Sun 22 Nov 2009 4:47 pm
One of the things that surprised me the most about the massive salmonella-related peanut recalls earlier this year was how many of the people we think of as “the good guys” got caught in the mess along with everyone else. Small, local companies, trying their best to source high-quality ingredients, wound up using the same nuts as the country’s biggest chains, from a company that reportedly knew it was sending out contaminated goods.
I wrote in the Sunday Seattle Times about how companies get caught in the national food distribution web, and how some locals are trying to disentangle themselves from it as best they can. We looked at why CB’s Nuts will never be another Peanut Corporation of America, and how Snoqualmie Gourmet Ice Cream is making its add-in ingredients by hand, from fresh caramel sauce to cookie dough.
The full story is online here.
“…who had sampled fresh-roasted peanuts at Boston’s Camden Yards.” Very disappointed that this got by proofreaders. I’m sure that residents of both Boston and Baltimore would be shocked by this mix-up, but I hear it all the time. Just surprised to see it in print.
Great exploration of the issue!
I think this was a great article. It tackled the issues of food security and the incredible consolidation/concentration in processing that is true of so many food products. By tracing peanuts and a well-known recall, it brought a complex and overwhelming issue down to human scale.
I just got around to reading your article in the Times about the peanut recall. Good article! Thanks.
C