SPEECHES

NFPA SPEECH SERIES

The NFPA Speech Series highlights significant remarks by food industry leaders on current food industry topics.

No. 6

Countering the Threats to the Food Industry

Frank Elsener

President and CEO, Tree Top, Inc.
Chairman, NFPA

Speech before the
Northwest Food Processors Association
May 1, 1998

As the new Chairman of the National Food Processors Association, I would like to speak about recent NFPA activities and efforts to improve our industry’s image with the media and consumers.

There are two major battles that we are facing right now on behalf of the food industry: (1)mandatory recall authority; and (2)the implementation of the Food Quality Protection Act. Actually, you could say that these issues have escalated into hostile takeover attempts by some members of the Administration.

In recent months, public figures ranging from President Clinton and Vice President Gore to the FDA Commissioner and the Secretary of Agriculture all have emphasized their commitment to "improving the safety of the food supply." Unfortunately, that’s a Catch-22 situation for the food industry.

If the food industry opposes proposals to strengthen laws or regulations governing food safety—even if those measures would be totally ineffective—we’re accused of favoring unsafe foods, or putting profits ahead of food safety. It’s like the old question "When did you stop beating your wife?" No matter how you answer, you just dig yourself into a deeper hole.

The fact remains that this nation’s food industry has a remarkable food safety record—as well as an excellent record of cooperation with government on product recalls. In fact, it is the food companies themselves who initiate the vast majority of product recalls.

Granting mandatory recall power to the regulatory agencies would make it possible for government agencies to act before all the facts about a situation were in—something, I might add, they sometimes do anyway!

There is no indication that expanded recall authority would have any positive effect on the safety of our food supply. The current outbreak of interest in food safety is much more reflective of political science than it is of food science.

The politics of pesticides also continues to pose potential problems for food processors.

The food industry supported the passage of the "Food Quality Protection Act"—or FQPA—which was signed into law by President Clinton last year. Its two-fold mandate was to:

•Ensure special protections for infants and children in pesticide regulations.

•Make pesticide risk determinations and regulatory decisions based on sound science, rather than alarmist accusations.

Replacing older pesticides with newer and safer chemicals and finding new uses for previously registered pesticides is the most sound approach to reducing pesticide risks. Further, such an approach would cause minimal disruption to growers and processors. This approach, however, is being discarded. Once again, a good piece of enabling legislation has become bogged down while a federal agency (in this case, the Environmental Protection Agency) determines how to administer it.

EPA must make decisions on implementing FQPA based on sound, modern science…not based on a political agenda aimed at appeasing environmental pressure groups.

EPA seems to be charting a course that could be highly disruptive to growers and processors. From all appearances, it has already determined that certain pesticide tolerances must be revoked. Further, their review and registration of new compounds and new uses for minor crops has ground to a virtual halt.

Carol Browner seems to be more interested in appeasing organizations like the Environmental Working Group (EWG). That group, as you know, recently orchestrated a press conference to announce their findings that more than 1 million infants and toddlers are exposed daily to pesticide levels exceeding federal safety standards. That was a total lie!

Dr. Rhona Applebaum, NFPA’s EVP for Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, didn’t quite call them liars, but said in a more moderate way that was picked up by the media: "This report used scare tactics based on highly unorthodox data manipulated to advance a political agenda at the expense of parents and children."

The EWG didn’t deny the inaccuracy of its statements, but said it had a First Amendment right to express its concerns. Unfortunately, the media only reported their first claims, not their caveat.

Sometimes it seems as if we are fighting a guerrilla war with members of the media. No one in this room needs to be reminded of the media’s reporting on Alar, and the devastating effect it had on the apple industry. Members of the media have become a little more responsible in what they report, but they still provide a lot of coverage to health scare stories based on no science or faulty science. This is a real disservice to our industry.

Alarmists’ claims make good headlines or fit into great soundbites, and everyone knows that bad news sells. Many activist groups are more interested in frightening consumers than providing them with balanced, accurate information on food safety and nutrition issues. Their goal is to encourage an ever-greater level of government regulations and controls.

In reality, our industry is this nation’s food safety champion. When it comes to food safety, government needs to keep pace with us—not the other way around. We’ve developed the tools and systems to ensure safe products. That’s the story that the media should be telling—and consumers should be hearing.

NFPA has developed targeted outreach programs to tell the media and consumers how sound science is being used to ensure their food safety. We hope that we can prevent some of the sniper shots that we just experienced at Tree Top. Recently, a national talk show host slandered our company by stating that "Tree Top is crap!" She then went on with several other derogatory comments about the danger of refined sugar and "Tree Top" products, calling us by our brand name.

Numerous attempts on our part to correct this situation landed on deaf ears. The show’s producer alluded to the Constitutional right of freedom of speech. The final comment from the show’s producer was "Have you ever thought of being one of our sponsors? We could just love Tree Top to death!"

Unfortunately, it is not always the media. Sometimes we experience friendly fire—being shot by members of your own troop. The recent E. coli scare involving Odwalla apple juice illustrates a couple of important points.

First, no matter how hard you work at keeping a clean public image, you can be tainted by the careless actions of another food processor. All brands of apple juice were judged guilty in the public’s eye following the Odwalla incident—until each company proved its innocence. In the Odwalla case, innocence was defined as "pasteurized."

Second, the efforts of one company to salvage its own image can harm an entire industry. Shortly after Odwalla stopped distributing unpasteurized apple juice, their management ordered all other Odwalla products to be stickered with the words "Contains no apple juice." This was a blatant attempt to position apple juice as the cause of the problem…rather than Odwalla.

"An assortment of weapons" is my last analogy to warfare! It is imperative that we maintain and utilize an assortment of "weapons" to be successful in the battle against our opponents. Our major weapons in this battle are our trade associations. However, as members of the food industry, we can’t just sit back and let the trade associations bear the entire burden.

Each of us must be ready to speak out individually in support of our industry’s fight to maintain and advance the safety of our nation’s food supply. We all have jobs to do—speaking out on the issues—phoning, writing, and visiting our Congressional delegations—and letting our federal and state governments know the danger of overregulating the food industry.

We must educate our consumers, collectively and individually, about food safety in this country. Further, we must educate the media so that reporting on food science and food safety becomes more balanced and less sensational.

Finally, we must alert, inform, and involve other members of our industry so that all companies recognize the importance of participating in this process.

Those of you from my generation may remember my closing quotation from Walt Kelly’s cartoon strip Pogo: "We have met the enemy and he is us!"

Our situation is not that bad. We do an outstanding job of producing the world’s safest, most nutritious, and most affordable foods. However, we are our own worst enemy if we don’t speak out on its behalf. We must counter the scare stories from enviro pressure groups and "nutrition nuts." We must educate consumers—and Congress—that we have a safe food system based on sound, modern science. We must spread the good news about what we do, every day, to provide consumers with the very best and safest food supply possible.

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