Where's the Beef?
As I was driving home, listening to the radio, I heard this:
We’ve been really astonished by how some of the most high-profile situations actually resulted in increased consumer confidence, because sometimes high-profile issues give us an opportunity to talk about what we do, and that has actually encouraged consumers.
No, it’s not a TJX spokesperson, but Janet Riley, a spokesperson for the American Meat Institute, discussing the recall of 143 million pounds of beef, some of which was shipped as long as two years ago, and has likely been eaten.
What’s interesting to me is that despite there being no immediate tie to risk, the Agriculture department pushed for the largest beef recall in US history. There was no word about consumer notice fatigue, or that the cows were protected by a password.
Read Today’s lunch special: recalled beef [link to http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/02/18/meat_recall no longer works] at Marketplace.
No, no, no… They were protected by being hashed.
Of course, the typical data breach doesn’t involve waterboarding or forklifting. This one’s a little more serious than TJX. That was just money. This is money, potentially fatal illness, and rather disturbing cruelty.
https://community.hsus.org/campaign/CA_2008_investigation?rk=cp1sbIpqQcklE
I’m hoping the disclosure effects here do more than temporarily convince folks that factory red meat is unsafe.