Safe Food_ Bacteria, Biotechnology, and Bioterrorism - Marion Nestle [62]
THE PRODUCT GAP: ODWALLA APPLE JUICE, 1996
In October 1996, an outbreak of E. coli O157:H7 made it clear that all foods needed to be produced under Pathogen Reduction: HACCP because lapses could be catastrophic, not only for the victims, but also—temporarily, if not permanently—for the companies responsible for them. This outbreak put about 70 people in hospitals, made 14 children dreadfully ill, and resulted in the death of one child.23
The unexpected feature of the outbreak was its source: apple juice. Investigators used genetic techniques and diet histories to trace the infections to freshly bottled apple juice produced by Odwalla, a California company specializing in “natural” foods. The company included windfall apples, those that had fallen off the trees onto the ground, among the lots pressed to make the juice, and investigators suspected that the fallen apples must have come in contact with animal manure containing E. coli O157:H7. Although apple juice is naturally acidic, its acids are not strong enough to kill this hardy microbe. Odwalla did not pasteurize its juices; its managers believed that temperatures high enough to kill most bacteria would alter the flavor of the juice and reduce vitamin content (which pasteurization does, but only slightly). The managers also believed—gravely in error—that the acidity of the solutions used to wash the apples and of the juice itself would kill harmful bacteria.24
Investigators made other disheartening observations. Just before the outbreak, the company had relaxed its standards for accepting blemished fruit. It overruled warnings from its own in-house inspector not to use the batch of apples responsible for the outbreak without special precautions. At the time, Odwalla was expanding rapidly and having difficulty meeting production demands. Its stock price was declining. These pressures also contributed to the company’s failure to follow its own established procedures.25
To their great credit, Odwalla officials quickly took full responsibility for the failure of their safety systems and issued a recall. They paid medical expenses for the people who had become ill and an indemnity of about $250,000 to the family that had lost a child. Eventually, they settled more than a dozen civil suits at a cost of more than $12 million—just for the families of the five children who had been most injured. They also paid in other ways. In the first criminal conviction recorded in a large-scale outbreak of foodborne illness, Odwalla officials pleaded guilty to violating federal food safety laws, paid a $1.5 million fine, and were placed on probation for five years.26
Odwalla’s corporate policy includes an explicit statement of social responsibility to employees and customers. Its officials immediately admitted wrongdoing and wrote checks. They also took action to improve production practices. Odwalla now flash-pasteurizes its juices (high temperature, short time), uses a HACCP plan, and actively promotes its quality-control efforts. These actions restored consumer confidence. By 1999, sales had almost returned to former levels, and by 2001 the company was comfortably profitable. The actions also restored investor confidence. In 2000, Odwalla merged with Fresh Samantha, another fresh juice company. A year later, ironically, this producer of fresh, “healthy” juices was purchased by Coca-Cola, the world’s largest soft drink company, in a deal said to be worth $181 million.27
Among the many lessons of the Odwalla outbreak is the vulnerability of the nation’s supply of fruit and vegetables to cross-contamination from infected animals, pointing even more forcefully to the need to prevent foodborne illness at its source. The Odwalla incident induced the FDA to demand a warning label on unpasteurized juices. Manufacturers would have to prove that their production practices achieved a “5-log” (100,000-fold) reduction in the number of dangerous