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Tests find wood pallets used to ship food harbor harmful bacteria

ORLANDO, Fla. — Wood pallets used to ship food in the Washington Metropolitan Area tested positive for three types of deadly food poisoning bacteria, raising new concerns about the risks wood pallets and other shipping materials pose to the nation's food supply, according to a maker of plastic pallets.

The tests were commissioned by Intelligent Global Pooling Systems (iGPS Company LLC), operator of a pallet rental service providing shippers and receivers with all-plastic pallets with embedded RFID tags. iGPS gathered samples from wood pallets located at markets and food retailers in the Washington, D.C., and Baltimore areas, and submitted them to an outside scientific laboratory for testing.

In a limited and random sample, over one-third of the pallets tested positive for one or more of Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria and extremely high bacteria counts — as much as 6.8 million spores per gram — indicating unsanitary conditions that also could pose a food-safety risk.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates that 76 million food borne illness cases occur every year in the United States. This amounts to one in four Americans becoming ill after eating foods contaminated with such pathogens as Salmonella, E. coli, Listeria and others. Salmonella bacteria cause at least 40,000 illnesses a year in the U.S., and an estimated 400 deaths, the CDC reports. E. coli is a potentially lethal group of bacteria that every year sickens more than 70,000 Americans. Listeria contributes to the deaths of 500 people annually in the U.S. and 2,500 serious illnesses, according to the CDC.

"These tests support our long-held concerns about wood pallets and the risk they present to America's food supply," said Bob Moore, Chairman and CEO, iGPS.

Moore went on to note that rusty nails protruding from wood pallets are a significant problem because they can penetrate food packaging, and break off into products. Cargill, a beef producer, found nails in meat ingredients being fed into grinders, according to a story in The New York Times.

iGPS sent a letter to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month calling upon the agency to launch a full investigation into the use of wood pallets in connection with the storage and shipment of food. iGPS said the inherently porous nature of wood allows it to easily absorb bacteria and fluids, making the over one billion wood pallets in circulation in the United States a highly conducive breeding ground for harmful bacteria that can contaminate food.

Congress is considering new legislation that would require the FDA to create a better system for tracing food in the wake of several high-profile recalls of contaminated food in recent years.

iGPS is headquartered in Orlando, Fla.

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