This good law firm offers to help food importers deal with the enhanced enforcement by the FDA of rules on importations of food.
For example, his firm refers to FDA Import Alert 16-18,
"Detention Without Physical Examination of Fresh and Frozen Shrimp from Bangladesh, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Taiwan, and Thailand" for filth, decomposition and Salmonella. Shrimp from those countries will automatically be detained by the FDA until a United States laboratory provides sufficient documentation to the FDA that the product meets U.S. standards.
Now there are so many problems with this. First, detention without examination, as in guilty until proven innocent? We are going to treat shrimp like Muslims?
Second, one needs a lawyer to grease the skids if you wish to be a shrimp importer? Big companies can afford this and pass it on, small companies cannot. Here we go again - USA Govt policy: get big, or get out.
Third, if there is a problem, don't blame the shrimp, don't blame the exporters, blame the importer. The importer sets standards and inspects every shipment. (The FDA cannot inspect every shipment, hence the "guilty until proven innocent by a third party" rule.) If there is a problem, the importer will face sanctions of the most severe kind: customer reaction. The retailers and restaurants to whom the importer sells the shrimp will see what they bought (another level of inspection before consumption) and simply reject the shipment. Reject shrimp is all the harder to sell, and it's fresh date is not very long. And it is not just rejection of the shrimp ... I've worked in enough kitchens in my time to see a chef ream a salesman for poor quality ingredients. It's not just a matter of rejecting the offending shipment, if the shrimp is no good, the Seviche is off the menu for that day, and there is no recovering the economic loss to the restaurant, and no assuaging the aggravation of the chef. Or worse yet, something nasty gets past a chef, and to the customer. There is nothing like a rat turd in the Seviche to put a diner off his feed. I've seen food salemen shake in fear before a displeased chef. There is no judge more fearsome in hell or the federal government as terrible to a food salesman than a pissed off chef.
And if in fact there is a tortous case, then sue the importer, under the legal theory that the importer is the manufacturer (or fisherman) since the overseas exporter cannot be touched by USA law.
Many foods are somehow poisonous if not prepared correctly. The reason we are not all dead or spend more time with food poisoning is because most chefs properly prepare most food. To focus such enforcement resources on such a sliver of threat, among all of the threats, is foolish policy choice. We always have and always will leave the vast majority of threats to food safety to the chef to deal with.
The ultimate food safety officer is the cook. No rule can or will ever change that. He is the one who takes the blame if someone gets sick, he is the one who is in control of what leaves the kitchen, and whether proper systems are in place to assure the spinach is free of e coli and the chicken is free of salmonella. Food safety is up to the chef, and the chef can effect change all the way back to the fisherman. The chef is necessary in food safety, the chef is sufficient for food safety.
Why pretend the FDA can inspect every shipment, when we know they cannot? Why do we pretend the importer cannot inspect every shipment, when we know they do?
FDA inspection actually invites poor quality importations. The consumer is duped into thinking imported food is inspected, and thus safe. This creates a false sense of confidence. A fly-by-night agent can import bilge strainings in bulk to sell to some huge food processer that is putting the shrimp in a chip dip it makes, rat turds and all. Since there is none of the cost of running a responsible business to the flybynight agent, the food processor gets a very low price, and arbitrages the difference for a nice profit. Consumers are confident, and thus fooled into complacency, a complacency upon which the flybynight and huge processors can play. Until something goes wrong, and someone gets sick or someone finds something gross in the shrimp chip dip.
The food processor claims it is a victim of the importer, blames the FDA for lax inspection, and the flybynight agent disappears with a few hundred thousand profit (to reopen another shop under another name). The FDA complains they are short funded, and so they get some more money from congress, although it does not help. Everyone is in on the game. These guys could be bankers! It's a great system for irresponsible people made possible by the pretense FDA inspections.
If we are looking for ways to save money in our econ crisis, get rid of all inspections at the docks and tell America to watch out, caveat emptor, and if something goes wrong, hold the importer liable. We'll save money and improve safety and quality.
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