I also never watched the West Wing, but am familiar with the Buterball hotline episode (see below) which has a special place in food safety pop culture, if there can be such a thing.

Yesterday, Butterball, LLC, the nation’s largest turkey producer, celebrated food safety month through a children’s coloring contest and a series of employee challenges at the company’s Mount Olive, N.C. facility. As part of the company’s commitment to providing healthy, wholesome products to consumers, these activities helped raise awareness of proper hand-washing, food preparation and illness prevention techniques.

(I thought food safety month was in Sept.?)

That’s nice, but rather than making consumers the critical control point, why doesn’t Butterball make its data on salmonella and campylobacter testing publicly available. Put some video cameras in the slaughter and processing facilities so people can see how turkeys are prepared for consumers.

Anita Colglazier, director of quality further processing at Butterball said,

“Butterball is a proud leader in food quality and safety and continually strives to strengthen its food safety programs to ensure its products are 100 percent safe for consumers.”

The facility hosted a coloring contest for the children of facility employees. While at work, associates participated in a hand washing challenge using “magic glowing bug lotion” and a black light enabling employees to see firsthand the areas that need extra scrubbing. Additionally, the facility posted food safety facts throughout the building to provide healthy tips for employees.

Coloring contests are cute; foodborne illness isn’t. Show me the data.