Thursday, September 27, 2007

I feel so much safer!

In today's Ann Arbor News there is a front page story about how the people of Ann Arbor were saved from unwrapped bread being sold at the Ann Arbor Farmers Market. A vendor from Chelsea (a city near Ann Arbor) had brought some bread to sell at the market. A State of Michigan food inspector from the Department of Agriculture cited the vendor for keeping his bread in the open air. She ordered him to pour dish soap on the bread so it could not be sold.

This whole incident just seems like a complete waste of time and money. The vendor is selling unwrapped bread. Customers can clearly see that the bread is unwrapped. If a customer chooses to purchase the bread they do so with full knowledge of the circumstances. A similar situation arose a few months ago at a local food speciality store. The store sold unprocessed milk from a local organic dairy. The customers who purchased the product knew exactly what they were getting, yet inspectors told the store that it couldn't sell the product to willing customers.

The State of Michigan is currently undergoing a budget crises. Perhaps they could start saving money by cutting back on these sorts of inspections.