Food Safety - A Chicken Wing Conspiracy Theory

It's unfortunate for all Chicken-related industries along their entire chains of distribution that one of them was exposed for lax health and safety protocols. They apparently cannot deny their dependence on the government to provide the inspections necessary to keep them in line, and one company has now brought down the entire chicken industry, fear of Salmonella now spreads through the public like wildfire.

The slowdown in demand will increase the supply and consequently lower the price. The season for Hot Wings is upon us and last year there was rumor in the news media about a shortage of Chicken Wings.

• Slate.com  (http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2013/02/chicken_wing_shortage_drought_ethanol_standards_and_expensive_corn_have.html)
• Foxnews.com (http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2013/01/23/chicken-wing-shortage-looms-ahead-super-bowl/)

The rumors apparently were quashed in a report by Time Magazine (interestingly prior to the above Slate article.)

• Business.time.com (http://business.time.com/2013/01/31/reality-check-there-is-no-chicken-wing-shortage-prices-havent-really-soared-either/)

Rumors alone didn't effectively manipulate market prices, maybe affecting the ability of the government to regulate the industry will knock the support legs out from under competitors and send waves of fear to manipulate prices?

Since such manual controls exist for such manipulation, it stands to reason that they are exploited.

When a company has multiple processing plants, upgrades one plant when there is an outbreak of Salmonella, but then does not upgrade other plants until another outbreak is discovered, we must question the quality of everything we buy that was prepared and cooked by someone we don't know.

• FoodSafetyNews.com (http://www.foodsafetynews.com/2013/10/foster-farms-outbreak-highlights-prevalence-of-salmonella-on-chicken/)

Foster Farms decided not to recall it's chicken. It's too easy to say that customers failed to properly cook the chicken to 165 degree Fahrenheit internally. The two sides of this equation are the volume of contamination versus risky cooking methods.

Assuming it were possible for everyone to follow the directions properly and Salmonella was equally prevalent across the entire industry nationwide, all Salmonella might be eliminated from the bird during cooking. In the Foster Farms case, the outbreak is geographically focused in a specific region of distribution which suggests a possible risky cooking strategy involving a specific recipe indigenous to the region.

• CDC.gov (http://www.cdc.gov/salmonella/heidelberg-10-13/index.html)

According to patient interviews, the majority (80%) of the cases were due to preparation in the home. It was not clear where the other twenty percent occurred. 

The fact that Foster Farms implemented new procedures at a plant in Western Washington following a previous outbreak there suggests that processing plant safety equally shares responsibility with cooking for control of Salmonella. If a recipe is to blame for under-cooking the chicken, who is responsible?