Responsible Sourcing

For all that went wrong between regulators, manufacturers and the Peanut Butter Corporation of America (PCA) during the peanut butter and salmonella crisis of late 2008, there was at least one example of how to be responsible when sourcing materials from a supplier.

While many companies bought peanut butter from PCA based on third-party inspections from so-called reputable auditors, one major food corporation followed its own in-house policy to perform their own audit of any supplier's facilities. Nestlé sent its own inspectors to PCA facilities in Georgia and Texas, and they came back with some startling discoveries of sanitary problems like rat droppings, live beetles, dead insects, as well as potential sources of microbial contamination.

Wow, a company performing simple due diligence and ending up better of for it. Other food companies, large and small, relied on and trusted the "all clear" provided by the American Institute of Baking International (AIB), one of the biggest food-inspection firms in the United States, which gave PCA a "certificate of achievement" and a "superior" rating last summer.

Learning this in a House hearing on the food safety problem, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) criticized this reliance on a third-party auditor that was hired, paid for and tied to PCA for an unbiased, independent review of PCA's facilities and food safety risks. He juxtaposed the PCA's certificate from AIB with a picture of rat-infested PCA facility taken by federal inspectors, who were noticeably late to the game.

AIB defended its review and ratings of PCA by blaming the supplier for essentially sweeping any problems under the rug before the auditors arrived. Also, AIB's more expensive, extensive inspection package was not the one chosen by PCA for these audits.

Rightfully puzzled by why a company as large and storied as Kellogg would not perform due diligence similar to Nestlé's, Rep. Bart Stupak (D.-Mich.) asked Kellogg execs, "Nestlé didn't solely rely on an auditor selected by PCA and paid by PCA. It conducts its own audit with its own staff. You all talk about how safety is the number one issue; why didn't you do the same thing?"

Take this question and ask it of manufacturers in the dietary supplement industry. This industry has many companies as diligent as Nestlé, but many are as naïve or negligent (or cheap) as Kellogg, which lost $70 million in a short period of time due to recalls of potential salmonella-contaminated peanut-containing food products despite purchasing only about $5 million to $10 million of peanut butter supply annually from PCA.

I can only imagine what the smaller manufacturers involved went through finanicially. I know for some of the smaller companies, third-party inspectors help trim the costs of sourcing materials. There certainly should be independent inspectors offering integrity and trustworthy assurances, however, there are too many loopholes in the system and opportunities for suppliers to hide flaws, as evidenced in the PCA case.

At the risk of sounding like a lawyer, the lesson learned should go something like: due diligence, due diligence, due diligence. I hope dietary supplement manufacturers are getting this message and will avoid mistakes as seen in the PCA debacle. GMP implementation and, hopefully, effective enforcement should help, but in the end if the PCA story teaches us one thing, it's that the onus is on each company to source materials responsibly and assure the safety of their products.