Spinach in Crisis: Examining the Industry-led Response to the 2006 U.S. E. coli Outbreak

• In Event: 1184 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtable Session
  In Refereed Roundtable 100min: Table 07. Organizational Theory

Abstract

Large-scale foodborne illness outbreaks in recent decades have prompted growing public concerns over food safety. However, responses to these outbreaks have varied substantially across institutional and national contexts. My study investigates cross-national differences in risk perception and governance in the context of two major E. coli outbreaks in the last decade (California, 2006; and Germany, 2011). I employ mixed methods (including interviews, archival media, and surveys) to trace how growers, regulators, and consumers in the U.S. and Germany defined and pursued food safety following the outbreaks. I argue that food safety is a “boundary object,” spanning the social worlds of agricultural and health experts, and that to understand the dynamics of outbreak response we must account for how power and authority are distributed across these professionalized spheres and the patterned relations between them. Food safety governance involves limited public participation in both cases, so foodborne outbreaks rarely disrupt the established dynamics of technocratic governance unless accompanied by sizable economic or political shocks. This dissertation chapter examines how the 2006 U.S. E. coli outbreak came to be understood as an agricultural problem to which the Leafy Greens Marketing Agreement (LGMA) became the socially legitimate solution. In contrast to the 2011 German outbreak, the U.S. outbreak focused national attention on farm-level risk management rather than national public health programs. This chapter provides a chronological account of the outbreak and the collective decision to pursue a novel, industry-led approach to food safety management that has had far-reaching consequences for American food safety governance.

Author

• Kelsey Meagher, University of California-Davis