Food Safety Outbreak: Peanut Butter Crackers
The Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) plant in Blakely, Georgia was the source of a salmonella outbreak that sickened nearly 600 and killed nine people in spring 2009, but its safety problems had been going on for years.
In 2007 and 2008, the company sold more than 30 truckloads of peanut butter crackers to the U.S. Government for the federal school lunch program; they continued to ship the crackers as internal tests (which the company did not report to any health authorities) found a dozen times that salmonella was showing up in its products.
FDA inspectors had not been to the plant since 2001; after the 2009 salmonella outbreak was traced to the plant, inspectors found roaches, ceiling leaks, and four strains of salmonella.
The company instituted a recall, but soon decided to sell some product to manufacturers of cookies, crackers and ice cream, that had earlier been declared tainted. According to an email released at a congressional hearing, PCA’s owner told employees to “Turn them loose,” referring to boxes of peanut butter that had previously been taken off the market.
"I've been doing food safety for a long time, and I don't think I've seen an outbreak or a reported set of behaviors by a company that better demonstrates the fundamental problems of food safety," said former top Food and Drug Administration official Michael R. Taylor.
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Sources
Layton, L. 2009. Suspect Peanuts Sent to Schools: Despite Salmonella, Firm Sold to USDA. Washington Post. 2009, accessed July 26, 2010.
FDA: Peanut Plant Knowingly Sent Bad Products, posted February 6, 2009.
Salmonella found at Ga. Plant as early as 2006; by MSNBC.com staff and wire service reports, updated 2/11/2009, accessed July 29, 2010.
Prepared Statement of J. Martin Kanan, President and CEO, Kanan Enterprises, Solon Ohio (pdf), before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, Committee on Energy and Commerce, U.S. House of Representatives, March 19, 2009.
