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.

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.