Page 4 - Packaging News Magazine Sep-Oct 2018

4
COMMENT EDITOR
www.packagingnews.com.au September-October 2018
From hate crime to waste crime
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Lindy Hughson
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THE needle-in-a-strawberry scandal has rocked Australia and put us back in world news headlines – and so soon after the embarrassing debacle that played out in Canberra and saw yet another PM ousted.
Although our political shenanigans, are shameful, the strawberry-tamper- ing fiasco hits a new level of low.
Put aside, if you can, the horrific notion that any individual – howev- er disgruntled they may allegedly be – could so carelessly and wilfully in- flict bodily harm on random strang- ers, including children. And put aside the idea that invoking this lev- el of widespread fear is no less than an act of terrorism. Both of these are heinous, yes, but it’s the wider fall- out I’m going to focus on.
The perpetrator’s actions, and those too of the subsequent copycats, continue to wreak havoc for straw- berry producers who now have tonnes of strawberries they can’t sell.
At the time of writing, at least eight strawberry brands have been implicated in the numerous incidents of needle-findings report- ed around the country. Even if retailers continue to support the growers, as some have, the level of doubt that’s been cast over product safety is high among consumers, so not surprisingly demand for straw- berries has plummeted.
We’ve seen images in the mass media of mounds of strawberries being dumped and heard from the producers themselves of the heart- break and hardship that surrounds disposing of an entire crop that’s been nurtured with care and at great cost all growing season.
If we set this against the backdrop of the current food waste crisis, which our government at both state and federal level has committed to finding a solution for by 2030 (see page 35 for a comprehensive update on the plan), it turns very quickly from a hate crime to waste crime.
One of the knee-jerk reactions by producers has been to install metal detection systems at packing sites – and in this respect the packaging machinery industry was well placed to step in. One vision inspection supplier PKN spoke to reports it has been flat out supplying strawberry producers, and is now air freighting in additional metal detectors. But the effectiveness of metal detectors is limited to the paddock end of the supply chain, and as police believe that it may be that the needles are not being inserted at source, due to the contamination impacting multi- ple brands from different locations, other solutions may be required.
The packaging industry, of course, has the capability to deliver such so- lutions in the form of tamper evident lidding or a more rigid punnet material that would make it more difficult to discretely insert foreign objects into the strawberries. But this would add only cost to the product, and would amount to a waste of resources at a time when our industry is making meaningful
strides to minimise excess packag- ing and food waste, as you’ll read
in many articles in this issue. The bigger picture damage to consider of course is to Austra- lia’s reputation as a supplier of safe food. While we can’t control the devious activities of criminal minds, we can control our response and I have little doubt that our in- dustry will step up to this challenge.
Lindy Hughson – Managing Editor
Even if retailers continue to support the growers... the level of doubt that’s been cast over product safety is high among consumers.