Shop Talk

Food safety worries? Join the club

Are you worried about the rash of high-profile and often deadly tainted-food scandals involving everything from peanut butter and chili peppers to spinach and baby formula?

You are not alone.

“When I heard peanut products were being contaminated earlier this year, I immediately thought of my 7-year-old daughter, Sasha, who has peanut butter sandwiches for lunch probably three times a week,” U.S. President Barack Obama said recently, referring to a salmonella outbreak that has made 683 people in 46 states sick, killed as many as nine and forced the recall of more than 3,000 products. 

“No parent should have to worry that their child is going to get sick from their lunch,” said Obama, who is leading a charge to improve the U.S. food safety system. 

Parties ranging from the CEO of cereal maker Kellogg to Rosa DeLauro, chairwoman of a House of Representatives Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the FDA, have joined the call for stricter oversight.

China will enact a new food-safety law on June 1aimed at preventing another massive health threat like last year’s melamine-tainted milk formula that killed at least six toddlers and made almost 300,000 sick.

But in a chilling reminder of the troubles in an increasingly global food chain, China’s Ministry of Health said in a document: “At present, China’s food-security situation remains grim with high risks and contradictions.”

Wal-Mart: Babies too, are living paycheck to paycheck

In one of the more chilling consumer spending anecdotes thus far, a Wal-Mart executive told a lunch crowd in Los Angeles that more of its customers are waiting to have paychecks or government assistance checks in hand before they buy necessities like baby formula.

“We have started to see some very disturbing behavior,” said Eduardo Castro-Wright, president and chief executive of Wal-Mart’s U.S. operations.

The world’s biggest retailer already has said that its U.S. shoppers are increasingly living paycheck to paycheck as the economy worsens and credit gets harder to come by.

On Tuesday, Castro-Wright said Wal-Mart has noticed a spike in sales of baby formula when checks are issued at the beginning and the middle of the month — a trend that suggests consumers are rushing to buy basic necessities when they have cash.

(Photo\Reuters)