After E. Coli Outbreaks, Food Industry Looks to Tracing Tech

In the wake of health scares like the 2006 E. coli outbreak traced to tainted spinach, the food industry is scrambling to reassure the public—and hoping to head off a congressional response, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Voluntary efforts are under way to make tracing easier. For example, one new labeling system gives each product a unique identification code, allowing consumers to trace it to its point of origin.

The system, HarvestMark, is a spin-off of an effort to fight counterfeiting of pharmaceuticals and electronics. "This was a perfect application we had never thought of," a parent company co-founder said of agricultural use. The E. coli scare convinced growers and supermarkets tracing is valuable. “That was really the first time the FDA issued a blanket advisory against a commodity,” says one agricultural researcher. “A lot of growers who couldn’t possibly have been responsible were greatly affected.” (More FDA stories.)