E coli and Cooperation

Is it the absence of presence -- or the presence of absence?

I refer to the front page story in today's Local Daily Newspaper about the latest recall of ground beef as the result of e coli contamination. The paper's lede: "If you have any ground beef in your freezer, now would be a good time to check where and when you bought it, and possibly throw it out."

The paper identifies Shaw's, Price Chopper, and BJ's as Upper Valley grocers that carried the recalled beef. Conspicuously missing from this list is the Hanover Consumer Cooperative Society, owner of the Co-op Food Stores in Hanover and Lebanon. This is not a coincidence.

Shaw's, Price Chopper and BJ's are all supermarket chains that are snuggled up to the agribusiness oligopoly that supplies most of the nation's food. One consequence of relying on this oligopoly is that, when you buy ground beef, you are essentially eating an amalgam of meats that contain a bit of every recently slaughtered cow in the country. Some of these cows have been wallowing in cow poop, a great medium for growing e coli and its deadly 0157:H7 strain. This latest outbreak of that strain has already killed one person in New Hampshire.

The Co-op doesn't buy ground beef. The ground beef is ground right on the Co-op's premises. This, of course, doesn't absolve the Co-op of all charges of complicity with the agribusiness oligopoly, since it is still acquiring un-ground beef from faraway suppliers, but it drastically reduces the chances that eaters of Co-op ground beef will get e coli poisoning.

By all means, by your groceries from profit-maximizing firms whose commitment to extracting a return on shareholder investment is paramount. You don't have to get your hamburger meat from a grocer you own, and one that acts as your agent in the wholesale food marketplace. You are not required to get food from a store that will actually call you up when you buy something that's been recalled, as opposed to relying on the newspaper to notify you.

But when you are chowing down on that chopmeat you bought at the Price Chopper, consider that even John Dumais, president of the New Hampshire Grocers Association, told the newspaper that the "safest bet" is to throw out every ounce of ground beef you've acquired in the last two weeks. When it has come to that, something is terribly, terribly wrong. Price Chopper and Shaw's are part of the problem. The Co-op is part of the solution.