Modeling Impact of Food Recall

Acspalding

November 04, 2019 19:13

Hi,

I'm trying to model the economic impact of the 2018 romaine lettuce e.coli outbreak on California counties. During the outbreak, the CDC ordered romaine to be removed from the shelves for a period. I have data on romaine sales by county as well as industry data on romaine shipments by county. My thought is to model this as a change in industry output using decrease in shipments over the period during which the product was not allowed to be sold, but I'm not sure if this is the best event type. Would it be better to use change in commodity output? If so, would it be best to use industry shipment data or consumer sales? Thanks.

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Candi Clouse, PhD
December 02, 2019 22:01

Hi there!

There are a few ways to model the change in sales. You could model a decrease in romaine sales through an Industry Output Event, but given that you know the actual commodity, it would be better to model it through a Commodity Event. Retail sales might not capture the entire value chain (farmer > transportation > wholesale > retail).

The interesting thing to consider here, however, is that these lower sales would likely be offset by sales in other varieties of lettuce or produce. I would suggest that you consider modeling the losses to the farmers specifically by estimating prices for the lost shipments.

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