I have noticed ever since the coronavirus started that there is a very concerning lack of quality control in products that you buy and products that I have bought all my life without any issues suddenly constantly have issues with them and there seems to be no quality control. It is a full-time job just to try to return all the items.
Everything from ketchup that has specks of dirt or some black specs in it to toilet paper that smells like laundry detergent to Vaseline that smells like citronella mosquito repellent candles, to strawberry Jell-O that looks like strawberry Jell-O but smells and taste like orange flavored Jell-O, to vanilla ice cream that will have a black speck or brown speck of some unknown substance. Most of those things I have used my entire life and now all of a sudden there’s all these problems that I didn’t have to deal with before.
This is very worrying from a consumer safety standpoint. What is the cause of this happening? Why is there no quality control in consumer products or food anymore?
I can’t speak about some of those issues (but many are likely for the same reason), but I recently saw something on toilet paper. They specifically mentioned that they fell so far behind on production, one way to get a little caught up was to lower their QC standards. Rolls that otherwise wouldn’t have gone out were shipped anyway.
That’s probably a lot of what you’re seeing. The factories that are trying to get, or stay, can’t afford to reject a few percent of what they produce each day. Especially when we’re just talking about cosmetic issues.
You probably don’t have to be overly concerned about it. An odd smell is likely just equipment that wasn’t as thoroughly cleaned as it would normally be between flavors. A black or brown spec in your ice cream could be a vanilla bean seed or an oreo crumb that got mixed in.
If you really feel this is a safety issue, I’d urge you to send an email to the company, or the CPSC, with the relevant info (including any lot numbers or codes you see printed on the product) and see what they have to say.
Also, the other thing I’d ask is…are you sure it’s not you? Perhaps ask a friend to smell/taste some of these things and see if they notice it. I only ask because you’ve found a lot of issues with a lot of products. You listed off 5 things, most people wouldn’t find 5 things like that in 5 years. I’d think (I’d hope) if QC had gone this far down the crapper, we’d be hearing about it more often on social media and the news.
I don’t think it is harmless or that it should be dismissed. I got a horrible stomach ache from drinking some juice that tasted funny that I thought must be fine after growing frustrated with all the problems with quality control. And I have asked some people I live with and they agree with me on the problems I found with these products. It is also interesting that the FDA has found through multiple inspection serious quality control issues in the new Coronavirus medicine made by Eli Lilly so these quality control issues are apparently happening even in Pharmaceuticals which is very concerning. The quality control issues that they found are also quite serious considering that this is an intravenous medication. See this link
Without dismissing your observations, certain humans I know who were once pretty relaxed about stuff have become increasingly tetchy since covid appeared. I suspect it has to do with a combination of more time to notice things that previously passed under the radar, being clinically fed-up, and feeling unloved and unwanted because the attention is [rightly] being directed to those much worse off.
Your bad toilet paper and smelly vaseline may be real and frustrating, but I’m sure that many annoyances at the moment are coming from our plain old covid fatigue. If being cranky was the worst of it that would be fine, but its the sloppiness and corner cutting in sanitation that goes with the fatigue with it that is the real worry.
This comes from the TP being next to the detergent, if the detergent is in a box, or more likely, next to the fabric softener sheets. I’ve had to throw away food that was bagged in the same grocery bag as the fabric softener sheets (which I stopped using years ago). Maybe the supermarket had them stacked next to each other, or maybe it happened on your trip home from the store.
I’ve noticed a lot fewer sprinkles on my beloved birthday crisp rice treats from Walmart. But they taste the same, and not like the plain ones. I assumed they were skimping to get things through.
I’m quite happy with those, as I love those guys. They’re one of the few treats I can have, as I can eat them even when my stomach issues flare up. A bit less color doesn’t matter.
I did encounter one batch that tasted different, though, like they’d been cooked longer or something. It didn’t taste bad, just different.
I’ve not run into anything else, though. At least, not anything I didn’t run into before the pandemic.
I just wanted to give an update on the quality control issues I have noticed they got worse in October or November than they were last spring. There have been a number of high-profile quality control issues including hot pockets issuing of massive recall for hundreds of tons of hot pockets because they were contaminated with broken glass and pieces of hard plastic. There has been also the recall of ice cream for containing hard plastic and a recall of frozen food for containing hard plastic. I have gotten sick three times now from food that tasted funny. A large construction project in my city has been delayed for months now because special parts they ordered were defective. There is no longer the massive demand for food and stockpiling that we saw in the spring and no excuse for the lack of quality control that is happening. Whatever the reason for the lack of quality control the question now is what can be done about it?
I have emailed a number of companies and some of them took it seriously and fixed the problem like the toilet paper company who fixed the problem and now it no longer smells like laundry detergent. Some of the companies I emailed do not care and have done nothing to fix the problem even after multiple emails and some companies even ignored my email. The question is what can be done about these companies that don’t care? Is there some government agency that is supposed to ensure food safety and quality of consumer products? Because whatever that agency is, is not doing their job to ensure that products are safe that are brought to market. If I want to report companies that consistently do not fix food safety issues or quality control issues what government organization can I report them to?
Back when the big toilet paper panic last year, I bought one extra 30-roll pack of my preferred brand when I could, but I only last month opened it, and I’m still working on the first roll out of that pack.
It is definitely not what I’ve come to expect of this brand. It has a noticeably crisp-ish feel and slightly rough texture. I’m rather unhappy with it, but it’s not abjectly unusable. I suspect that, during the big TP panic, they outsourced the manufacturing to get additional supplies to market, and the outsourced production facility didn’t manufacture to the same quality.
In my food production worksite, we sometimes have to go with supplier B or C because of delivery or other supply issues. Also with order cancellations we may have to blend an oversupply of one flavor with another. (we don’t do ice cream but think adding 10% French vanilla to regular vanilla.) Our QC department has not relaxed its safety standards in any way. Our latest assistant plant manager worked her way up through the QC department of a different plant. She rides the QC department hard because they can’t get away with anything.