andtckrtoo
Cathlete
Are we not expected to have ANY common sense any more?
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story_pf.php?id=148740&ac=PHnws
Egg in nog? No joke, says Smiling Hill
BILL NEMITZ
November 18, 2007
When your family owns and operates a place called Smiling Hill
Farm, you tend to go through life with a grin. But last week, the
best Warren Knight could manage was a grimace.
It started with a spot inspection from the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration -- it happens every year or two at the Westbrook
dairy farm and has never been a big deal.
But this time was different. Looking over a fresh batch of the
Smiling Hill egg nog, the inspector did a double take: The bottle
cap -- the only place on the otherwise all-glass container with
any printing -- was out of federal compliance.
How so?
"Eggs were not listed as an ingredient," Knight recalled.
Egg, you see, is an allergen. As such, the inspector told Knight,
it must be explicitly listed as an ingredient somewhere on the
one-and-three-eighths-inch-wide cap.
"But the cap says 'Egg Nog!' " protested Knight.
Didn't matter.
"But we're limited by cap space," Knight persisted. What's more,
they can't start slapping warning labels onto their reusable
bottles without gumming up the bottle washer.
Not the feds' problem.
Then things turned really sour. The FDA notified the Maine
Department of Agriculture that all Smiling Hill egg nog on store
shelves -- about 400 gallons at that point -- had to be recalled
to protect people with egg allergies who don't know there's egg
in egg nog.
Enter, not a moment too soon, Ashley Slattery, Maine's dairy
inspector.
"We really didn't want to do a recall," Slattery said Friday. Still,
she added, the FDA wanted something on that cap "so the
people would know egg nog contains eggs."
Umm ... wouldn't people already know
that by the name of the product?
"You'd think so," Slattery said.
So here's the deal. No recall, but Knight agreed to have his label
redesigned to include the ingredients and, in the meantime, affix
a warning label to every bottle of egg nog that leaves his farm.
Knight headed for Staples Thursday and bought a bunch of red,
one-inch-round labels. Then he fired up his computer and
printed "WARNING Contains EGGS" twice on each one.
Then he and the rest of the family spent the day cutting each
label in half and affixing the semi-circular warnings to the cap
on each bottle -- being careful not to encroach on the bar code.
"Someday we're going to look back at this and laugh," chortled
one of the workers.
Replied Knight, "Yeah, but it won't be tomorrow."
It's not that Knight has anything against enforcing food safety
regulations.
"The health and safety of our customers is foremost," he said.
"Since without them, we cease to exist."
But Knight checked with the National Institutes of Health and
found that .05 percent of the U.S. population is allergic to eggs.
And he has a strong hunch that every last one of those poor
folks already knows that egg nog contains eggs.
So go ahead and chuckle. But if you're within earshot of Smiling
Hill Farm, please do it quietly.
"Sometime after applying sticker number 783," said Knight, "this
theater of the absurd stopped being funny."
Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at:
[email protected]
Copyright © 2007 Blethen Maine Newspapers
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/story_pf.php?id=148740&ac=PHnws
Egg in nog? No joke, says Smiling Hill
BILL NEMITZ
November 18, 2007
When your family owns and operates a place called Smiling Hill
Farm, you tend to go through life with a grin. But last week, the
best Warren Knight could manage was a grimace.
It started with a spot inspection from the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration -- it happens every year or two at the Westbrook
dairy farm and has never been a big deal.
But this time was different. Looking over a fresh batch of the
Smiling Hill egg nog, the inspector did a double take: The bottle
cap -- the only place on the otherwise all-glass container with
any printing -- was out of federal compliance.
How so?
"Eggs were not listed as an ingredient," Knight recalled.
Egg, you see, is an allergen. As such, the inspector told Knight,
it must be explicitly listed as an ingredient somewhere on the
one-and-three-eighths-inch-wide cap.
"But the cap says 'Egg Nog!' " protested Knight.
Didn't matter.
"But we're limited by cap space," Knight persisted. What's more,
they can't start slapping warning labels onto their reusable
bottles without gumming up the bottle washer.
Not the feds' problem.
Then things turned really sour. The FDA notified the Maine
Department of Agriculture that all Smiling Hill egg nog on store
shelves -- about 400 gallons at that point -- had to be recalled
to protect people with egg allergies who don't know there's egg
in egg nog.
Enter, not a moment too soon, Ashley Slattery, Maine's dairy
inspector.
"We really didn't want to do a recall," Slattery said Friday. Still,
she added, the FDA wanted something on that cap "so the
people would know egg nog contains eggs."
Umm ... wouldn't people already know
that by the name of the product?
"You'd think so," Slattery said.
So here's the deal. No recall, but Knight agreed to have his label
redesigned to include the ingredients and, in the meantime, affix
a warning label to every bottle of egg nog that leaves his farm.
Knight headed for Staples Thursday and bought a bunch of red,
one-inch-round labels. Then he fired up his computer and
printed "WARNING Contains EGGS" twice on each one.
Then he and the rest of the family spent the day cutting each
label in half and affixing the semi-circular warnings to the cap
on each bottle -- being careful not to encroach on the bar code.
"Someday we're going to look back at this and laugh," chortled
one of the workers.
Replied Knight, "Yeah, but it won't be tomorrow."
It's not that Knight has anything against enforcing food safety
regulations.
"The health and safety of our customers is foremost," he said.
"Since without them, we cease to exist."
But Knight checked with the National Institutes of Health and
found that .05 percent of the U.S. population is allergic to eggs.
And he has a strong hunch that every last one of those poor
folks already knows that egg nog contains eggs.
So go ahead and chuckle. But if you're within earshot of Smiling
Hill Farm, please do it quietly.
"Sometime after applying sticker number 783," said Knight, "this
theater of the absurd stopped being funny."
Columnist Bill Nemitz can be contacted at 791-6323 or at:
[email protected]
Copyright © 2007 Blethen Maine Newspapers
