A reader from Apple forwarded me a story of the Vermont Press Bureau that says a popular tour shuttered over terrorism concerns.

The story centers around an issue of establishing role-based access to production; only trusted people with a business need should be allowed access. An industrial maple syrup facility that supplies chain stores and big box retailers is the example given in Vermont.

Their dilemma was whether to spend money on role-based access controls that can control visitors within the production area or use existing ones at the perimeter that disallow visitors. They chose to cancel their tours rather than upgrade security controls.

“One of fallouts of those guidelines was to restrict access to food plants a lot more than they ever have been in past,” says Dave Fusaro, editor-in-chief at Food Processing, an industry trade magazine. “Maybe the biggest loss was the plant tour. Used to be you could bring a Boy Scout troop in and walk right through. That ain’t going to happen anymore.”

Maple Grove, which bottles about 12 million pounds of maple syrup a year, is a mainstay on tour-bus itineraries. Jones says the company welcomes close to 120,000 people annually to its St. Johnsbury factory. But access to major retailers like Walmart and chain grocery stores, Jones says, outweigh the benefits of the company’s popular tour.

Unsubstantiated fear tactics unfortunately appear to be behind this decision.

Frank Busta, director emeritus of the National Center for Food Protection and Defense, says the new guidelines aren’t an overreaction.

“Let me paint you a scenario,” he says. “If someone got to a vulnerable location and got something into 1,000 gallons of maple syrup that went out in six-ounce bottles, and that got distributed rapidly in some big supermarket chain — wow. What a catastrophe.”

That makes maple syrup seem like some kind of essential food that everyone is going to eat three times a day. Instead I can imagine 1,000 gallons of maple syrup sitting unused in pantries and closets all over America. Even one incident is tragic but hyperbole about the vulnerability and threat does not help.

Let us take as an assumption that industrialized additives such as High Fructose Corn Syrup and Trans Fats are controversial at best and proven to be harmful at worst. How much of that “something” is being “distributed rapidly in some big supermarket chain”?

Yes, what a real catastrophe that is happening today as opposed to a theoretical one from potential terrorists. Tens of millions of seriously unhealthy people suffering from a lack of security control. Where does the National Center for Food Protection and Defense stand on this issue?

Here is another scenario. Meat. There are small batch catering incidents

…the June 13, 2009 nuptials were part of a notorious trio of salmonella outbreaks caused by an unlicensed caterer who served tainted beef and noodle salad at two weddings and a family reunion.

The three incidents sickened 180 people, hospitalized 10 — and now serve as a warning about the dangers of foodborne illness from catered events.

There also are big batch meat poisoning cases. One of just nine major beef recalls in 2009 was the Christmas Eve E.coli O157:H7 incident that involved 248,000 pounds of beef.

At least 21 people in 16 states have fallen ill after eating contaminated meat pulled from restaurants last month as part of a beef recall.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that recalled National Steak and Poultry beef products have been linked to 21 E. coli food poisoning cases, which have resulted in at least nine people being hospitalized.

371,000 people are hospitalized and 5,700 die each year — almost twice the number from 9/11 — according to the CDC. Are food security experts taking this into account when they say we should worry about terrorism in the food supply?

Consider that 143 million pounds of beef was recalled in 2008 alone!

A quick scan of the Current Recalls and Alerts from the FSIS of the USDA shows a long list of beef, chicken and pork products. It seems fairly normal for a plant to operate with unsanitary and unsafe production until inspectors eventually trace harm back to it, and then the plant is shutdown with a warning sent out to tens of millions of consumers.

Thus, although the “post 9/11” terror scenario grabs people’s attention it really does not reflect the reality of risk and food security in America.

Consumers eat products laced with “something” seriously harmful to their health as a regular practice and meat products continue to be recalled with thousands killed every year.

Maple Grove reported 120,000 visitors annually yet how many incidents did they have with food poisoning let alone terrorism? Enforcing role-based access makes sense to counter an outsider threat such as a terrorist if it is real but what is the actual likelihood of this outsider threat?

The evidence actually points to insider threats (e.g. chemists trying to maximize shelf-life with non-food additives, industrialized and catered meat) as the far greater and more immediate threat to health and safety.