Consumer Protection Minister Priska Hinz (Die Grünen) called a scandal that occurred three years ago “not nice”.

At the time, she sat out the fact that her ministry had ignored an important e-mail from the Federal Office for Consumer Protection for eight days with freezing cold.

It warned of listeria on sausage from northern Hesse, which has been linked to the deaths of three people.

The current case, as it currently appears, is not of this caliber.

That's why the sixty-three-year-old will survive him in office, especially as the electoral term is drawing to a close anyway.

But one thing doesn't go together: on the one hand, Hinz is jubilant because a food company in southern Hesse was "closed in a flash" after Listeria was found on cucumbers.

On the other hand, she sees the need to act.

In the future, not only high-risk companies such as sausage producers, but also companies that process vegetables will be jointly controlled by two authorities.

So everything in the state's food surveillance, for which Hinz is responsible, is by no means as excellently regulated as the minister portrays it.

This is also due to the fact that the minister does not want her task as the highest technical supervisor to be understood in the comprehensive sense in which it is actually meant.

Hinz explains that in the southern Hessian case everything "worked extremely well" because "everyone reacted quickly".

One company was not checked for more than two years, so that finally products contaminated with Listeria were delivered, which can kill people with weak immune systems.

In duty

Hinz proudly points out that she has drawn the authorities' attention to their obligation to carry out operational controls with several decrees.

And she apparently thinks it would be enough to quickly identify violations and get the public prosecutor involved.

In fact, however, the minister, as the highest technical supervisor, has a duty to take preventive action and establish a system in which consumers can feel safe.

As the highest technical supervisor, the minister is “responsible for protecting the population from health risks”.

That's what it says on their home page.

So it is by no means enough to uncover the mistakes made by subordinate authorities when the child has already fallen into the well.

The primary task of the consumer protection minister is to prevent food scandals from the outset.

Hinz cannot be accused of not being able to do this in every single case.

But that she didn't understand her mission, very well.