An indefatigable investigative reporter named Rachel Handler wrote an article for Grub Street last month called The Very Real, Totally Bizarre Bucatini Shortage of 2020. In it, she explores why bucatini has been hard to find recently. I had not noticed this myself, but apparently it’s a real thing and apparently bucatini aficionados will accept no substitutes.
On March 30, 2020, just as the country was going into quarantines that would result in levels of home cooking as-yet-unseen in the 21st century, FDA placed a hold on all De Cecco bucatini entering the country. FDA said it put the bucatini “on import alert because it was misbranded as it failed to meet the required standard of identity. Specifically, the iron level in De Cecco bucatini was below the designated level as required by the standard of enriched macaroni.” FDA has standards of identity for a mind-numbingly vast number of foods — the one at issue here says that you can’t call your pasta an “enriched macaroni product” unless it contains at least 13 mg of iron per pound.
Import alerts are an enforcement tool that FDA uses to stop products from entering the country on the grounds that their very existence violates U.S. law. They are intended to keep us safe by keeping dangerous products off our shelves. An import alert means an actual person at a port of entry somewhere has actually looked at incoming freight closely enough to find the alleged illegality.
Considering that an average of 29.7 million shipping containers arrive each year at the over 326 ports of entry in the United States, what are the chances that an FDA inspector would: (i) randomly run across a container of De Cecco bucatini; (ii) take the time to look closely at the labeling on the individual boxes; (iii) compare the boxes against the standard of identity regulation; and (iv) conclude the anemic bucatini posed a danger to the American public? The chances are small.
Most likely, the only reason FDA took such a strong stand against De Cecco’s anemic bucatini is because one of De Cecco’s fellow bucatini manufacturers complained. In other words, the bucatini community is mad at De Cecco. And De Cecco may well have started the fight. Why? We may never know….
But the compliance lesson here is simple. Don’t throw stones at your competitors unless you can withstand a counter-attack.
thelawoflifesciences.com 