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Fall of the romaine empire: What a string of scares means for the lettuce’s future

Published

5 années ago

novembre 27, 2018

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The ubiquitous green is a top-selling “high margin product,” particularly at this time of year, according to Sylvain Charlebois, food policy professor at Dalhousie University.

“The entire supply chain is paying for this, including grocers, agents and brokers,” Charlebois said. “Everyone is hit by an alert like that.”

As of Monday afternoon, Canada had seen 22 reported cases of infection. Major grocery store chains across Canada, such as Sobey’s and Safeway, have pulled romaine lettuce from their shelves, even in Alberta and British Columbia.

But it’s not just romaine lettuce that will bear the burden. Charlebois suspected that all lettuce sales will be affected, as consumers may just avoid the aisle altogether.

“The reason why we are seeing frequent problems is because of consumer demand,” he said. “Consumers are looking for affordable food products.”

It is “concerning” that the public ends up not knowing what actually happened or exactly where the contamination source may be, he added.

StarMetro reached out to Sobey’s, Safeway and the Overwaitea Group but received no response as of publication time. However, at a Vancouver Safeway location and a Nesters Market location on Sunday, signs advising against romaine were posted on the doors and all along the produce section.

In a precautionary move, the vast majority of restaurants in B.C. opted to stop selling romaine, said Ian Tostenson, president of the BC Restaurant and Foodservices Association. Since Caesar salads aren’t often a main dish, he said, most restaurants were able to work around it.

Calgary Co-op also followed suit and pulled between 15,000 to 20,000 units — individual products ranging from romaine lettuce itself to packaged salads — from its shelves, according to a statement from produce operations director Lawrence Wright.

Calgary Co-op said it relies on the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) to inspect imported food and ensure it isn’t contaminated, but more must be done.

“There is a very large focus in the industry to improve the traceability of fresh produce, but we are not where we need to be currently,” Wright said in the statement.

The challenge for food safety investigators is identifying the specific origin of the product — the farm and date of harvest — according to a statement from the CFIA.

The agency begins its sleuthing process based on the food history of patients, collected by public health officials. Once common products, stores or restaurants are identified, a further investigation is conducted with suppliers, distributors or wholesalers, the statement reads.

But the lag between the consumption of the food, the onset of symptoms and the completion of the tracing process is often longer than the shelf life of the product, it adds.

“This means that by the time an investigation starts into potential food items, the perishable goods are no longer in the marketplace … available for testing,” the statement says.

According to Lawrence Goodridge, professor of food safety at McGill University, fruits and vegetables are more prone to outbreaks because consumers ingest them raw.

Goodridge said it’s difficult to determine the source of an outbreak because of how we detect contamination in the first place.

In order for a public health alert to happen, a sick person has to go to a medical professional and typically give a stool specimen. But many people who are sick don’t go to the hospital, and even if they do, doctors may not take a sample. Instead, they send them home to drink fluids and rest, he explained.

“For every person that is sick with a food-borne illness, there’s likely 25 more people that we don’t know about,” he said. “It takes a lot of time for officials to know there’s an outbreak.”

Meanwhile, researchers have yet to fully understand all the ways that veggies can be contaminated, and questions remain around whether there is something specific to romaine that makes it more susceptible to bacteria.

“Once we figure that out, we need better ways to control these risks,” he said. “We know that climate, extreme rain or wind can cause and have caused outbreaks.”

Goodridge said growing vegetables in greenhouses is one way to decrease — but not eliminate — the risk, as it keeps the plants indoors and away from wild animals. According to Health Canada, leafy greens can become contaminated in the field by soil, water, animals or improperly composted manure.

But despite the public-health alerts in both Canada and the U.S., some vegetable producers in Western Canada aren’t too worried. Some are even optimistic that these scares may increase consumer interest in buying locally grown greens.

“We’ve seen these things before, and they tend to blow over,” said Gert Lund, who owns Lund’s Organic Farm out of Innisfail, Alta. “Once this stuff is no longer in the daily news, people tend to just go along with their lives and forget about it. It’s not a long-term impact for us.”

The organic farmer said his operation only grows in season and, right now, they’re down to selling root vegetables — turnips, onions and carrots — out of cold storage. Had the contamination warnings hit in July or August, Lund said, he may have been in some trouble.

There are also crucial differences between farms like Lund’s and major farms in California.

The farmer said he’d visited California lettuce farms before and described them as very intense operations. Some grow three monocrops of produce a year, which puts a lot of stress on the soil and environment. This means farmers often spray their fields with pesticides very heavily to kill microbes that would themselves actually kill E.coli.

“We’re a small family farm here,” he said. “Down there, they’re gigantic farms. They have hundreds of people working there.”

E. coli also tends to thrive in wet, warm environments — and California’s growing season fits the bill. This can pose a serious risk of contamination, especially given the way lettuce is actually eaten.

“The leaves themselves are the crop, so it’s not like a fruit,” said David Karwacki, CEO of The Star Group, a Canadian organization of fresh produce companies. “You’re growing these actual leaves in an environment that needs to be pristine because that’s what people are consuming.”

The organization’s Inspired Greens greenhouse facility in Coaldale, Alta., grows roughly 12 million heads of lettuce a year inside pathogen-free pots that are also biodegradable. A trio of lettuce types can be seeded and transplanted without ever being touched by human hands, The Star Group said in a statement. Harvesting at the greenhouse facility is still done by hand, but Karwacki said workers “are dressed up like they’re in an operating room.”

Several small-scale B.C. farmers told StarMetro that buying local helps consumers know the farmer and how the food got to their plate. In addition, many small farms do not use raw manure.

Yet Charlebois disagreed, arguing people can get just as sick from buying local food as much as imported produce.

“You are a consumer exposed to risks no matter what you buy. That said, the scale of these alerts are massive as a result of building these incredible economies of scale,” he explained. “If Arizona makes a couple of mistakes, an entire continent is affected as a result.”

That’s why better traceability systems — knowing lettuce’s journey from farm to plate — are needed to limit the impact of outbreaks, he added.

“I do think we will spend a romaine-lettuce-free holiday this year,” Charlebois said. “Why bother importing when you know nobody is going to buy it? Goodbye romaine lettuce, hello baby kale.”

Brennan Doherty is a work and wealth reporter with StarMetro Calgary. Follow him on Twitter: @bren_doherty

Melanie Green is a Vancouver-based reporter covering food culture and policy. Follow her on Twitter: @mdgmedia

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Anglais

Nostalgia and much more with Starburst XXXtreme

Published

3 années ago

août 10, 2021

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Get a taste of adventure with Starburst XXXtreme based on the legendary NetEnt Game. The nostalgic themes are sure to capture fans of the classic version as they get treated to higher intensity, better visuals, and features. The most significant element of the game is its volatility. Patience will not be an essential virtue considering the insane gameplay, and there is a lot of win potential involved. It retains the original makeup of the previous game while adding a healthy dose of adrenaline.

Starburst Visuals and Symbols

The game is definitely more conspicuous than before. The setting happens over a 5-reel, 3-row game grid with nine fixed win lines, which function if a succession from the left to the right reel is present. Only those players that that attain the highest win per bet line are paid. From a visual standpoint, the Starburst XXXtreme slots illustrates lightning effects behind the reels, which is not surprising as it is inherited from the original version. Available themes include Classic, Jewels, and Space. The game is also available in both desktop and mobile versions, which is advantageous for players considering the global pandemic. According to Techguide, American gamers are increasingly having more engaging gaming experiences to socialize to fill the gap of in-person interaction. Starburst XXXtreme allows them to fill the social void at a time when there is so much time to be had indoors.

Starburst XXXTreme Features

Players get to alternate on three features which are Starburst Wilds, XXXtreme Spins, and Random Wilds. The first appears on reels 2,3, or 4. When these land, they expand to cover all positions while also calculating the wins. They are also locked for a respin. If a new one hits, it also becomes locked while awarding another respin. Starburst XXXtreme offers a choice between two scenarios for a higher stake. In one scenario with a ten times stake, the Starburst Wild is set on random on reels 2,3, or 4, and a multiplier starts the respin. The second scenario, which has a 95 times stake, starts with two guaranteed starburst wilds on reels 2,3, or 4. it also plays out using respin game sequence and features. The game also increases the potential with the Random Wilds feature to add Starburst Wilds to a vacant reel at the end of a spin. Every Starburst Wild gives a random multiplier with potential wins of x2, x3, x5, x10, x25, x50, x100, or even x150.

The new feature is sure to be a big hit with the gaming market as online gambling has shown significant growth during the lockdown. AdAge indicates the current casino customer base is an estimated one in five Americans, so Starburst XXXtreme’s additional features will achieve considerable popularity.

What We Think About The Game

The gambling market has continued to diversify post-pandemic, so it is one of the most opportune times to release an online casino-based game. Thankfully Starburst XXXtreme features eye-catching visuals, including the jewels and space themes. These attract audience participation and make the gameplay inviting. The game also has a nostalgic edge. The previous NetEnt iteration featured similar visuals and gameplay, so the audience has some familiarity with it. The producers have revamped this version by tweaking the features to improve the volatility and engagement.

That is characterized by the potential win cap of 200,000 times the bet. Starburst XXXtreme does not just give betting alternatives for players that want to go big. The increase of multipliers also provides a great experience. If the respins in the previous version were great, knowing that multipliers can go hundreds of times overtakes the game to a new level.

Players should get excited about this offering. All of the features can be triggered within a single spin. Whether one plays the standard game or takes the XXXtreme spin route, it is possible to activate all of the features. Of course, the potential 200,000 times potential is a huge carrot. However, the bet size is probably going to be restricted and vary depending on the casino. It is also worth pointing out that a malfunction during the gameplay will void all of the payouts and progress. Overall, the game itself has been designed to provide a capped win of 200,000 times the original bet.

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Anglais

‘We’re back’: Montreal festival promoters happy to return but looking to next year

Published

3 années ago

juillet 23, 2021

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In downtown Montreal, it’s festival season.

In the city’s entertainment district, a musical act was conducting a sound check on stage Friday evening — the second day of the French-language version of the renowned Just For Laughs comedy festival. Tickets for many of the festival’s free outdoor shows — limited by COVID-19 regulations — were sold out.

Two blocks away, more than 100 people were watching an acoustic performance by the Isaac Neto Trio — part of the last weekend of the Festival International Nuits d’Afrique, a celebration of music from the African continent and the African diaspora.

With COVID-19 restrictions continuing to limit capacity, festival organizers say they’re glad to be back but looking forward to next year when they hope border restrictions and capacity limits won’t affect their plans.

Charles Décarie, Just For Laughs’ CEO and president, said this is a “transition year.”

“Even though we have major constraints from the public health group in Montreal, we’ve managed to design a festival that can navigate through those constraints,” Décarie said.

The French-language Juste pour rire festival began on July 15 and is followed by the English-language festival until July 31.

When planning began in February and March, Décarie said, organizers came up with a variety of scenarios for different crowd sizes, ranging from no spectators to 50 per cent of usual capacity.

“You’ve got to build scenarios,” he said. “You do have to plan a little bit more than usual because you have to have alternatives.”

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Anglais

MELS new major movie studio to be built in Montreal

Published

3 années ago

juillet 23, 2021

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MONTREAL — MELS Studios will build a new film studio in Montreal, filling some of the gap in supply to meet the demand of Hollywood productions.

MELS president Martin Carrier said on Friday that MELS 4 studio construction will begin « as soon as possible », either in the fall or winter of next year. The studio could host productions as early as spring 2023.

The total investment for the project is $76 million, with the Quebec government contributing a $25 million loan. The project will create 110 jobs, according to the company.

The TVA Group subsidiary’s project will enable it to stand out « even more » internationally, according to Quebecor president and CEO Pierre Karl Péladeau. In the past, MELS Studios has hosted several major productions, including chapters of the X-Men franchise. The next Transformers movie is shooting this summer in Montreal.

Péladeau insisted that local cultural productions would also benefit from the new facility, adding that the studio ensures foreign revenues and to showcase talent and maintain an industry of Quebec producers.

STUDIO SHORTAGE

The film industry is cramped in Montreal.

According to a report published last May by the Bureau du cinéma et de la télévision du Québec (BCTQ), there is a shortage of nearly 400,000 square feet of studio space.

With the addition of MELS 4, which will be 160,000 square feet, the company is filling part of the gap.

Carrier admitted that he has had to turn down contracts because of the lack of space, representing missed opportunities of « tens of millions of dollars, not only for MELS, but also for the Quebec economy. »

« Montreal’s expertise is in high demand, » said Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante, who was present at the announcement.

She said she received great testimonials from « Netflix, Disney, HBO and company » during an economic mission to Los Angeles in 2019.

« What stands out is that they love Montreal because of its expertise, knowledge and beauty. We need more space, like MELS 4, » she said.

There is still not enough capacity in Quebec, acknowledged Minister of Finance, the Economy and Innovation Eric Girard.

« It is certain that the government is concerned about fairness and balance, so if other requests come in, we will study them with the same seriousness as we have studied this one, » he said.

Grandé Studios is the second-largest player in the industry. Last May, the company said it had expansion plans that should begin in 2022. Investissement Québec and Bell are minority shareholders in the company.

For its part, MELS will have 400,000 square feet of production space once MELS 4 is completed. The company employs 450 people in Quebec and offers a range of services including studio and equipment rentals, image and sound postproduction, visual effects and a virtual production platform.