With reports of ‘killer salad leaves’ hitting the UK headlines this week, growers and packers are starting to get nervous about salad sales. And you can’t blame them. The major 2011 E.coli outbreak, which left 53 dead across the Continent, cost farmers and industry an estimated $1.3bn in losses.
What worries them is that public health authorities may not have learnt lessons from the 2011 outbreak - which initially saw Spanish cucumbers blamed before the problem was traced back to sprouted seeds from Germany.
It was a very costly mistake for Spanish growers, and while PHE might be on the right track with salad leaves on this occasion, the sector is understandably worried the finger has been pointed before investigations have concluded.
Of course, PHE has a difficult balance to strike. Two people are dead, so it is clearly in the public interest that consumers are warned.
But commununication has to be equally proactive when initial suspicions turn out to be wrong. We need to know the source of the problem, but also have the record set straight if a mistake has been made.
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