Listeriosis scare is over
Tiger Brands has reopened its Germiston branch and is reassuring consumers its products are safe. Is it time to move on?
MONTHS after it closed two of its ready-to-eat meat facilities because of the listeriosis outbreak, Tiger Brands announced it was ready to reopen its Germiston branch and would do the same with Polokwane, once its refurbishment was completed.
The Germiston site reopened on Friday, while an announcement about Polokwane’s readiness is expected next month.
The listeriosis outbreak killed 218 people, made 1 065 ill, and resulted in lost revenue of about R415 million after it was first detected in October last year. The world’s largest listeriosis outbreak was declared over last month by the Health Department, but the fallout could endure for years.
Lawyers representing the victims and their families in a class-action suit have already approached the high court in Joburg.
After months of investigations and clean-ups, Tiger Brands was ready to restart production of its Enterprise deli meats – and investment confidence seems to be up, with news of its Germiston processing factory’s reopening lifting the share price 3%.
Tiger Brands spokesperson Nevashnee Naicker said on Friday that the group was refurbishing the Polokwane branch, and an announcement was imminent.
“For now, we’ll be preparing the ready-to-cook meats, such as bacon and pork sausages, at Germiston.”
She added that Tiger Brands realised it would still take a lot of work to restore consumer confidence, which was why they had worked closely with regulators and the Health Department.
“We followed the existing food safety standards, but with ST6 (the strain of listeria identified in this outbreak), the standards have to change. We need to ask how we can create better food safety standards in South Africa.”
Food microbiologist Dr Lucia Anelich said the outbreak highlighted the gaps and complexity of food safety regulations in the country. A range of government role-players – the Health; Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries; and Trade and Industry departments – manage food safety, but local governments were responsible for enforcing regulations, which was unevenly applied and open to interpretation, she added.
“Our food control system is highly fragmented. The system needs to be revisited completely,” she said.
Anelich added that in South Africa there was a total lack of awareness, even though food scientists had known about listeria for at least 30 years. Listeriosis wasn’t a notifiable disease yet, and in the absence of a centralised food safety authority, the outbreak quickly spread to become the world’s worst.
“In South Africa there’s a big push for a food safety authority, but if it isn’t well researched and resourced, it’s not going to work. It needs political will…”
There was little awareness of food safety, she said, because consumers were not educated about the importance of maintaining the cold chain, washing hands after going to the bathroom and preparing foods, and so forth.
“To a large extent, a modern food control system has to have a wide awareness. The World Health Organisation has developed three pillars of food safety, which involves government, industry and consumer. Each is as important as the other.”
Anelich further said no food was sterile – it was a product of its environment, production methods and treatment by consumers.
“Even if you buy a fresh apple or tomato, there are microbes on the surface; they come from an environment, they’re not all going to cause foodborne disease, some are innocuous.”
When the National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) started looking for the source of the outbreak, they didn’t know where to start: it could have come from deli meats, ice cream, melons, etc.
“They went in blind. And because of the lack of communication between different government departments, the lack of staff and experience, people were sampling raw chicken, which has never been the cause of a listeriosis, because it’s cooked. When you test raw chicken, it’s a useless test. When it’s in a ready-to-eat product, it’s a different story. So, they wasted resources.”
In June, the Health Department announced a review of the National Health Act and the Foodstuffs, Cosmetics and Disinfectants Act, which was likely to include reporting requirements for food testing; and detailed guidance on acceptable levels of foodborne pathogens, including listeria monocytogenes. It also released Regulation 607, known as the HACCP (hazard analysis and critical control points) – a systematic preventive approach to food safety – which was amended to include ready-to-eat processed meat and poultry products. Companies were given nine months to get their houses in order.
Linda Jackson, a director at Food Focus, said this would cause “something of a renaissance (or perhaps a revolution) within the food industry, driven by heightened awareness from government, media and even consumers.
“The industry will need to step up and take ownership of the new demands. They are not alone; the government will also be under scrutiny for their role in regulating the change.”
The listeriosis outbreak had an upside because the NICD has improved its testing with genome sequencing. “I’m hoping there will be funding from the government to also do such testing,” Anelich said.
“Listeria is now notifiable, which means if there’s a case in hospital, it has to be reported to the government immediately.”