A Better Way To Recall

Here's a good idea: The Center for Science in the Public Interest thinks that supermarkets should use the data they collect through discount cards to alert consumers that they may have purchased tainted food.

The cards are used for all kinds of marketing purposes. Adding customer notification to the mix shouldn't be very expensive, and it could actually save lives.

Some chains are already doing it, the Associated Press reports. They include Costco, Wegman's Food Markets, and Price Chopper. A Costco executive told the AP that the data it collects "allows us the ability to almost laser-point to an item and when it was purchased." The chain has used prerecorded phone calls and letters to reach more than 1.5 million customers who purchased tainted products.

Because Costco is a members-only grocer, information on purchases is collected for every one of its customers. That's not so for other chains, but for many, like Safeway, a huge percentage of customers use the cards, which means that most of them could easily be notified of recalls.

But Safeway is among the chains that, the AP reports, "have doubts" about making notification a chainwide policy. "We've done this in the past, but only when a single store is involved in a recall," said Safeway spokesman Brian Dowling.

While making notification a routine part of discount-card programs is an excellent idea, it must be kept in mind that recalls often come well after an outbreak of foodborne illness has occurred. It wouldn't help people who consume a tainted product before a recall, as most of the more than 500 people who recently ate tainted peanut butter did.

Thankfully, the center, though it said grocers have an "obligation" to deploy such a program, did not call for it to be be enacted into law.