My name is Sandra Mitchell. I spent fourteen years as a HACCP compliance officer for one of the largest cold storage and distribution networks in Canada.
My job was to make sure the food that left our warehouses and arrived at your grocery store was safe to eat. I ran contamination audits. I signed off on safety protocols. I inspected facilities that stored millions of pounds of produce, dairy, and meat.
I knew exactly what it took to keep food safe inside a cold storage environment.
I knew exactly what was happening inside your home refrigerator.
The breaking point came when my father was hospitalized.
He's seventy-two. Lives with my mother in the same house I grew up in. They cook every meal at home. They keep a clean kitchen. They've had a box of baking soda in their fridge for as long as I can remember.
Last spring, a storm knocked out their power for three days. My mother cleaned the fridge when the power came back. Threw away the spoiled food. Wiped everything down. Put a fresh box of baking soda on the shelf.
She thought she'd handled it.
Three weeks later, my father was rushed to the emergency room with severe gastroenteritis. He's seventy-two — the dehydration alone landed him on IV fluids. His doctor traced the source back to leftovers from their fridge — leftovers that had looked and smelled perfectly fine when he ate them.
He spent three days in the hospital.
I am a food safety professional. I have spent fourteen years keeping commercial food safe. And my own father ended up in the ER from a contaminated refrigerator that I — professionally, specifically, without any doubt — knew was unprotected.
I knew what was growing in there. I knew baking soda couldn't stop it. I knew the power outage had turned that fridge into a contamination incubator.
And I hadn't said a word.
That's when I decided to stop staying quiet.