Economic damages of food-safety incidents in complex markets: 2018 <i>E. coli</i> outbreak and romaine lettuce

Abstract

Food-safety incidents are costly for everyone in the leafy greens industry. However, it is challenging to estimate the size and distribution of these costs in today's complex supply chains. Extensive use of formal contracts in markets such as leafy greens obscures prices and other terms of trade from the public view. Using proprietary data on prices and sales from a major leafy greens processor operating in the retail and food-service sectors, we are able to separately estimate short-run damages associated with the November 2018 romaine Escherichia coli