Shame on Food Safety News for Shaming Those Who Share

Perhaps the most effective way to discourage people from sharing information is by criticizing those that do. And that’s my take on the impact a recent Food Safety News article may have: Harvester was root cause of Listeria outbreak traced to Dole salads | Food Safety News, which was published on January 21, 2026. 

Many readers will remember that Dole was implicated in a listeriosis outbreak in 2021.  This is old news. I don’t know what prompted this stirring of the pot, or what the intended effect was, but I’ve chatted with others who agree: the take home message from the above post is that it’s better to stay quiet and brush food safety learnings under the rug. This is counter to food safety culture and a slap in the face to those (like myself) who encourage sharing results of root cause analyses. 

The Food Safety News criticism begins right away: “Company never issued statement regarding source of outbreak pathogen.” It completely neglects to reference the April 2022 public FDA investigation report which states (emphasis added): “Dole conducted a root cause analysis of their own in an effort to determine the potential source of contamination for this outbreak. Continued investigation conducted by Dole detected the presence of Listeria on a piece of equipment in their Yuma, AZ, facility. FDA conducted WGS analysis of an isolate shared by Dole,…”  Is that not a public enough statement? (and kudos to FDA for acknowledging Dole’s effort, cooperation, and transparency) 

The first line of the FSN article is: “A former Dole executive quietly reveled…” (sic). Quietly? More on that in a bit. The article also characterizes a 2023 presentation as having been shared with a “small group of YouTube subscribers.” I attended that session. It was part of the CONTACT monthly webinar series, which is broadly advertised to industry, academia, and regulators, and later archived on YouTube for public access. Attendance for that live event exceeded 500 participants, a substantial audience by professional training and extension standards. The presentation was not secretive, limited, or informal, but part of an intentional, open forum for industry learning. This should be celebrated.  

Shortly following the outbreak investigation, which is documented in the previously mentioned FDA investigation report Outbreak Investigation of Listeria monocytogenes: Dole Packaged Salad (December 2021) | FDA, various Dole representatives shared this information broadly. In addition to the CONTACT webinar, I attended the Western Food Safety Conference in May of 2023 where there was a dedicated session on this. I can’t remember all the others—but Dole was far from quiet about this. A “Harvest Forward” workgroup was convened to tackle sanitation and hygienic design issues associated with harvest equipment. The LGMA metrics were adjusted.

Progress was made because Dole chose to share their investigation findings with FDA and with the industry. To suggest otherwise is astonishing. 

And what might this article, this “expose”, signal to others?  

If organizations that cooperate with regulators, share isolates for WGS, and openly discuss root cause findings are later portrayed as having acted "quietly" or "reluctantly"; others may think twice before being transparent. 

Progress in food safety depends on shared learning from difficult events. In this case, the public record shows that information was shared.... widely and constructively.  

That is THE behavior worth recognizing and reinforcing, not recasting as something hidden or secret.  

That nearly 5 years later it is misrepresented as a clandestine effort to hide the findings is really shameful.