Another Cargill Ground Turkey Recall- Is This Shades of a Systemic Problem?

Yet another follow-up to report regarding our ongoing Supply Chain Matters commentary regarding the fairly large recall of ground turkey in the U.S. because of suspected infection by a highly resistant strain of salmonella. Readers may recall that in mid-August, Cargill announced the recall of 36 million pounds of ground turkey after over 100 people were sickened across 31 states.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting today (paid subscription or metered view required) that Cargill is recalling an additional 185,000 pounds ground turkey product produced on August 23-30 and August 31, due to contamination of salmonella Heidelburg.  The company announced this second recall after a USDA test indicated that this form of salmonella was present in a sample taken from the company’s Springdale Arkansas plant on August 24, just two weeks after the first announced recall.  This was the same facility identified in the initial product recall in mid-August.  This latest recall involves ground turkey trays, patties and product sold in sausage-like packaging and distributed nationally under the Honeysuckle White, Kroger and HEB brands.

Cargill further announced that it is now suspending production of ground turkey at the Springdale facility until corrective actions can be taken and approved by the USDA.  This is an obvious wise move. Various other turkey products also produced at the subject facility are not impacted by this suspension. According to the WSJ, Cargill operates four turkey processing plants in the U.S. and no ground turkey products from the other three facilities are involved in this latest recall.

The obvious question is whether the company performed adequate inspection and due-diligence to eliminate the prior root-cause of the contamination before deciding to resume production.  As we noted in our previous commentary, the hands of government inspectors are somewhat tied when it comes to enforcing findings of salmonella, and the burden lies more on the producer to self-enforce quality and inspection.

Readers may also recall the saga of Johnson and Johnson who continues to endure the implications of multiple product recalls that originated from a noted single manufacturing facility, but later involved other manufacturing facilities.  The problems were not just local, they were systemic.  An internal J&J investigation which was reported by the WSJ in mid-July pointed to reduced staffing levels as a cause

That is not to say that Cargill has a breakdown in its overall quality monitoring processes but it is certainly an alarm that quality and inspectional efforts need to be re-doubled across all production facilities.

We trust that Cargill will now follow-through

Bob Ferrari