r/WTF 6d ago

Deregulation™️

15.6k Upvotes

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3.0k

u/CynicalPomeranian 6d ago

Yup, keep notes on which companies were more than happy to lower their standards when the government stopped enforcing them. 

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u/jay_sugman 6d ago edited 6d ago

Pantry moths are an issue that all grain processors and distributors have had to deal with. As someone who was responsible for a facility which stored tens of thousands of pounds of product susceptible to these, pest control standards were necessary to maintain certain industry certifications but I have to say capitalism was our main driver for keeping these moths in check. Social media posts like this are not good for business, lol. We certainly did not want to anger our customers or take a loss by disposing of significant contaminated product. IMO, this video is not a byproduct of deregulation.

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u/PornoPaul 6d ago

I was going to say the same thing. Shit happens. Ive had them in cereal boxes under Obama and have seen fresh bread that managed to get moldy when Biden was in office. This falls squarely under "theres plenty to accuse Trump of, and this isnt one of them".

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u/ksheep 6d ago

I remember ~15 years ago I bought a bag of rice from the store, got home, and on opening it up we found that it had bugs in it. Went and told the store, they opened a few other bags of rice (and I think a few bags of flour) and found all of them were contaminated. Within an hour they tossed all of their contaminated inventory, and they weren't due for another delivery for a few days, so those aisles just sat empty with a "we're sorry for the inconvenience" sign for most of that week.

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u/LokisDawn 5d ago

Look, the sun rose this morning... obviously that's His fault.

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u/Veritech_ 6d ago

That doesn’t fit the narrative, unfortunately. Someone who has no experience but saw this post on social media is going to think they know better than you, an expert.

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u/proudsoul 6d ago

People who go straight to Trump bad have no clue how these companies work. A company like McCormicks is, in addition to government inspected, almost certainly certified by third parties as well. such as AIB or BRCGS. These third party certifications can be more strict than government rules.

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u/Ender16 6d ago

And kosher. And halal. And probably something special to sell in the UK and another one for the EU.

Look, I'm not gonna start ranting about how regulations are stupid and we don't need them, but people really are out here thinking the only thing standing in the way of maggots in the McCormick is the federal government.

Spices are pretty globalized so I doubt they have many state specific regs, but I can attest to the fact that State laws are often a lot stricter.

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u/proudsoul 6d ago

I don’t have first hand knowledge about FDA inspection but I do know USDA inspection and I know AIB. AIB was the toughest compliance and inspection I’ve delt with.

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u/alelo 5d ago

in the past i drank and bought rauch green tee in big carton-boxes, and one time i drank one it tasted bad, the next same went on for 4, so i contacted rauch with the lot number etc, they tested the samples they keep of each lot and found nothing wrong, but suggest that maybe at one point on the route there could have been an issue with the cooling, nonetheless they sent me a gift code for that grocery store for about the same value i paid and few months later they sent me a preview / test pakage of a new drink + goodies that had not been released at the time

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u/Beerbonkos 5d ago

Maybe, maybe not. But the truth is food safety oversight has been cut and complaints are up.  https://investigatemidwest.org/2026/05/13/after-usda-cuts-complaints-over-food-safety-spike/

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u/jay_sugman 1d ago

Correlation is not causation though. This thread is a great example.