If you haul cantaloupes out of the Rocky Ford area of Colorado during the 
summer, better look for something else this year. Thanks to the 2011 outbreak of listeria at Jensen Farms that killed 32 people and sickened others in 28 states, melon shipments from this area will be much less this year. Acreage from this district in southeastern Colorado will amount to only 500 acres, compared to about 2,000 acres of cantaloupe each year before the disasterous outbreak.
The Colorado cantaloupe industry has taken steps to improve their food safety programs, including having safety audits by the Colorado Department of Agriculture. Still, it’s too late, the damage has been done. The whole cantaloupe industry in the United States suffered because of the lax safety standards of a company, not to mention lives lost and ruined. As consumers become more confident, cantaloupe shipments will return to Rocky Ford as they had in the past, and other shipping areas around the country will recover as well.
It’s kind of like having one careless driver acting like a an idiot in an 18 wheeler. The whole trucking industry’s image suffers — deserved or not.