Admittedly, I haven't heard much of higher contamination in organic foods or the costs associated to make sure they aren't. Still, seems logical enough based on the time commitment required.
To be fair - most people have no idea the number of chemicals (organic or otherwise) or the amount that come into contact with their food. I was astonished when I found out
Certainly I can understand that. I don't think it will ever be possible for the FDA to fully regulate the market, and I would hope they wouldn't have to.
Some of the stories I have heard the auditors tell are pretty damn frightening. I am torn between thinking we need more regulations or not. On one hand there seem to be an obscene amount of violations. On the other hand there are relatively few major outbreaks/serious consequences of those eating the food.
Considering the stories I have heard I have reached the conclusion that the human body is pretty damn good at dealing with all the random shit our food comes into contact with. Just increase the frequency of audits and I would be content with the system
I would think that people who lambaste the organic movement or anything similar to it would encourage the market for innovating potential solutions. Big companies marketed to these people, the market shifted, and ultimately the *goal* should (and could) be better foods and better production methods. Instead, we get ad hominem and people hiding in faux-rationality.
I think the issue with the system is the quantity and price demand. Turn out the most food at the lowest cost and you win. Some public opinion is turning but there doesn't seem to be much pressure to do better than the FDA regulations. Hell - you're not doing to bad if you meet FDA regulations (more about that later) If there does turn out to be a concrete link between some agent used in food and long term health effects that would change but I don't see it happening unless something major like that occurred.
I would be curious to know if you could offer us more insight as to how these audits work.
Is there something specific you want to know? (I work in the IT dept so I don't know specifics but I can certainly ask) Each step of the food's journey can be audited (growing facility, transport, preparation, supermarket etc) and a breakdown at any point could lead to contamination.
How often a facility should be audited depends on the risk level. High risk facilities should be audited more frequently than warehouses but there is currently no regulation requiring this. There was a recent FDA study showing some 56% of food facilities have gone 5+ years without an audit and that the FDA can only inspect 24% of the food facilities in a given year. Even more scary is that fact that in 36% of the facilities that were given an OAI classification (Official Action Indicated) by the FDA
were not reinspected within 1 year of the classification to ensure that adequate steps were taken to resolve the violation
The FDA is very very understaffed in terms of its auditing department (mainly due to budgetary constraints and general low pay for food auditors)
An interesting side note to this is that 3rd party audits have grown substantially. Basically food companies are no longer relying solely on FDA audits to determine if they want to work with a supplier. Some companies (Like Kelloggs) have their own auditors they send in. Others contract 3rd party (like my company - we are also hired to do FDA audits by and for the government) to inspect a facility before deciding to use them.
Audits for the FDA are typically announced ahead of time while 3rd party can be announced or unannounced (although for unannounced audits the facility is typically given a time frame like the audit will happen within the next 2-4 months)
The details vary based on the facility but include:
General plant conditions
Pest control management
Sanitation
Food safety program/HACCP planning
Recieving, storage, shippments
Security
The auditor is taken through the entire journey the food takes - from start to finish - inspecting the process and looking at anything that would come into contact with the food. The will also look over required HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) plan if it required the facility have one. Violations are divided into required (OAI/must be addressed) voluntary (VAI/would be good if they were addressed but not required)
With the Peanut Butter scare a company had been contracted to audit that facility before hand and the supplier had been found in violation of 20+ regulations. Whether the FDA could not be told of these issues (there are some odd legal requirements about sharing audit information with those that did not commission the audit) or they were unable to take action I do not know
Edit: Found the article here and revised some of the numbers in my post to match those in the article:
http://www.oig.hhs.gov/oei/reports/oei-02-08-00080.pdf