From an Economist article this month (4 September 2010) comes the latest ánimal source food scare in America.

‘Americans are known as hearty eaters, so a string of recent food-safety scares has shaken them to their rather wide cores. The country has already endured the economic and gastronomic damage inflicted by recent recalls of unsafe spinach, peanut butter, beef and peppers. Now insult has been added to injury.

‘The latest scare involves eggs. Officials confirm that from May to July nearly 2,000 people have been sickened by salmonella traced back to tainted eggs. As this is several times the baseline rate of affliction, it has forced the recall of over 500m eggs. That is not a deadly blow, as the country produces over 6 billion eggs each month, but more recalls may be coming.

‘Who is to blame? The dust is far from settled on that question. Indeed, a committee of the House of Representatives has only just begun an investigation, an inquiry that essentially asks whether the trouble began with the chicken or the egg. But the broader problem is easy to identify. America’s food system has evolved rapidly. Regulation has not.

‘Over the past few decades every sector of American agriculture has undergone dramatic consolidation. The egg industry is no exception. In 1987, 95% of the country’s output came from 2,500 producers; today, that figure is a mere 192. Though the salmonella problem appeared to affect two dozen brands, those were all traced back to just two firms in Iowa, the top egg-producing state. Critics suggest that this shrivelling of the supply chain leaves consumers vulnerable to bad luck or bad behaviour.’

Read the whole article at the Economist: Un oeuf is enough: Unsafe eggs are the latest food scare, 2 September 2010.