*

Contamination of produce harder to control than that of

beef,

experts say

*

Cooking beef acts as a 'silver bullet' against

contamination,

unlike fresh produce

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Fast-food chains urged by expert to modernize and

harmonize

safety standards for produce

By Waylon Cunningham

Oct 25 (Reuters) - Moves by major U.S. fast-food chains

to temporarily scrub fresh onions off their menus on Thursday,

after the vegetable was named as the likely source of an E. coli

outbreak at McDonald's, laid bare the recurring

nightmare for restaurants: Produce is a bigger problem for

restaurants to keep free of contamination than beef.

Onions are likely the culprit in the McDonald's E. coli outbreak

across the Midwest and some Western states that has sickened 49

people and killed one, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said

late on Wednesday. The company pulled the Quarter Pounder off

its menu at one-fifth of its 14,000 U.S. restaurants.

In past years, beef patties dominated the dockets of

foodborne illness lawyers, before U.S. federal health regulators

cracked down on beef contamination after an E. coli outbreak

linked to Jack in the Box burgers hospitalized more

than 170 people across states and killed four. As a result,

beef-related outbreaks became much rarer, experts say.

"Produce is a much harder problem," said Mike Taylor, a

lawyer who played leadership roles in safety efforts at the U.S.

Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of

Agriculture, and today is on the board of a nonprofit called

STOP Foodborne Illness.

Experts say the biggest difference is that beef is cooked

while fresh produce, by definition, is not cooked. Proper

cooking is a "silver bullet" against contamination, said Donald

Schaffner, a Rutgers University food science and safety expert.

Large-scale industrial produce is washed, sanitized and

tested to a similar degree that beef is, but tests cannot catch

sufficiently low levels of contamination, experts say.

Crops are often grown outdoors, where feces from wildlife or

nearby agricultural animals can seep into irrigation water or

floodwater. E. coli is a normal pathogen in the guts of animals.

Cattle have it more than others, but it has also been detected

in geese, boars, deer and others, said Mansour Samadpour, a food

safety specialist.

Contamination could arise from using untreated manure or

contaminated irrigation water, or from holding or slicing the

onions in a way where they became contaminated, Schaffner said.

Samadpour, who is chief executive of IEH Laboratories and

Consulting Group, and who was hired by Chipotle to

overhaul its food safety regime after a series of contamination

episodes in the mid-2010s, said U.S. Department of Agriculture

officials insisted on stronger testing of beef. "We went from

one or two beef recalls a month to one recall every year or

three," Samadpour said.

Similar rigorous testing is applied to produce, and

fast-food chains and other buyers often require it. But tests do

not detect everything. The cleaner the product, the harder it is

to detect, Samadpour said.

TOUGHER REGULATIONS

Both McDonald's and Taylor Farms, a supplier of yellow

onions to McDonald's in the affected states, are large and

sophisticated companies, and widely regarded by food safety

experts as standard-bearers for safe practices.

McDonald's suppliers test produce frequently and did so in

the date range given by the Centers for Disease Control and

Prevention for the outbreak, and none of them identified this E.

coli strain, company spokespeople said.

Wendy's in 2022 pulled lettuce from restaurants in

several states after the CDC suspected it was the source of an

E. Coli outbreak that sickened dozens. In 2006, lettuce from

Taco Bell was identified as the likely source of an E. coli

outbreak that sickened 71 people. Taco Bell is currently owned

by Yum Brands ( YUM ).

Contamination can extend even beyond pathogens such as E. coli

and salmonella. McDonald's previously dealt with a parasitic

outbreak in 2018 linked to McDonald's salads that sickened

nearly 400.

The Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011 required the Food

and Drug Administration to establish standards for the safe

production and harvesting of fruits and vegetables. The FDA

introduced regulations for farm produce that previously was not

subject to much regulation, Rutgers' Schaffner said.

"Very often the pattern is we have a public health problem

or a food safety problem and eventually Congress will react and

we'll have regulations," Schaffner said.

Taylor, the former FDA official, said that while beef

contamination was more or less solved through government

regulation, improving the safety of produce is best left to

buyers, such as McDonald's and other fast-food chains.

Taylor believes the fast-food chains and grocery stores, as

major buyers of produce, can collectively "modernize and

harmonize" the standards they expect from suppliers. The produce

marketplace is fragmented and diverse.

"The only thing that could for sure destroy the microbes is

radiation - but no one wants it," food-safety expert Samadpour

said. It is impractical at the volumes of produce that are sold,

he said. In addition, for many people radiation carries an "ick

factor" when applied to food.