A new plague of illness caused by contaminated produce is sweeping across America. Many of the first several to get infected had recently eaten at Taco Bell. Taco Bell gets most of their iceberg lettuce from Taylor Farms, a food distributor with 13 locations in the USA. Apparently they purchase some lettuce from farms in Mexico and the problem seemed to be pinpointed. All Mexican lettuce sold by Taylor Farms was recalled. Problem is seemed to be resolved until the FDA admitted their testing of Taylor Farms lettuce gave a false positive for the cyclospora parasite that causes the problem. In the mean-time, the infection continues to spread and people are doing more laundry than they ought to. If you go back to Taco Bell and complain that their product made you sick, would you be OK with them giving you another bag full of tacos? No, of course not; that solution doesn’t really help you and you don’t know if the new tacos are not contaminated. If you need tacos, you’d at least go to a different restaurant. If bad, then to another and so on down the line. What if all these taco providers got their lettuce from the same source? That doesn’t mean the whole produce industry is bad, but you sure don’t want your lettuce to come from that source. I wouldn’t be surprised if Taylor Farms sales volumes go way down.
Similarly, BTEX in butane has always been a problem for extractors. If you run an extracting facility that has to scrap a run of extract because it tests hot for BTEX, you are out thousands of $. Better than shitting your pants, but not much. Should you be satisfied with your supplier replacing the solvent with another cylinder? Of course not, because it doesn’t really help; you are still out thousands of $ and have to trust that the new butane is not contaminated. If you need butane you’d at least go to another supplier. If bad, then another supplier and so on down the line. If all those suppliers get their butane from the same source, it doesn’t mean the whole industry is bad, but you sure don’t want your butane coming from that source. I wouldn’t be surprised if the source of the contaminated hydrocarbons sales volumes go way down.
Taco Bell sold customers contaminated lettuce and was very transparent about their source of the bad lettuce. Many providers of hydrocarbon solvents aren’t big on transparency. I don’t like Taco Bell and we buy instrument grade hydrocarbons only from Diversified. I have yet to soil myself or lose $ because of contamination issues.