Besides leaving millions of people with a new suspicion about the safety of daily foods, the tomato scare cost the country almost $100 million.
According to Associated Press-Iposos poll, more than half of consumers have mended their eating and buying habits during the previous six months as they are scared of consuming contaminated food.
The poll found that these people were also demanding a better system to locate produce in an outbreak back to its source.
The growers are also among those people who think that way.
Batista Madonia, who is sales manager of Virginia’s East Coast Brokers, the country’s largest tomato growers, said, “Though Virginia tomatoes were cleared early on, falling prices and slumping demands hammered us a lot” he further added that he was quite frustrated as the government couldn’t find the root cause of the outbreak even after two-month long investigation.
The first cases of salmonella were reported in April and after that it sickened more than 1000 people in 42 states.
The tomato warning has been lifted by the official on Thursday, but still the cause of outbreak is not known and now hot peppers are being investigated to know the cause of the outbreak.
Almost three out of four people are still confident about overall food safety while 46 percent were found worried about sickness from taking contaminated food, the poll found.
Eighty-six percent opined that produce must be labeled as it could make it easier to track things via layers of processors, packers and shippers. The lack of such system was a big hurdle in the way of tracking the salmonella outbreak.
While 80 percent of the Americans told that new standards for fresh produce would be supported by them.
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