TORONTO - Preliminary results of a survey from the University of Regina show shortfalls in Canada's food safety system.
The survey, which looked at what consumers knew about the bagged spinach recall in Canada and the U.S. in October 2006, found that a quarter of those surveyed didn't even know about the tainted greens.
The E.coli-tainted spinach resulted in the death of three people and hospitalized about 100.
Of those who did know of the recall, 36 per cent still had spinach in their refrigerator at the time, yet failed to throw it away, and 44 per cent didn't know the recall ended in November.
"(The Canadian Food Inspection Agency) sends out these alerts, these recalls, but there is no follow up afterwards," said one of the study's authors, Sylvain Charlebois, an assistant marketing professor at the University of Regina.
"Our findings show that people are aware of the recall but they don't know what to do or they don't even know the recall is over and they don't know the status of the inquest."
Over the course of one week in March, researchers surveyed more than 700 people about last fall's bagged spinach recall.
CFIA issued a warning to Canadians not to consume spinach from the U.S. after talking to the American Food and Drug Administration just before the FDA was to inform the American public about the E.coli-tainted spinach.
The CFIA warning -- issued later the same day as the U.S. advisory - went out on the newswire, which was received by more than 600 news outlets, as well as their website, www.inspection.gc.ca.
Charlebois said the results of the survey suggest the CFIA needs to rely on other communication channels such as public relations and advertising to reach consumers who are missed by disseminating advisories through the media.
Garfield Balson, safety and recall specialist for CFIA, said the warning was disseminated to Canadians quickly and extensively.
"There was massive newspaper coverage, radio and television coverage. And there is also those people from the websites," he said from his office in Ottawa.
"There was a buzz. I mean, this was the talk all over coffee shops. You'd have to be fairy isolated not to hear about this one."
Balson went on to say that is the CFIA's job to warn Canadians about unsafe food, not to promote products once it is safe to consume them again. That is up to the companies distributing the food products.
For Lisa Watson, one of the study's investigators, part of the challenge for consumers is the sheer number of public advisories issued by the CFIA every year.
"A decade ago, the food industry widely believed that a recall was its worst nightmare" Watson, an assistant professor of marketing at the university, said in a statement.
She said that in 1997, the CFIA issued only 33 advisories throughout the entire year. These fewer advisories may have had a greater influence on consumer perception. In March 2007 alone, the CFIA issued 26 public advisories for consumers and processors.
"Over time, increasing frequency has diluted the impact of recalls and some consumers have become more unresponsive to them, a negligence which may lead to deadly consequences."
But what Charlebois found most interesting was his finding that people are much more wary of pet food after the recent recall than they were about tainted spinach.
"Because consumers are buying food for their pets, they care more about food safety - or they are willing to admit that they care more about pet food safety than when they are feeding themselves," Charlebois said, noting there has been much more press about the tainted pet food.
"And that was surprising to us."
The study will be finished by the fall.
