food and in particular processed fruit and vegetables can sometimes include commodities from another country in the pack, therefore knowing the country of origin of a particular fruit or vegetable is likely to be labelled : Packed in Australia (or New Zealand) with local and imported ingredients.
This makes the choices of buying product pretty much a lottery for the Australian consumer when it comes down to trying to support local jobs and primary production, not to mention confidence in the item purchased.
Lessons
The reason that this story is highlighted here is that we as fresh food producers can learn from it.
To start with, the media will keep a story going for as long as possible. The danger in that is that the consumer will just stay away from that product for as long as possible, maybe not going back to buy again until assured that safety concerns have been duly addressed.
The parallel drawn here is that a serious breach of Maximum Residue Levels (MRLs) in fruit production is likely to be as serious as the frozen berry deal, with a lot of bad press.
If the problem is local, that can also impact on publicity that can affect our export capability.
Remember the Alar scare in the US in the 1980s when Meryl Streep said that she would never eat another apple—negative publicity like this can negate years of positive articles and press in one sound-bite that goes world-wide.
As I have said before, food producers are the most important people in the world today.
Believe it. Live it. Your future depends on it.
See this article in Tree Fruit March 2015
