False alarm costs
county business dearly
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July 27, 2011 |
A local growing business with a hard-earned reputation for
quality has all but died due to a scare of
salmonella issued by Panhandle Health and the
Food and Drug Administration in late June. It
turns out that it was a false alarm; the
business's product have been proven good and
healthy and a-okay. But the trust the business has lost as
a result of the scare has cost nine people their
jobs and the reputation of its owners, Fred and
Nadine Scharf, who
are left wondering if they can hang on.
For more than 23 years, Fred and Nadine Scharf
quietly built a Boundary County business,
Evergreen Produce, that gained a regional
reputation for quality. Their product sought
after and enjoyed by customers at grocery stores
here and delivered fresh daily, more than 100
miles away. Early this year, they invested in a
new addition to meet the demand, expecting
another great growing season.
Sprouts aren't what most people think of when it
comes to farming ... and sprouts don't weigh
very much. But Fred and Nadine built an
agri-business from the ground up. According to a
piece aired tonight on
KHQ, they were
delivering 6,000 pounds of the delicacies a week
to markets in Spokane, Fairchild Air Force Base
and all points between.
Fred and Nadine's toil and hope came crashing in
late June, when a salmonella scare made 19
people, all in the area Evergreen Produce
sprouts are sold, ill. Nobody died, but tummy
rumbles were reported.
Evergreen Produce was named as a "possible"
source, and stern warnings issued to all media
for customers to not buy their product.
While Evergreen Produce hasn't been doing much
profitable business lately, it has been a busy
place, scoured from top to bottom for over a
month in an attempt to find out where or how
their product was contaminated.
The result? It wasn't. False alarm! All is well,
you guys are good and we can go home now.
kthksbye.
We don't know the true source of the outbreak
that caused a few bellyaches, as in clearing
Evergreen Produce, they haven't revealed where
the source arose or even if they have another
suspect.
But we do now know that Evergreen Produce
products aren't to blame -- we can buy them with
all confidence!
Provided, of course, we can find a place that
sells them.
(Editor's note: I recognize that this
appears to be more an editorial than a news
report, but I am partially responsible, as a
publisher, for all but destroying a very good
Boundary County business by the fact that I
published. I made no attempt to contact
Evergreen Produce before I ran that first piece,
http://www.newsbf.com/news/1106/26sprouts.html.
For that I am remiss. Understandably, Fred and
Nadine weren't answering their telephone this
evening. As a journalist, I stand by my rush to
publish in June ... lives may have been at stake
and the public needed to know. As a neighbor, I
am ashamed that I didn't stand up for them and
offer the chance to defend a local business and
people I know and respect. MW) |
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