Dive Brief:
- Microbes in the food supply, which have contributed to outbreaks like listeria and bird flu, have cost the food industry nearly 2,000 jobs so far this year.
- Contamination by these microbes often results in production shutdowns, which can lead to layoffs of employees.
- "The 1,937 microbe-related layoffs this year almost matched the number of lost jobs companies attributed to increased competition and exceeded the lost jobs blamed on government regulation," Bloomberg reported.
Dive Insight:
A couple of significant cases of microbe-related job losses this year included Blue Bell laying off more than one-third of its employees after discovering listeria contamination and shutting down all four of its creameries. Also, Hormel cut 233 jobs from a Jennie-O Turkey Store plant in Minnesota after a bird flu outbreak impacted several of the company's turkey farms.
Foodborne pathogens are a concern, particularly when they lead to multi-state outbreaks, which accounted for more than half of food poisoning deaths while only making up 3% of the outbreaks recorded between 2010 and 2014. As a result, the CDC, FDA, and USDA have called on manufacturers to be more proactive about safety and preventing foodborne pathogen contamination. New FSMA rules, including the recently passed preventive rules, should have an impact on the management of food safety protocols.