The needles-in-strawberries crisis has caused a “massive” jump in demand for product recall covers from food producers.

Major broker Gallagher says the crisis, which almost brought the fresh fruit industry to its knees, has completely changed the views of businesses on where risks might come from.

Earlier this week police in Queensland arrested and charged a farm supervisor who they allege put needles in strawberries out of spite.

“I don’t think anyone would have thought someone would tamper with food in this way,” Gallagher National Head of Food Production Stephen Elms told insuranceNEWS.com today.

“The thought that somebody could damage your produce in this way has changed everyone’s views on the need to protect themselves against it. So we are seeing a massive uptake in product recall policies.”

Many farmers whose produce was not impacted by the sabotage nevertheless found themselves caught up in the nationwide scare, which forced them to sell their produce at a loss during the peak sale season.

The needles-in-strawberries crisis is believed to have also sparked a number of copycat incidents.

It has also seen insurers place more stringent criteria for product recall cover. They now want clients to demonstrate there are internal risk management processes in place before underwriting the risk.

Mr Elms says insurers are saying clients should “have more skin in the game” to minimise the risk of sabotage. “It’s really pushing the clients to make sure that their internal risk management processes are as robust as possible.

“If there’s potentially no internal risk management-type processes in place, they may not be able to buy cover, and even if they can the price and the deductible will be very high.”