Can Shipping Pallets Contaminate Your Food?
By JOEL GROVER and MATT GOLDBERG
Updated 7:11 PM PDT, Wed, Jun 16, 2010
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You hope that the food you buy in Southern California supermarkets, or eat in local restaurants, is clean and safe.
But NBCLA has found yet another way your food could get contaminated: on the way from the farm to your plate.
The culprit could be pallets, the wood or plastic containers that food is stacked on when it's transported on trucks, ships and trains from the supplier to markets and restaurant.
Those pallets sometimes come in contact with rodents, insects and juice from raw fish or meat.
Tests done by two different groups show some pallets are contaminated with dangerous bacteria, which can spread to food via contact.
"Pallets can harbor pathogens and dangerous bacteria that could potentially contaminate the food system, and harm American consumers," says Sally Greenberg of the non-profit National Consumers League.
This past spring, the NCL tested dozens of pallets outside supermarkets and restaurants in Florida and Texas.
The results: 10 percent of wood pallets tested had E. coli on them, and nearly 3 percent were contaminated with deadly Listeria.
One of the plastic pallets tested had E. coli on it.
"We didn't have to look hard to find filthy, dirty pallets sitting out in the back of stores," says Greenberg.
And now, tests done in the Los Angeles area have shown that one out of every six wood pallets tested harbored dangerous bacteria. The tests, analyzed by an independent lab, were paid for by a company that's developed a plastic pallet alternative.
Tests by both groups verify a food safety problem that NBCLA first uncovered three years ago, during an undercover investigation of LA's huge 7th Street Produce Market, which supplies food to thousands of restaurants and markets.
NBCLA found pallets of food lying in pools of filthy water. When we sampled the water seeping into those pallets, our tests also found dangerous bacteria touching boxes of food.
"You could have seafood on ice dripping onto pallets that are open, that are full of produce, say raspberries or lettuce," says Greenberg.
The NBCLA investigation three years ago prompted a clean up of LA's 7th Street Produce Market.
But nationwide, the National Consumers League is now calling on the Food and Drug Administration, to require all pallets be cleaned after each use.
The FDA tells NBCLA that it's now investigating the safety of pallets, and then will decide what, if any, action to take.
As for the National Wood Pallet and Container Association, they say wood pallets are a safe way to transport food. But they also say they'll cooperate with the FDA's probe, and would support government requirements to keep pallets clean.
First Published: Jun 16, 2010 4:23 PM PDT
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