After a torrid few weeks in June, Europe’s fresh produce trade had the air of a nauseous, frightened adult being dragged around a theme park by a gaggle of maniacal children. 'Pleeeease can we go on the food safety ghost train again? You know, dad – the one with the rotten vegetables and the gibbering tabloid journalists? And afterwards we must have another ride on the eurozone rollercoaster, because we love those currency ups and downs. At the end, it really feels like the whole thing is going to come off the rails!'
As far as challenging episodes go, last month will be remembered for all the wrong reasons; the handling of the E coli outbreak has left the European vegetable business bent double, while in the background increasing concern over the future viability of the euro has left everyone’s nerves jangling.
Last month, I was asked what the trade might have done differently to avert the E coli crisis. To be honest, food safety has been a priority for many years now – the fact that a small amount of E coli could be detected on those Spanish cucumbers arguably showed the system worked, not that it had failed – but the likely reality is that companies will have to commit to even more testing and certification in future.
What was abundantly clear from Germany’s erroneous warning about Spanish cucumbers, however, is that what this industry is up against is not simply rogue bacteria but also the fallibility of government officials and their ability to get things wrong. To prevent them doing so, the trade needs to arm these ministers and mandarins with the same amount of detailed information it provides its customers. Most of us knew a single batch of Spanish cucumbers couldn’t cause such an outbreak, but that knowledge wasn’t conveyed to the people making the decisions. Creating better dialogue with the authorities is a challenge we need to meet.
