Babergh officers keep their cool during international panic.

I’m sure that you can remember that in June last year local seed producer Thompson and Morgan was blamed by a French politician for the supply to the French market of sprouting seeds carrying the e coli bacteria.  In the end the company was found to be in no way to blame, the contaminated seeds having actually been produced in Egypt.  Sadly, despite this, related bad publicity cost the Ipswich firm a good deal of money in lost sales. 

The incident, which received wide press coverage, developed into an international panic as some 40 people in France and Germany died, and many others were hospitalised.

What has not been revealed until now was Babergh’s environmental officers’ key role in leading the investigation behind the scenes.  Yesterday, I received a fascinating briefing note from Malcolm Firth, Head of Natural and Built Environment, telling the whole story.

The ins and outs of the tale are too detailed to repeat here, but clearly Babergh Food and Safety officers played a key role in the investigation that followed the outbreak of e coli, and put in significant resources to identify food supply chains and to liaise with the various government agencies involved. This work has received considerable praise from the Food Standards Agency, and Thompson and Morgan has also commended the Babergh officers involved.

The full facts are only emerging now.  At the time Babergh did not want to attract media attention which could have compromised the investigation and also been time consuming and distracting at a time when they were more than fully occupied.

  

The adverse publicity suffered by Thompson and Morgan was very unfortunate, and it is important to know  not only that the investigation was greatly assisted by the company’s excellent record keeping, but also that no seed tested from the company was at the end of the day found to be contaminated.