Why aren't items like Romaine lettuce labelled to make it easy to find out the seller immediatlely in case of contamination?

It’s really hard to barcode a leaf of lettuce.

As was answered 3–4 days ago, distributors buy their romaine from tens or even hundreds of growers in a particular region. The distributor aggregates it, cleans it, and boxes. Keeping lettuce from different growers would be almost impossible and enormously expensive.

In addition, the eColi effects on the body take 2–3 weeks to appear. Can restaurants and groceries be put in the position of knowing which head of lettuce it used three weeks ago? I doubt it.

They might be able to laser print a barcode on each product.

Because a reg like that would dramatically increase the price of lettuce.

But people want cheap lettuce.

So a politician who supported such a reg would risk not getting elected.

But they will do about anything to avoid not getting elected. Including not supporting the reg.

There you go

@elbanditoroso has it so right. To process each growers produce separately just isn’t feasible, in terms of cost or time. This stuff is brought in by the truckloads, and dumped onto a conveyor.
Imagine getting a can of tuna with deadly mercury levels, and a dozen states report deaths. Which boat hauled in the bad fish?

But what is so special about lettuce? How about strawberries for example there’s the package with the brand name etc.

@flo the Strawberry container is no more specific than the blue label wire around the lettuce. Still doesn’t help, and there is a lot more lettuce grown than strawberries.

I’m sure the card board boxes they are shipped in are bar coded with the producer’s name and lot numbers.

All produce is a potential carrier of bacteria.

Western New York has many large cabbage farms that supply product to food processors all over the country. If you live east of the Mississippi and ate an egg roll recently there is a greater than 50% chance the cabbage came from farms in Holley NY. The harvest comes from many fields that are intentionally planted at different times so the supply is moderated and consistent while giving the customer the freshest possible product.
The cabbage is planted, grown, harvested, washed with disinfectant, and loaded on trucks while being sold to the food processor at the ridiculously low price of $0.15 to $0.25 per pound.
Total shipments are tracked and records are kept by the farms now. Labeling each head of cabbage would add to the cost.
The retailer often adds stickers to the cabbage heads just before they put them on the shelf but they charge the customers for the extra work.

@flo Someone has listened to you.

So the CDC has narrowed it down to lettuce in two counties in California.

And several major romaine lettuce producers have agreed to label products with a harvest date by region, and new romaine from different growing regions, including Florida and Arizona, is being restocked in grocery shelves.

There is a containers (jar, can, bottle, Romaine would be in box, etc.) and that’s where the info is (brand name, and/ farm, maybe best before date), isn’t it? I still am missing why they say it’s hard to trace it back to farmer. All these time all the wasted food, (all the Romaine in U.S.A and parts of Canada has to be thrown out.

They put the information on the boxes.

They have narrowed it down to California’s Central Coast and Salinas Valley.”

How many farmers, in that looks like a large region, and it has to be narrowed downsome more.

And isn’t too late to say the Romaine from other régions are ok, since the are probably thrown out long ago.

@LuckyGuy Thanksfor the link

Ha ha ha ha! I checked the menu for school lunch yesterday…it was tacos with romaine lettuce! Ha ha! We never did like them kids anyway.

PS…shouldn’t “romaine” be capitalized?

^^^No, romaine is not a proper noun. It is an adjective.

It just sounds so proper nounish, like French bread or Philadelphia cream cheese. I think of gypsies, like in Romania. Now I have to find out where the word comes from. BRB.

Close “type of lettuce, 1876, from French romaine (in laitue romaine, literally “Roman lettuce”), from fem. of Old French …”

It looks like there will be an accounting/tracking system in place by September 2019.

A Mission to End All Foodborne Illness Outbreaks

But whatabout the data each supermarket has as to where they bought every item, even if they throw the boxes they come in? Why would Romaine, for example be different?

@LuckyGuy Thanks for the link.

They don’t just buy their product helter skelter @flo. They use the same distributors over and over, unless, and until there is reason to switch. That is how they were able to track down where the affected lettuce was coming from.

Wow you guys. In looking up info to reply to flo above, I came across this. from last April. Looks like E. coli is a real problem with romaine lettuce period.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

Why did you quote the definition of a Strawman argument, @flo? I don’t think anyone was arguing with you.