Food giant Sysco under USDA investigation

By Vicky Nguyen, Jeremy Carroll and Kevin Nious, NBC NEWS Bay Area

The USDA would not specify when the department began looking into the food distributor, only stating that the investigation began after USDA received a complaint to their Alameda district office from a local meat trade association. The complaint came from staffers in the association shortly after they saw NBC Bay Area’s report exposing Sysco’s dirty food sheds.

Sysco Corporation, the world’s largest food distributor, is under a federal investigation by the USDA for its widespread practice of storing food headed to restaurants in unrefrigerated sheds. Lawmakers say NBC Bay Area investigation exposed major problems in food chain safety from farm to fork.

The federal investigation is the latest development in the Sysco saga after NBC Bay Area uncovered Sysco’s longstanding, widespread, practice of storing raw meat, dairy and produce in unrefrigerated sheds across the U.S. and Canada.

Inspectors with the CA Dept. of Public Health were the first to respond in July with an investigation that has uncovered at least 21 sheds throughout California used by Sysco to store food. In September, Canadian health officials launched an investigating that uncovered 15 facilities in Ontario.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said these facilities are now being assessed.

Rep. Sam Farr, D-Santa Cruz is the ranking member of the Appropriations subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development and Food and Drug Administration. Farr called Sysco’s food storage practices a huge violation of public trust.

“We’re very concerned because this Sysco problem violates the trust the growers have in growing the safest food in the world and the producers of meat and poultry in abiding by the federal laws that are the toughest in the world,” Farr told NBC Bay Area “The problem is the handlers and what happens in the time it leaves the security of the grower or producers and gets to the restaurants.”

Farr said the NBC Bay Area investigation exposed a major flaw in food handling practices by a company that should be an industry leader.

“I think this is going to require the transportation industry and the handling industry to upgrade those protocols and if they won’t do it themselves then government will do it for them,” Farr said.

Read the full story by Vicky Nguyen, Jeremy Carroll and Kevin Nious from NBC NEWS Bay Area.