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Million Jars of Peanut Butter Dumped In New Mexico Landfill
Hugh Pickens DOT Com (2995471) writes "The Guardian reports that a million jars of peanut butter are going to be dumped in a New Mexico landfill and bulldozed over after retailer Costco refused to take shipment of the peanut butter and declined requests to let it be donated to food banks or repackaged or sold to brokers who provide food to institutions like prisons. The peanut butter comes from a bankrupt peanut-processing plant that was at the heart of a salmonella outbreak in 2012 and although 'all parties agreed there's nothing wrong with the peanut butter from a health and safety issue,' court records show that on a 19 March conference call Costco said 'it would not agree to any disposition ... other than destruction.'
The product was tested extensively and determined to be safe. Costco initially agreed to allowing the peanut butter to be sold, but rejected it as 'not merchantable' because of leaking peanut oil. So instead of selling or donating the peanut butter, with a value estimated at $2.6m, the estate is paying about $60,000 to transport 950,000 jars – or about 25 tons – to the Curry County landfill in Clovis, where public works director Clint Bunch says it 'will go in with our regular waste and covered with dirt'. Despite the peanut butter being safe, Curry County landfill employee Tim Stacy says that no one will be able to consume the peanut butter once it's dumped because it will be immediately rolled over with a bulldozer, destroying the supply. Stacy added more trash will then be dumped on top of the pile. Sonya Warwick, spokeswoman for New Mexico's largest food bank, declined to comment directly on the situation, but she noted that rescued food accounted for 74% of what Roadrunner Food Bank distributed across New Mexico last year. 'Access to rescued food allows us to provide a more well-rounded and balanced meal to New Mexicans experiencing hunger.'"
The product was tested extensively and determined to be safe. Costco initially agreed to allowing the peanut butter to be sold, but rejected it as 'not merchantable' because of leaking peanut oil. So instead of selling or donating the peanut butter, with a value estimated at $2.6m, the estate is paying about $60,000 to transport 950,000 jars – or about 25 tons – to the Curry County landfill in Clovis, where public works director Clint Bunch says it 'will go in with our regular waste and covered with dirt'. Despite the peanut butter being safe, Curry County landfill employee Tim Stacy says that no one will be able to consume the peanut butter once it's dumped because it will be immediately rolled over with a bulldozer, destroying the supply. Stacy added more trash will then be dumped on top of the pile. Sonya Warwick, spokeswoman for New Mexico's largest food bank, declined to comment directly on the situation, but she noted that rescued food accounted for 74% of what Roadrunner Food Bank distributed across New Mexico last year. 'Access to rescued food allows us to provide a more well-rounded and balanced meal to New Mexicans experiencing hunger.'"
In this litigious society, who can blame them. You can damn near guarantee that they'd have hit one bad jar in a lot that large and gotten the tar sued out of them. If you want to fix this situation and make sure it never happens again, demand tort reform in this country.
... then the news and legal worlds would turn on Costco like a pack of rabid dogs. Yes, this destruction of nutritious food seems like a terrible, horrible waste; but if there's even a chance that one single jar is tainted with salmonella, and someone gets sick, then the tone would change in a heartbeat to "heartless corporation knowingly rids itself of poisoned food". I can't blame them for playing it safe.
Well, at least all of the Atari E.T. cartridges now have an accompanying snack food.
"All parties agreed there's nothing wrong with the peanut butter from a health and safety issue" isn't legally binding on anyone who might later decide to sue the company. At best it might make lawsuits harder depending on what the exact liability rules are. Furthermore, even if they win the lawsuit, fighting one will cost money and bad publicity, especially when the newspapers can use the spin "it's from a plant that was condemned for salmonella poisoning, how irresponsible can this megacorp be?"
If they give away the peanut butter, they stand to lose quite a bit with nothing to gain except a little good publicity (said good publicity going down the toilet if anyone actually sues).
Unless the courts decide that it was gross negligence. So the legal reason is still there.
Assuming you're right, that may work in the courts. With a judge. That definitely won't matter with the court of public opinion and probably wouldn't work with a jury.
What "all parties have agreed to" for the narrow purpose of settling a bankruptcy suit is not the same thing as "accepting legal responsibility for the charitable distribution of perishable foods that have been in storage for a minimum of two years."
If you want to ignite a food riot in a school or prison, serving rancid peanut butter is as good as any place to begin.
Given the extensive testing, gross negligence would be a really hard sell.
Why on Earth do you think that the appropriate way to punish the bigwigs making these decisions is to make the employees' lives harder?
Please don't do this Costco will not be affected by it, you'll just be inconveniencing and aggravating the staff who will have to restock them.
Even though samples were tested, there could be a concern that there were problems in the food that was not tested.
There is actually a principle in the regulation of food and pharamceuticals that you can't "test quality into a product."
You build quality into a product by controlling the manufacture, and testing really just serves as a confirmation that all went well.
There is no way to sample peanut butter such that you can be certain that there isn't a microbe in the part of the peanut butter you didn't test. Now, you can make that risk fairly low as you sample more and more, but if there was reason to suspect the integrity of the product in the first place then you can imagine the lawyers lining up.
And, as others pointed out, if they give away product for free they still face liability, make no money, and potentially undercut their own sales. If some poor guy dies of salmonella you can imagine the tales of a company feeding them peanut butter that they'd already determined isn't good enough for ordinary people...