Contamination
I am horrified that the frozen vegetable maker, Talley’s, is taking such a lackadaisical attitude to the contamination of packets of frozen peas. Up to 50% of their peas have been found to be black nightshade – a fairly poisonous berry. Have they ordered a recall? No. Have they shut down the line and checked their product? Apparently not. And the response of the New Zealand Food Safety Authority is “to give them a call”. A kick in the backside would seem more appropriate.
Talley’s attitude is in marked contrast to Fonterra’s response in February to a possible further melamine contamination. Fonterra stopped shipment of their products immediately and did not restart until they were sure that the contamination was contained. Talley’s has these contaminated packets out in the community and all they can offer is a vague promise of a “review of its processes”. Their first complaint was six months ago and they are offering this wishy-washy garbage this week. What have they been doing in the meantime?
It is not as if this contamination is benign. Even at the level of a tablespoon per cup, they are likely to cause a great deal of nausea, stomach cramps and diarrhoea, At 50% contamination they could easily be lethal to a toddler. It is perfectly possible some unsuspecting mother is mashing peas for her infant right now, not realising she is about to kill her child. If that is not motivation enough for Talley’s to recall it’s product and fix its systems, I don’t know what is.
This also demonstrates the toothless nature of the Food Safety Authority. They were informed of this problem several weeks ago, and are only calling Talley’s now that the contamination is in the media. In fairness to the NZFSA, the most they can do is fine Talley’s via the court. They have no power to shut down production or order a recall.
Which shows how the food industry is virtually unregulated in terms of safety standards.
MacDoctor’s advice to all is to stop buying Tally’s products immediately, throw out the stuff you have in your freezer and re-purchase a safer brand. If you are using any of their pea-containing products, under no circumstances give it to your children. Do not buy Talley’s products again until Talley’s:
- Informs the public where the problem was and how they fixed it.
- Apologises for it’s lackadaisical attitude.
If we can’t have regulatory muscle applied, there is still consumer power. Other blogs are invited to pass this on to their readers:
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- Talleys: Corporate scum at The Standard — [...] MacDoctor has posted on the poisonous berry issue, encouraging the public to “stop buying Tally’s products [...]
Apr 6 09 3:41 pm
Shit! I think I may well steer clear of their stuff. Thanks
Apr 6 09 5:26 pm
I need your email Jim, I have a spam journalism tip for you
m_flannagan@clear dot net dot nz is mine.
Apr 7 09 10:37 am
Excellent post MacDoc – glad to link back to it and support your campaign
http://keepingstock.blogspot.com/2009/04/public-service-thread.html
Apr 8 09 12:01 am
All fair points, but they say The variety differs from deadly nightshade (atropa belladonna) which is highly toxic, but rare in New Zealand., and later that the type of berry here has little or no toxicity.
Are you commenting on the right berry?
Can you comment on how little toxicity they really have, and how it might affect a toddler?
Apr 8 09 12:29 am
Zen:
Compared with deadly nightshade, black nightshade is fairly low in toxicity. I have never seen a death from this, though I have heard of a toddler sick enough to need IV fluid replacement overnight. There have been only one or two deaths reported in the literature – they were both children.
The problem is that most of these berry ingestions are kids helping themselves to berries in the garden or paddock. In most cases, these kids tend not to eat a large number of the berries, making toxicity rare. This is where most of our medical data comes from. Unfortunately, the example I quoted, of a mother mashing peas and feeding them to her child, is all too possible and would constitute a massive ingestion of the berries. I don’t think anyone knows what the result would be, but I am betting it is not good. In a 4 month old baby, I am pretty sure we are talking about a possible fatal outcome.
Talley’s, of course, is downplaying the toxicity aspect as much as they can. The simple fact of the matter is that, regardless of the actual toxicity of black nightshade, their quality control SUCKS. Consumers should be sending a very strong message that this sort of behaviour in the food industry is just not acceptable under any circumstances.
Apr 8 09 11:57 am
Thanks for that info. Seems like they are playing with people’s health and safety.
Apr 14 09 12:02 pm
Talleys have known about this contamination for a lot longer than 6 months. It would be well over a year ago that I found nightshade in my peas and contacted them. They were not worried and sent me a cheque for $5. I have never bought Talleys again (that was my first and last time buying peas from Talleys)