Comment by cogman10
17 hours ago
Here's a pretty good video about the problem in general. https://youtu.be/nyG-np0S0ZQ
The jist is that a lot of this is from consolidation at all levels. There are fewer grocery stores and distributors which has ultimately made hard to know where food ultimately comes from.
Couple that with deregulation and the dismantling of the government regulatory agencies under DOGE and we get what we have.
It's harder for casual shopper to know where their food comes from. But having worked in food production facilities that couldn't be further from the truth. You'd be surprised how meticulously tracked every part of the, supply chain is. down to the specific row in a field where something is picked.
(That's what makes this recent outbreak so atypical - either there was a massive screw up or someone is hiding something).
People also are not aware that the US has (or at least had) one of the most meticulous food inspection regimes in the world. Agency inspectors actually drop in and inspect facilities regularly. The EU might have more stringent food regulations, but as a reminder people were able to slip horse meat into the beef supply for decades before being caught - something like that would be inconceivable in the US.
The point of the video is that intermediary companies like Driscolls or Taylor Farms focus their efforts on building "accountability sinks."
They give farmers a 500 page document describing in detail how the produce must be grown, but then they provide little to no actual oversite, while producing enormous pricing pressure on the farmer. Any farmer who actually follows the 500 page document will not be able to make any money, so every farmer is compelled to violate the rules.
Then when product is contaminated Driscoll can say "that farmer wasn't following our policy we've cancelled our contract with them" while making no effort to actually clean up all the other farms, who are definitely violating the contract because it's impossible to follow it and make money selling to Driscolls.
There's not really an alternative that also lets farms be independent. If a GSPs really wants that level of control over farms, they might as well start buying them up.
The reality is that the documentation is like software T&Cs. You get to run your farm however you want and Driscolls has some CYA for later.
The reality cuts both ways. You can still sell produce directly to local grocery distributors that pay higher, but the requirements are going to be even more stringent with less guarantees.
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What’s your proposed alternative? If the FDA made the 500 page document instead, they aren’t providing day to day oversight.
By logic, a Driscoll or Taylor Farms set of rules needs to sit beyond the regulatory minimum (their lawyers would hate them putting a violation of the regulation in writing).
So, even if a farmer violates the contract, the existing regulation is either insufficient or was also violated.
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It seems to be the (modern) American way.
while it may be tracked, it’s often intentionally obfuscated from the actual end customer.