Food Safety Talk 88: Canadian Halloween

The podcast begins with Ben complaining about the clutter in his office, and Don about his downgraded airline membership status (unlike Ben who became a gold member in Delta airline after his trip to Dubai for the International Food Safety Conference). The show starts with a listener question about the shelf life of candy, which is shelf stable from a microbiological perspective because of a low water activity. Don and Ben go on to bond over their love of Brigadeiro from Brazil. The talk moves to a recent WHO report on processed meats, cancer and the guys discuss poor risk communication from the WHO. Ben brings up a recent MMWR article about an E. coli O157:H7 outbreak that was linked to a farming educational event. This prompts Don to talk about the NY Sheep and Wool festival where he did not find any hand washing stations. Don spoke about his talk at the Produce Marketing Association in Atlanta, GA and his trip to Wegmans where he noticed the caramel coated apples were refrigerated and maintained at 40 °F. This was likely due to the 2014 multistate listeriosis outbreaks linked to the consumption of caramel apples. Ben shares that Kroger simply chose to not carry caramel apples which some called a bad knee-jerk reaction to good research. The final topic of the show was Chipotle’s decision to close 43 restaurants in the midst of an E. coli outbreak, although some restaurants have been less than clear about the reason they closed. The podcast ends with reading listener mail.