Science Must Move Faster Than Social Media

I have spent my career weaving my work and passion between the field and the kitchen. I have bought produce, cooked it, sold it, specified it, promoted it, walked fields with growers, stood in packing houses, worked with distributors and watched chefs turn raw ingredients into something people want to eat.

So, when a foodborne illness outbreak is linked to lettuce, berries, herbs, onions, peppers or another fresh fruit or vegetable, I pay attention.

I also brace myself. Not because the information should not be reported. It absolutely should. Not because the produce industry should be protected from scrutiny. It should not. I brace myself because a highly specific public-health investigation can become a sweeping public conclusion in a matter of hours: Lettuce is unsafe. Berries are dangerous. Jalapeños or cilantro will make you unwell.

From all of this, a blanket decree emerges — “Don’t eat produce.” And that is where the problem begins.

The American food system is not perfect. No food system can be. Agriculture is biological, food is perishable, people are human, and zero risk does not exist. But the U.S. produce supply is supported by an extraordinarily sophisticated food safety system, and the fresh produce industry has invested heavily in making that system stronger.

Most consumers never see what sits behind the apple in a lunchbox or the bag of spinach in a refrigerator. They do not see growers monitoring agricultural water, packing houses maintaining sanitation programs, laboratories conducting tests, distributors tracking lots, retailers setting supplier requirements or food safety professionals spending entire careers studying risks most of us would rather never have to think about.

That infrastructure matters. So does the public infrastructure around it.

Food safety is not the responsibility of any one company, grower or agency. It is a chain of responsibility that includes farms, processors, distributors, retailers, restaurants, laboratories, universities, local and state health departments and federal agencies. When that system works, illnesses are detected, patterns emerge, investigators compare data, products are traced and, when necessary, recalls are issued.

A recall is alarming when it becomes a headline. Particularly when it is a poorly uninformed headline. But a recall can also mean the system worked.

We should always ask how contamination happened and how we prevent it from happening again. Accountability matters. Prevention matters even more.

But identifying a pathogen, narrowing it to a product or production window and removing that product from commerce is not evidence that the entire food supply has failed. It is evidence that surveillance and traceback are doing what they were designed to do.

The bigger challenge today is that science is methodical while social media is immediate. Epidemiology requires evidence. Social media requires content.

An outbreak investigation may involve patient interviews, laboratory analysis, purchase histories, distribution records, genomic sequencing and traceback across multiple companies or states. Early theories can change as evidence develops. Sometimes the initial assumption turns out to be wrong. That is how science works.

It is also exactly the kind of nuance that disappears online.

When social media becomes the primary source of information, a preliminary finding becomes a definitive accusation. By the time accurate information catches up, the damage may already be done.
And that damage extends well beyond perception. When consumers lose confidence in a commodity, growers and companies with no connection to an outbreak can lose sales, markets and crops. Restaurants remove ingredients. Retailers react. Buyers become cautious. Consumers change habits.
The economic impact can move through the supply chain faster than the pathogen itself.

That is why strong, credible government food safety agencies are not the adversary of agriculture. They are part of what protects it.

The produce industry should be among the strongest voices calling for well-staffed, adequately funded and scientifically credible agencies that can identify outbreaks quickly, manage traceback efficiently and communicate clearly about what is known, what is not yet known and what consumers should actually do.

That is not an argument for bureaucracy. It is an argument for capacity. We need experienced epidemiologists. We need laboratories. We need inspectors and investigators. We need coordinated data systems. We need state and federal agencies that can work together quickly and accurately without agenda. And increasingly, we need public communicators who can translate complicated investigations into information consumers can understand and trust.

Because if those systems weaken, information does not stop. The vacuum simply gets filled by someone else. Today that may be TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X, YouTube or whatever headline travels fastest.

An algorithm cannot conduct traceback. A viral post cannot determine whether correlation is causation. An influencer cannot establish whether several illnesses in different states share a common source. We need institutions whose job is to do exactly that.

Whether you are a farmer, chef, distributor, retailer, parent or simply someone standing in a grocery store deciding what to put in your cart, you want the same thing: competent people following the evidence and telling you the truth as quickly and accurately as possible.

The next rumor certainly will not wait for the science. If we want consumers to trust the food on their tables, then accurate information must be treated as part of food safety itself.

Science may never move as fast as social media. But science has to be given every chance to catch up and tell the true story.

M. Jill Overdorf is founder and president of The Produce Ambassador, which provides strategic insight, brand development, and innovative solutions for the foodservice, produce, hospitality and culinary sectors.