Don't Eat That!

This article draws a parallel between the problems rocking the financial industry and current problems facing the food industry. Bad behavior, bad oversight has hurt both industries, and not just those making poor choices. After many years of de-regulation, it does seem the system needs a tweak, because currently the system of self-regulation is not fair.

Not only did Nestle hold themselves to a higher cost of regulation standards, but they paid the cost of market decline due to others in the industry who didn't. Their competitors were allowed to purchase an inferior product at a lower cost, and also save on the cost of checking on their suppliers. Not to mention how unfair it was to those who suffered severe and mortal losses from possibly tainted regulation information. Badly, sadly a need for more auditing not less.

Recently suggested on Eats Blog (The Dallas Morning News' food blog) was the issue of whether or not to publish a restaurant's inspection scores, and as a restaurant owner (and diner), I don't have a problem with that. Until of course, you start comparing how different municipalities grade infractions. There are large differences in point deductions on differing cities health inspection codes. So the question then becomes, if a restaurant in Dallas would have scored a 76, but in another suburb scores a 93 for the same issues, is the user being served well by following the score of the suburban restaurant?

Current events seem to justify the argument that higher standards in regulation benefit us all, but it is only fail safe if all adhere to the same standards.