Comment by TrueSlacker0 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by TrueSlacker0 | Hacker News Reader

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This states it's for India but I have pretty little faith in the US also. I operate a beverage production plant (alcoholic and non) and finally got an actual ingredient and process inspection during our 8th year. We passed with only a few suggested changes but I was asking the inspector (who was a state inspector employed by health and human services inspecting for the fda) what would happen if we failed. They said basically nothing would happen, they would work with us to correct the issue and we had up to a year(if I remember the timeline correctly) to fix it before fines begin. They mentioned an unnamed place in another major city nearby that had rodents running on the food conveyers for multiple inspections yet they keep operating and just pay the fines rather than fix the issue. They mentioned they were close to shutting them down but it had been going on for far longer than a year. This was around early 2019 so pre COVID. I would only expect their inspections are even less frequent now like the rest of the gov agencies we deal with.

that sounds awful, here we have unexpected food controls where you have to have a flyer hanging in a window with you latest review failure to hang it up gives fines and eventually closure if enough violations are made. when unsanitary conditions are found a fine and a bad review until next inspection, it works this way for all food related businesses. this seems to work out for the most part as people walking into your establishment can check your sanitary conditions and choose not to go if it doesnt have a smiley, this keeps most food operators honest.

This is how our area handles restaurant kitchens. When the city health inspector comes for an inspection (supposed to be every quarter) they only inspect our onsite kitchen. They do the normal checklist of food temps, no rodents, food off the ground, etc. This city inspection result is posted publicly as you mentioned. I don't know if they will fine for a low score on this or not. However this inspector does not inspect any of our offsite manufacturing areas, nor where we get our food from (which seems odd) or any form of paperwork besides checking for a food manager permit. All the offsite manufacturing falls under the state inspection as mentioned above, which we have only ever received once.

it works the same way, they also have a review that is public, and are under the same mandatory checkups, i worked in both a restaurant and a potatosalad factory and procedures where the same, you had a checklist for cleaning which was worked out according to state rules, and you wouldnt know when the inspection would happen so same procedure everyday so there wouldnt be any problems if the control came for a visit, it seems to work out ok.

from what I understand rodents arent really adulterant? It's when people decide to do something like put melamine in milk that it becomes an issue

It's almost impossible to detect an adulterant unless you know what adulterant you're looking for.

There are an awful lot of possible adulterants out there too.

Therefore, testing is a bit of a losing game. Instead, developed nations like the US require record keeping (ie. you need to keep a list of suppliers for each batch, and sometimes samples of each batch), and the court system allows someone to sue for a lot of money after the fact if a poisonous adulterant was found.

The risk of being sued is what keeps most food safe.

What exactly are you referring to about suing for a lot of money if an adulterant is found?

Is there a specific law that specifies damages? Because if not, it probably falls into the same civil framework as everything else where the amount of money sought has to be proven as proportional to damages. Unless it severely sickened you, it'd be difficult to quantifiably prove the damage that sawdust caused you.

In the US specifically, it is class actions that make it expensive. If someone accidentally or deliberately puts lead in the flour supply, then that can probably be traced to tens of millions of cakes given to tens of millions of people.

And a good prosecution would be able to prove that while a small amount of lead didn't cause noticeable symptoms to anyone, there is plenty of evidence that across populations lead causes higher criminality, lower IQ, lower earnings, etc. And therefore, as a class, these people have been harmed by an actual dollar amount.

Oh you meant lots of money for the lawyers, not the people whose food was adulterated, because in every class action I've ever seem, the payout amounts per person are never enough to change anyone's life. But the lawyer taking 1/3 of the sum total does well.

What if the rodents are pissing and shitting in the product?

Just keep it below permitted levels: https://www.fda.gov/food/ingredients-additives-gras-packagin...

If whole rodents are in the product it doesn't matter. Rodents are necessarily a percentage of feces and urine by mass.

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