I'll be honest with you, being in recalls is tough. I began the year with so much hope for what's ahead. Looking at all the progress in tech, best practices, and advocacy, I truly believed that the pieces were falling into place. Now, halfway through, we've been hit with recall after recall that hasn't gone well. The consequences aren't just business losses, they are public health losses. People, especially vulnerable populations, have been left exposed far longer than they should have been. Sure, we can say recalls are complex, but this has felt like a pummeling that is hard to justify.
Some of what makes a recall hard is unavoidable. Take the current lettuce situation. Cyclospora is difficult to detect. The recall starts on traceback information while the lab work is still firming up. Scope expands as new information comes in — that's a normal live investigation. Fair critiques of the lettuce situation aside, this is difficult work.
Difficulty is not an excuse for poor recalls. The standard during a live recall isn’t “wait until you’re certain before you go public.” The expectation should be "tell people what you know now, and keep telling them as it shifts." When the industry and the agencies charged with protecting the public choose to defer, underfund, or drag their feet, that’s not something I'm willing to dismiss with “it’s a complex situation”.
Recall effectiveness is not a technical subject. Yes, we’ve been writing this month about metrics and checkboxes — all important to be sure the job is well done. Ultimately, though, effectiveness matters because people matter. Every measure of whether a recall worked — from whether the right people got the message to how fast the product got out of supply — is really a measure of how many people got sick who didn't have to. When we talk about doing recalls well, that is what we are talking about.
I know this is a break from my typically optimistic view that even though things are broken there is good work happening. That still is true. This is just my humanity talking for a moment — a little frustration, a little "I care about people not getting sick", and a lot "we are determined to keep doing this work no matter what an uphill climb it is." I just got back from the IAFP Annual Meeting and I’ll tell you what — it's a beacon of light to connect with people who care just as much, are frustrated just as much, and are willing to keep going.
The answer to a hard year is to stay the course on what an effective recall looks like. It’s to make sure the industry has the systems, tools, processes, and mindset to ensure they happen, every time. Recall risk is supply chain risk, and the supply chain is not going to get simpler. The work is to make our systems ready for it. The people counting on us deserve a better year than they've had so far.
