Question

You learn that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the corresponding State of Georgia agency, which are responsible for monitoring food safety, are understaffed and overworked. State and federal inspectors do not require the peanut industry to inform the public — or even the government — of salmonella contamination in its plants (i.e., disclosure is not mandated).

You also learn that Georgia, like 42 other states, has arrangements with the FDA for Georgia health and safety personnel to monitor food factories in Georgia. However, Georgia state inspectors are vastly under-funded. The state has only 60 inspectors to monitor its 16,000 food businesses. The state has capped the number of miles inspectors can drive on taxpayer money because of funding shortages. These caps severely limit the thoroughness of the state monitoring process. Moreover, the state has a revenue deficit. Businesses in the state are closing. Other, more serious, outbreaks of food-borne illnesses have taken a toll on the state’s ability to monitor Delectable’ peanut factories. Georgia officials, meanwhile, are loathed to lean too heavily on businesses (at least until they become embroiled in a public scandal) lest they force them into bankruptcy. Government officials consider Delectable to be a major employer in Georgia, providing jobs to thousands of workers, and keeping the towns where the plants are located economically afloat. The company has been praised repeatedly by mayors and by the Governor for keeping jobs in Georgia -- rather than farming them out abroad – as other food companies have done.

Part B Questions (based on the Parts A and B Background Facts):

B1. What role, if any, should government play in assuring food safety in the food industry in general? What role should the state of Georgia play in assuring food safety at Delectable?

Your answer to this question should address the following issues:

• What challenges does government face in dealing with food safety issues at companies like Delectable?

• How might the state of Georgia better address its own challenges in dealing with the situation at Delectable?

• In general, what steps can government take to encourage and support companies to act more socially responsibly?

• Alternatively, should the state let food companies regulate themselves? How might industry self-regulation be compatible with protecting the public interest in food safety?

Answer 1

The government should play a definitive role in assuring food safety. As a basic necessity, food plays one of the most important roles in anyone's life. The quality and safety of the food being provided is a sign of development of a nation and the health and well-being of its population. So there is little doubt in my mind that food safety must be paramount abnd be regulated. Now the question that arises is that who should regulate the food industry? Should we let them self-regulate or should the government do it? And if the government does it, what challenges does it face and how can it solve them?

Coming to self-regulation. I am against it. There is too high a chance of cartels being formed, companies making sure that they are safe. Even the chances of sabotage will increase since the companies will have information about each other. There is also the question of investments and guidelines. For companies profit is paramount and the resources for food safety will take a back-seat as they only reduce the bottomline. There is also a chance that they will create the guidelines in a very lax manner- which will result in reduction of food quality and safety.

Now that we've established that the government should play a role in regulating food, lets see what issues they face.

• Resources- This is paramount. The government often does not have enough resources to cover everything thoroughly. This often means that the checks are rare and not thorough and hence many issues go undetected.
• Job security- If the government starts forcing companies too stringently on this issue, they might establish their production some place where the rules are not as stringent. This will result in jobs.
• Public apathy- To some extent, the public is also apathetic about the issue until a crisis happens. This is because the public is still reasonably assured that US produced foods have much higher quality and the public also cares much more about issues such as unemployment etc.

A few solutions to the problems given above would be to at least remove the number of miles cap, to reward companies with safer track record (slight tax rebate, mark of quality on products etc.), a clear demarcation of FDA and Georgia FDA responsibilities and chain of command, more investment in technlogy that makes the process faster, more dissemination of quality standards of companies to general public (this will result in them being more fearful of public opinion), better training guidelines for all food industry employees etc.