If it bleeds it leads.
If there is any maxim that has lasted through the entire history of the news, from town crier to the Google and Facebook algorithmic age, that’s the one.
The number of dead, injured, sick, or missing draws the ears, eyes, and now the clicks.
But by the time the news cycle is done with the story, the cost has hardly begun to be calculated.
Few better examples exist than food poisoning stories. Just worrying enough to draw attention, not memorable enough to warrant more than a couple headlines and short blurbs.
The sick and dead are headline stories, while the aftermath — lost jobs, money, health care bills, lawsuits — is invisible.
So all the stories are fragmented, as if these are outliers, random exceptions to the norm.
But the fact is, they aren’t. They are part of a much bigger pattern that will always be a part of our world.
And because we don’t follow up, or add up each story to a whole, the true cost is rarely known.
A Hidden Epidemic
Once you dig into the numbers, you realize something has gone very, very wrong and no one is doing much of anything about it except for cleaning up after the fact.
America’s food industry has a $55.5 billion safety problem that makes 48 million Americans sick every year.
Every story you’ve heard in recent years is part of it. It ranges from wholesalers to restaurants and home kitchens, and from seafood and meat to fresh and frozen veggies.
That $55.5 billion cost won’t be absorbed by corporations that are at the heart of the food distribution system either.
That figure comes from a 2015 study by Robert Scharff, an associate professor at Ohio State University. His total estimate includes the annual cost of medical treatment, lost productivity, and illness-related mortality.
Very little of this can ultimately be proven to come from a single source, and thus no lawsuit could ever recoup it.
In short, everyday people are paying the lion’s share of the cost.
That isn’t to say that corporations themselves don’t take a hit, which takes a huge toll on everyone involved, from board members to mom-and-pop investors, all the way down to franchise employees.
Take Chipotle as an example. Here is how share prices have fared through the beginning of this year:
That represents a $6 billion loss.
And it hardly begins to capture what the much longer-lasting blow to the company’s reputation will mean for sales.
Spend $20 Billion, Save $55 Billion
In coming years, we could see a dramatic reduction in the $55 billion per year price tag associated with this epidemic.
With such a staggering cost to companies, any solution that can address the problem will be considered.
And even if companies drag their feet, they’ll be compelled to act soon. New FDA rules will require more active and preventative measures from companies.
Luckily for them, a new device that costs just $100,000 per unit is coming to the market.
In Chipotle’s case, it could have saved $60,000 for every $1 spent on the device.
All told, this is a $20 billion market that could save almost the entirety of the $55 billion lost per year.
This kind of return on investment is a no-brainer.
Just one company holds the patents that make this kind of device possible though, and there is no way it’ll be trading for under a buck and sporting a roughly $40 million market capitalization for long.
In fact, it may not even exist for long. If ever there was a target for an acquisition by a major manufacturer, this is it.
Nick Hodge discovered this company and already has a full-coverage report ready for his readers.
