Local food supply vs National food supply:
Over the past few years you have read several posts about nutrition and food. I'm sure at some point you've noticed there is a slight or heavy undertone highlighting the importance of supporting local food. To this point, I have not really provided much reason for that, aside from improved flavor, freshness, variety, and sustainability. But today I have a reason that might hit on a different cord. Avoiding large food recalls. That's right. Supporting local is a great way to stay out of the national food recall lists.
How many food related recalls do you think there have been in 2018??????????? Throughout 2018 there have been 219 food related recalls. These recalls are from both large and small companies, organic and traditional food companies. Some examples include: Del Monte, Kwik Trip, King Author Flour, Kellogg Company, H.E.B, Hy-Vee, Whole Foods, and Inspired Organic, LLC.
If you notice, there are some national companies, some regional companies, and even some organic food companies. What do you notice about all of these companies? All of these companies are food production companies. Different quality foods, but still food production companies. This is an important fact. Food production poses lots of risks for contamination even at a small production level. But as you increase the amount of food being produced, the points of contamination are increased. To reduce these risks these companies have serious procedures for the food production, but what happens when a contamination occurs? If there are hundreds of thousands of portions made, that contamination has affected thousands due to one area that was contaminated, which then spreads that contamination to everything that comes in contact with it.
When foods are made in small batches, such as local companies typically do, in the setting of a small batch production company there are less contact points for contamination, in addition to the ability to quickly recognize and reduce product contamination risk. That's not to say contamination will never occur, but there are significantly less contamination events. When there is a contamination in a small batch, it is easy to simply pull the effected foods and toss them rather than having to put a recall alert which will affect thousands of people.