Cantaloupe Crisis Coverage
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
Cantaloupe prices down 33.6 percent since outbreak
Today I met with Jeni Exley, daughter of listeria victim Herbert Stevens, for an interview in Englewood. Before meeting with her, I stopped at a King Soopers in the area to purchase a cantaloupe (don't worry...I didn't eat it, though it would probably be safer to eat one now). Her father ate a contaminated cantaloupe that her mother bought at a Littleton King Soopers in August so I figured I would also check out the prices of cantaloupes now compared to the start of the breakout.
Jeni's family have hired Bill Marler, a attorney based in Seattle who specializes in food safety to file suit against Jensen Farms. Marler has a website for food safety news where I was able to find a story on cantaloupe prices now compared to the beginning of the outbreak. According to the USDA, prices are down 33.6 percent since the outbreak caught media attention. Prices typically drop anyways once demand goes down after summer, but obviously they have dropped much more because of the outbreak. Colorado only produces 2 percent of the nation's cantaloupes but clearly has been a major factor in the price decrease.
You can read the story here.
Sunday, November 27, 2011
How Breakfast Was Rediscovered
Conducting research and interviews on a subject about food seems to be a lost cause without the food itself. But when was the last time I (or others for that matter) had a big slice of juicy cantaloupe? Well that is something I can't seem to remember for myself. So, while going about this process I rediscovered something important about the researching process: in order to understand and write about a subject, a writer has to understand (or at least understand the taste of) the subject. The fruit itself seems to be something that has been lost throughout the whole listeria ordeal. So, while first going about my interviews I did the most natural form of research, I rediscovered the delicious taste of the cantaloupe itself.
While conducting interviews and visiting the restaurants I began to build up an appetite and so I decided to have a quick snack while on the job. At the Buff Restaurant I made sure to order a dish with the most cantaloupe, which happened to be a parfait in a cantaloupe bowl The bowl was cut with large chunks of cantaloupe left inside, topped with strawberries, grapes, yogurt and granola. And may I say it was one of the best parfaits I have ever tried!
People always say breakfast is the most important meal to jump start the day. In this case my rediscovered love for cantaloupe will be my jump start for the continued research on this project, so stay tuned for my next update on how restaurants and grocery stores operate in times of crisis!
While conducting interviews and visiting the restaurants I began to build up an appetite and so I decided to have a quick snack while on the job. At the Buff Restaurant I made sure to order a dish with the most cantaloupe, which happened to be a parfait in a cantaloupe bowl The bowl was cut with large chunks of cantaloupe left inside, topped with strawberries, grapes, yogurt and granola. And may I say it was one of the best parfaits I have ever tried!
People always say breakfast is the most important meal to jump start the day. In this case my rediscovered love for cantaloupe will be my jump start for the continued research on this project, so stay tuned for my next update on how restaurants and grocery stores operate in times of crisis!
Website progress
It has been a month (to the day) since the Cantaloupe Crisis group met for the first time to discuss the direction of our project, and we have already come a long way. During the first week of brainstorming, we came up with this idea of how we hoped the site would look:
Needless to say, our idea left something to be desired and plenty of work to be done. After a number of prototypes and group discussions, we are getting closer to our final vision.
There are still plenty of photos to be taken, map infographics to create and probably a handful of late coding nights ahead, but our vision is finally taking form. We have a temporary page up on the site now which can guide you to the many ways to keep up with our project (including this blog!). The listeria scare may be winding down, but we're just getting started telling the stories that make it matter. We hope you'll join us!
Saturday, November 26, 2011
Smashing Cantaloupes
Not that we hate these melons just because they carried a formidable amount of listeria this year, but I opted to peer inside this fruit the fun way today. That's right, I smashed one to smithereens.
The photos will show up on the consumer insights page of our site when the time comes, but get your fix now on our shiny new splash page.
Check out the rest of the album on Facebook.
We are now on Twitter and Facebook
Follow Cantaloupe Crisis on Twitter @CantaloupeCU and at facebook.com/CantaloupeCrisis.
See what needs to happen in order to create a journalistic website as it unfolds. Should be fun!
See what needs to happen in order to create a journalistic website as it unfolds. Should be fun!
Friday, November 25, 2011
How this project just ruined my turkey sandwich
Greetings on this fine Black Friday, or the more aptly named National Turkey Sandwich With Everything Day. The Cantaloupe Crisis Coverage team has had all week off for fall break, but the foodborne illness obsession has not paused for a second (at least not for me). Although my Thanksgiving plate was decidedly free of cantaloupe yesterday, I took great care to apply the things I have learned about contamination to our meal--and it was trickier than expected. Over the past few weeks I have been learning the best ways to ward off bacteria, including:
- Never leave food out on the counter while cooking. Always keep meat, eggs and dairy refrigerated as soon as possible after leaving the grocery store and don't take them out until you use them.
- Keep raw meat far from anything that won't be cooked to the same temperature, especially fruits and salads that will be served cold.
- Use a meat thermometer to make sure everything reaches the right temperature.
- Time cooking so everything is served while it's hot (or cold, depending on what you're going for).
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Project Propsal
I. Preliminary title of the project
Cantaloupe Crisis
II. Members, classifications and emails
Dana Palmie dana.palmie@colorado.edu | lead coder, consumer insights
Liz Roland elizabeth.m.roland@gmail.com | grocery & restaurants
Laura Kirby laurajaynekirby@gmail.com | farming, statistics
Mackenzie Carroll mackenzie.a.carroll@gmail.com | victim perspective
Daniel Arinello daniel.ariniello@colorado.edu | medical information
III. Statement of purpose - A general mission statement about the purpose of your project.
The purpose of our project is to create accessible and relevant information about the economic, medical and social effects of listeria: How the listeria bacteria affects your body, what grocery stores and farmers are doing to keep you safe and which changes in purchasing habits will benefit consumers without destroying local economy.
IV. Scope and scale - How you will frame your topic to be broad enough to be of interest, but narrow enough to execute in the time you have.
We are framing our topic to focus on only one outbreak in Colorado so that it is narrow enough for us to cover in the time we have. We intend to cover this single outbreak from a variety of consumer angles so that a user will get a comprehensive view of how this and future outbreaks may affect them.
We’ll have a home page that features a video or multimedia piece that introduces our topic and our mission in creating the site. There will also be a brief text description of our purpose, which will incorporate our background as journalism students at CU Boulder, possibly linking to a team page.
On the home page, there will be a menu running across the top horizontally linking to separate pages with an image and title dedicated to each subtopic. There will be a page about what consumers should know when they are shopping and eating; a page about how restaurants and grocery stores have been affected by a change in supply and demand, and what they are doing to protect their customers and relationships to distributors; a page about farming processes and the affect that the recent listeria outbreak has had on farmers; a page describing what happens physiologically to make listeria dangerous and how bad victims can expect their symptoms to get; and a page about the outbreak from a victim’s perspective. There will also be an “About Us” link on the main menu. There will be a link to the “About Us” page on the bottom of each page identifying the author or each page.
V. Division of labor - Who will likely perform what tasks to complete the project.
Dana Palmie: I will be creating the stylesheet that dictates what each individual page will look like as well as coding the home page and the consumer insights page. I suspect I will be on call for any issues my group members have with coding their individual pages as well. For my consumer insights page, I plan to incorporate an interactive tool that describes the dangers of each type of food that has been an issue in recent Colorado history. I will start with cantaloupe and listeria so that it makes sense in conjunction with the rest of the site. I will also incorporate a timeline to show whether each food is still considered dangerous. I will probably make an infographic list of sorts with the top 5 (or 10 or 20) tips to remember when shopping and eating at restaurants that I will compile by speaking to experts. It would also be a good idea to include a map of which areas were affected by what with some sort of color gradient that shows how many people died or were hospitalized versus how many bought potentially contaminated food.
Liz Roland grocery & restaurants
I will be creating a page that focuses on the grocery stores and restaurants that were affected by the outbreak. I will focus on what the grocery stores and restaurants did to protect and make their clients more comfortable when the recall was first enacted as well as what they are doing to keep the trust of those same customers. I will also discuss what were the effects economically on the grocery stores and restaurants that readily incorporate cantaloupe in foods and as products. I will also touch on how previous outbreaks affected the respective organizations and whether the effects were better, worse or the same for the company.
Laura Kirby: Farming and statistics
I’ll create a page focusing on farming including a description of the processes used to prevent outbreaks such as listeria via video footage. I’d like to talk to both a traditional and organic farmer, and aim to address whether organic farming presents additional risks. I’d also like to investigate the economic effects that the recent listeria outbreak has had on farmers.
On a separate page (not sure where this will go yet) I’ll create an interactive map showing listeria and other food borne illness outbreaks in Colorado to include the farming source and possible retail or victim locations depending on the type of statistics I find and whether I can fit all of that information on and retain clarity.
Mackenzie Carroll victim perspective
My page will focus on the victims of listeria in Colorado and how they were affected by the outbreak. To date there have been eight deaths in the state from listeria, and over 130 illnesses recorded. I would want to talk to the victim, the families of the victims, and see what happened to them physically and how they recovered. I’d also like to talk to families who are taking legal action to compensate for damages. I’ll speak to at least three victims with varying experiences with listeria.
To go off of the legal side of it, I would be interested in possibly linking to Liz’s section on food and grocer ramifications. Many retailers are trying to pass a bill that would absolve retailers of any responsibility for carrying a product on their shelves that is contaminated unbeknowst to them. I would connect this back to the victims and show their response to this proposed bill.
Daniel Arinello medical information
My page will include all medical background information regarding listeria, how it affects the body, symptoms, how to treat the illness, and medical advice for handling listeria cases. Provide some supporting information on the reported cases and their severity. This will be limited so that it does not repeat or detract too much from the victim perspective section. I think it is also important to discuss the details of health insurance plans and how listeria treatment would be covered (especially cost).
The page will have a couple of diagrams that explain how listeria affects the body and which biological systems are susceptible. Also, I’d like to add video of an interview with a medical professional to add credibility to the section.
VI. Preliminary story topics and media needs - 4-8 story ideas and media considerations.
1. What a consumer needs to know about listeria. Talk to several experts (someone from a consumer protection agency, a nutritionalist, an economist) about which changes in buying habits are helpful to individuals and farmers and which aren’t useful for anyone. Package these tips in lists that use graphics to identify which perspective they come from. These graphics may include photos of the expert speaking, a photo/illustration representing their field or photo representing one of the tips.
2. A map (hopefully interactive) showing listeria and other food borne illness outbreaks in Colorado with dates.
3.Interviews with two local farmers - one organic one none non-organic
4. How different organizations were/still are effected (grocery stores/restaurants). I will interview people from both groups.
5. Medical diagrams, statistics on health policy/treatment costs, interviews with medical professionals (may need only one).
6. The relationship between retailers and victims of families affect by listeria during the legal process of those seeking damages. Research all current laws and see what precedent there is for listeria victims.
VII. Anticipated barriers or obstacles - What your team is concerned about at this point.
--Time.
--Our site will benefit from interactive features for quick delivery of a lot of different things to consider, so we will need to know how to build those.
--We will need to make sure that all of our different pages flow into a larger idea, but that they don’t become redundant. Touching base frequently should make this relatively easy.
--Creating a very clean and slick looking website!
--Lack of video experience
--Team communication (so we can make everything flow together)
--Continuity across all pages
Cantaloupe Crisis
II. Members, classifications and emails
Dana Palmie dana.palmie@colorado.edu | lead coder, consumer insights
Liz Roland elizabeth.m.roland@gmail.com | grocery & restaurants
Laura Kirby laurajaynekirby@gmail.com | farming, statistics
Mackenzie Carroll mackenzie.a.carroll@gmail.com | victim perspective
Daniel Arinello daniel.ariniello@colorado.edu | medical information
III. Statement of purpose - A general mission statement about the purpose of your project.
The purpose of our project is to create accessible and relevant information about the economic, medical and social effects of listeria: How the listeria bacteria affects your body, what grocery stores and farmers are doing to keep you safe and which changes in purchasing habits will benefit consumers without destroying local economy.
IV. Scope and scale - How you will frame your topic to be broad enough to be of interest, but narrow enough to execute in the time you have.
We are framing our topic to focus on only one outbreak in Colorado so that it is narrow enough for us to cover in the time we have. We intend to cover this single outbreak from a variety of consumer angles so that a user will get a comprehensive view of how this and future outbreaks may affect them.
We’ll have a home page that features a video or multimedia piece that introduces our topic and our mission in creating the site. There will also be a brief text description of our purpose, which will incorporate our background as journalism students at CU Boulder, possibly linking to a team page.
On the home page, there will be a menu running across the top horizontally linking to separate pages with an image and title dedicated to each subtopic. There will be a page about what consumers should know when they are shopping and eating; a page about how restaurants and grocery stores have been affected by a change in supply and demand, and what they are doing to protect their customers and relationships to distributors; a page about farming processes and the affect that the recent listeria outbreak has had on farmers; a page describing what happens physiologically to make listeria dangerous and how bad victims can expect their symptoms to get; and a page about the outbreak from a victim’s perspective. There will also be an “About Us” link on the main menu. There will be a link to the “About Us” page on the bottom of each page identifying the author or each page.
V. Division of labor - Who will likely perform what tasks to complete the project.
Dana Palmie: I will be creating the stylesheet that dictates what each individual page will look like as well as coding the home page and the consumer insights page. I suspect I will be on call for any issues my group members have with coding their individual pages as well. For my consumer insights page, I plan to incorporate an interactive tool that describes the dangers of each type of food that has been an issue in recent Colorado history. I will start with cantaloupe and listeria so that it makes sense in conjunction with the rest of the site. I will also incorporate a timeline to show whether each food is still considered dangerous. I will probably make an infographic list of sorts with the top 5 (or 10 or 20) tips to remember when shopping and eating at restaurants that I will compile by speaking to experts. It would also be a good idea to include a map of which areas were affected by what with some sort of color gradient that shows how many people died or were hospitalized versus how many bought potentially contaminated food.
Liz Roland grocery & restaurants
I will be creating a page that focuses on the grocery stores and restaurants that were affected by the outbreak. I will focus on what the grocery stores and restaurants did to protect and make their clients more comfortable when the recall was first enacted as well as what they are doing to keep the trust of those same customers. I will also discuss what were the effects economically on the grocery stores and restaurants that readily incorporate cantaloupe in foods and as products. I will also touch on how previous outbreaks affected the respective organizations and whether the effects were better, worse or the same for the company.
Laura Kirby: Farming and statistics
I’ll create a page focusing on farming including a description of the processes used to prevent outbreaks such as listeria via video footage. I’d like to talk to both a traditional and organic farmer, and aim to address whether organic farming presents additional risks. I’d also like to investigate the economic effects that the recent listeria outbreak has had on farmers.
On a separate page (not sure where this will go yet) I’ll create an interactive map showing listeria and other food borne illness outbreaks in Colorado to include the farming source and possible retail or victim locations depending on the type of statistics I find and whether I can fit all of that information on and retain clarity.
Mackenzie Carroll victim perspective
My page will focus on the victims of listeria in Colorado and how they were affected by the outbreak. To date there have been eight deaths in the state from listeria, and over 130 illnesses recorded. I would want to talk to the victim, the families of the victims, and see what happened to them physically and how they recovered. I’d also like to talk to families who are taking legal action to compensate for damages. I’ll speak to at least three victims with varying experiences with listeria.
To go off of the legal side of it, I would be interested in possibly linking to Liz’s section on food and grocer ramifications. Many retailers are trying to pass a bill that would absolve retailers of any responsibility for carrying a product on their shelves that is contaminated unbeknowst to them. I would connect this back to the victims and show their response to this proposed bill.
Daniel Arinello medical information
My page will include all medical background information regarding listeria, how it affects the body, symptoms, how to treat the illness, and medical advice for handling listeria cases. Provide some supporting information on the reported cases and their severity. This will be limited so that it does not repeat or detract too much from the victim perspective section. I think it is also important to discuss the details of health insurance plans and how listeria treatment would be covered (especially cost).
The page will have a couple of diagrams that explain how listeria affects the body and which biological systems are susceptible. Also, I’d like to add video of an interview with a medical professional to add credibility to the section.
VI. Preliminary story topics and media needs - 4-8 story ideas and media considerations.
1. What a consumer needs to know about listeria. Talk to several experts (someone from a consumer protection agency, a nutritionalist, an economist) about which changes in buying habits are helpful to individuals and farmers and which aren’t useful for anyone. Package these tips in lists that use graphics to identify which perspective they come from. These graphics may include photos of the expert speaking, a photo/illustration representing their field or photo representing one of the tips.
2. A map (hopefully interactive) showing listeria and other food borne illness outbreaks in Colorado with dates.
3.Interviews with two local farmers - one organic one none non-organic
4. How different organizations were/still are effected (grocery stores/restaurants). I will interview people from both groups.
5. Medical diagrams, statistics on health policy/treatment costs, interviews with medical professionals (may need only one).
6. The relationship between retailers and victims of families affect by listeria during the legal process of those seeking damages. Research all current laws and see what precedent there is for listeria victims.
VII. Anticipated barriers or obstacles - What your team is concerned about at this point.
--Time.
--Our site will benefit from interactive features for quick delivery of a lot of different things to consider, so we will need to know how to build those.
--We will need to make sure that all of our different pages flow into a larger idea, but that they don’t become redundant. Touching base frequently should make this relatively easy.
--Creating a very clean and slick looking website!
--Lack of video experience
--Team communication (so we can make everything flow together)
--Continuity across all pages
The Cantaloupe Crisis
In July 2011, cantaloupes from Jensen Farms in Colorado were being shipped to grocers throughout the United States, and people were buying them in droves. On September 14, 2011, Jensen Farms voluntarily recalled cantaloupes that had been produced from July through September 10 because of listeria contamination.
Thousands of these cantaloupes were contaminated with listeria, a bacteria that was later discovered to have grown in shallow pools of water near the packing shed. Workers at the farm had trudged through the water into the shed, which then spread to equipment used to ship the cantaloupes to grocers nationwide.
Once Listeria was found in these cantaloupes, the farm was quick to issue a recall and many grocers reached out to customers who had bought cantaloupe to prevent food poisoning. Despite this effort, 25 people nationwide died from the listeria outbreak and 123 people in 26 states were reportedly ill. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this outbreak is the deadliest incident caused by foodborne disease in the U.S.since 1985.
These numbers have caused a panic among citizens, especially in Colorado. The idea that eating locally grown food is nutritionally and economically superior to imported fare has been increasingly strong over the past several years, but this outbreak has thrown a wrench in that. Suddenly, buying habits have changed so quickly that local farmers, grocers and restaurants are affected negatively.
Our goal in Cantaloupe Crisis Coverage is to prevent unnecessary backlash from the listeria outbreak. By presenting the facts from the perspectives of medicine, victims, farmers and grocers, we hope to inform the public about what they can do to remain safe from foodborne illness without destroying local economy. We will be a resource for learning how listeria works and staying safe.
We are doing this project for the Digital Media class in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Stay tuned!
Thousands of these cantaloupes were contaminated with listeria, a bacteria that was later discovered to have grown in shallow pools of water near the packing shed. Workers at the farm had trudged through the water into the shed, which then spread to equipment used to ship the cantaloupes to grocers nationwide.
Once Listeria was found in these cantaloupes, the farm was quick to issue a recall and many grocers reached out to customers who had bought cantaloupe to prevent food poisoning. Despite this effort, 25 people nationwide died from the listeria outbreak and 123 people in 26 states were reportedly ill. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, this outbreak is the deadliest incident caused by foodborne disease in the U.S.since 1985.
These numbers have caused a panic among citizens, especially in Colorado. The idea that eating locally grown food is nutritionally and economically superior to imported fare has been increasingly strong over the past several years, but this outbreak has thrown a wrench in that. Suddenly, buying habits have changed so quickly that local farmers, grocers and restaurants are affected negatively.
Our goal in Cantaloupe Crisis Coverage is to prevent unnecessary backlash from the listeria outbreak. By presenting the facts from the perspectives of medicine, victims, farmers and grocers, we hope to inform the public about what they can do to remain safe from foodborne illness without destroying local economy. We will be a resource for learning how listeria works and staying safe.
We are doing this project for the Digital Media class in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Colorado Boulder.
Stay tuned!