The Responsibility of Distribution

As an aged care provider, I rely on a large number of distributors to provide the goods I need to operate my service. Everything from food to medical supplies and equipment often comes through a distributor who does not actually make the product.

While it seems the aged care provider at the end of the supply chain is ultimately responsible for anything and everything when things go wrong, I have often pondered the distribution (or lack thereof) of responsibility all the way along the supply chain.

In November 2015, we received from our food distributor Bidvest Australia a packet of fresh pre-prepared diced vegetable soup mix. Inside the mix, my catering staff found a 3 cm piece of stainless steel cutting blade.

I raised this with Bidvest Australia who initially apologised profusely but then pointed the finger at their supplier Pick of the Crop. It appears that the machine operated by Pick of the Crop had malfunctioned and the blades had shattered, ending up in my soup mix.

This contaminated product passed through Pick of the Crop's quality assurance and safety measures, and the past Bidvest's quality assurance safety measures and was picked up when my staff member started to prepare soup. Luckily they did not cut themselves, or worse still, serve this to one our our residents.

I was given assurances that this was a freak accident, it had never occurred before and that both companies would initiate metal detector scanning of their pre-prepared range immediately.

Roll on November 2016 and almost to the day of the first incident, we find a second piece of cutting blade in our soup mix.

Again I raised this with Bidvest Australia (who have now rebranded to Bidfood), this time with significantly more displeasure.

This time I find that the previous senior manager (who made many promises) has left and the new management line is a simple one ... we are not responsible. We only deliver a product that is produced by someone else.

To this day they maintain that the issue has only ever happened twice and only to me. While I cannot dispute this with facts, the probability of this occurring to only one customer on two separate occasions, one year apart is almost zero.

When I raised the previous responses of a year before and how I was promised that Bidvest would be strengthening their quality assurances measures and installing metal detectors, their response remained unchanged. I was told they never implemented any such safety measure as they process huge amounts of fresh fruit and vegetables every day and such a measure would not be practical.

I asked if a recall of the product had been announced once they were made aware of the problem on both occasions. The answer was a resounding no.

The issue was raised with Pick of the Crop who sent me a short, sweet email saying 'we are sorry'. They blamed a junior process worker who did not follow procedure. Its fantastic that public safety is governed by the compliance or noncompliance of a junior process worker alone. Fills me with the utmost confidence.

Together the two companies got together a felt that a payment of $1,000 was an appropriate amount to compensate us for the risks their failures had posed to both my staff and my residents.

When it was pointed out that we spent more than that every week with Bidvest, they met again and came up with $4,000 as an "acceptable offer".  

Interesting how much value they place on their new brand and the health and safety of the general public.

I received a telephone call last week from Bidfood's senior management stating they had noticed we stopped buying from them and wanting to know if it was a result of what had happened .... I wonder what my response was.