Salad sales plummet, producers call for E.coli action

12-Jun-2011 - Last updated on 13-Jun-2011 at 14:42 GMT

UK salad producers hope the European Commission (EC) will part-fund an awareness campaign to persuade consumers that their products are safe, and expect compensation after revealing that sales here have plummeted up to 60% by value since the E.coli crisis struck.

German authorities confirmed today that the disease outbreak, which has killed 35 people and seen 3,000+ fall ill, originated from sprouted seed vegetables (bean sprouts) grown near Hamburg.

But they initially blamed Spanish cucumbers, and have received widespread criticism for their handling of the E.coli scare, as EU fresh produce players have suffered huge sales declines.

Delays a joke

Calling for Germany and the EC to provide "full and immediate compensation" to affected UK businesses, Fresh Produce Consortium (FPC) chief executive Nigel Jenney told FoodManufacture.co.uk: “It’s been appallingly badly handled by the German authorities. For them to procrastinate for so long has been a joke.”

“The EC has launched a compensation package worth up to €210m (£185m), according to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and Jenney said: "We welcome that, but they have not accepted that businesses beyond the farm gate need recompense: retailers, foodservice operators and wholesalers would normally be selling a lot of fresh salads at this time of year.

“We’re calling for the government and the EC to launch a promotional campaign, to set the record straight from the consumer’s point of view and rebuild consumer interest.

“That’s being considered at a senior level in the EC but they will expect to have some sort of co-funding.” Jenney said that he was pessimistic about the UK government’s willingness to contribute, and called on the D to fight the UK's corner within the EU.

“The salads sector has been severely impacted in the UK,” Jenney added. “Some members are advising me that in volume they’re down 20% or 30%, and in value by 40% to 60%.Yet the UK industry has done absolutely nothing wrong.”

Past mistakes

Jenney would not speculate on whether UK bean sprout sales were likely to take a bigger hit. But he added that there had been no previous problems associated with bean sprout production in the UK.

“The products you’re buying in the UK are solely produced in the UK,” he said. “The seeds may well come from other parts of the world but they are grown solely in the UK.”

Amina West, vice president for northern Europe at Trace One, said:“The industry really needs to make sure they are learning from past mistakes, as bean sprouts have been problematic before,”

“The key is knowing how to manage a food crisis, and respond in hours not days, to recall products off shelves and out of restaurants.” While industry could not necessarily prevent all health scares, “they can be better prepared to deal with product recalls from food crises such as E.coli”.

Last Friday the Robert Koch Institute, which is responsible for German disease control, said the farm was being treated as the E.coli source despite no sprouts testing positive for the bug; the Food Standards Agency continues to advise that UK produce is safe.

At the time Jenney said: “It is positive that the Hamburg area authorities have removed their comments about eating salads [specifically lettuces, tomatoes, cucumbers] but we need a definitive statement about what they believe the cause is.

“We don’t know if it’s an issue with the hygiene of the manufacturing process, or something else.”