Salmonella Outbreak-Health Inspectors Find MILDEW in Peanut Butter Plant
Salmonella Outbreak-Health Inspectors Find MILDEW in Peanut Butter Plant that has sickened close to 500 people and is the possible link to 7 deaths. Inspectors found mildew on a plant ceiling and other problems last year at the peanut butter producing plant in Georgia that has been linked to the salmonella outbreak. This is according to reports released Monday, by the state Department of Agriculture.
Peanut Corporation of America has stopped production at the Blakely plant and launched a nationwide recall of peanut butter and peanut paste made there after July 1, 2008 until January 2009.
The owner of the Blakely, Georgia, plant, which is Virginia based Peanut Corporation of America, AKA/PCA, described the problems as “relatively minor and for the most part corrected on site.” Yet disspite this claim, The New York Times, reported Monday that Georgia agriculture inspection reports from 2006 and 2007 depicted a series of sanitation lapses in the Blakely plant.
Citing an inspection report from August 23, 2007, the Times noted that no less than three incidences in which “food-contact surfaces” were “not properly cleaned and sanitized.”
PCA responded tho the New York Times article by releasing a statement saying, “When the observations were noted during inspections by the Georgia Department of Agriculture, corrective action was taken immediately where possible and subsequently when immediate action was not possible.”
PCA states that the peanut butter and peanut paste made at the Blakely plant were sold in bulk to manufacturers, and that the recall does not involve any peanut butter jars sold directly to consumers. But, this does not let the public off…there are more than 125 products that include peanut butter or peanut paste, including Trader Joe’s celery with peanut butter packs and nutrition bars from Clif Bar, NutriSystem and Luna, have been recalled in connection with the PCA’s recall.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has counted nearly 500 cases of salmonella illnesses in 43 states from the most recent outbreak, and says the bacterial infection might have contributed to seven deaths.
For more information about the Peanut Butter Salmonella Outbreak, go to CNN News.
Here are some more BBAC posts about “Salmonella Outbreak-Health Inspectors Find MILDEW in Peanut Butter Plant:”
Salmonella-Peanut Butter Recall of 2009
2009 Peanut Butter Salmonella Typhimurium Outbreak-Per The FDA
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I just have one question “How often do they inspect these plants and even if they inspect these plants and find problems do they close them down and go back to find out if the problem has been fixed or do they believe they fix them on their own?
I know I said I just had one question but it develped into more than one.
The Health Dept does come around and do inspections and it gives them a time limit to fix what is wrong…but unless they go under a certain percent level. They do not close them down. There are a lot of ways to contaminate a product.
This facility had mold on the ceiling. They paint over it…it is still there it comes through…
Not so long ago people did not wear hair, eye, mouth guards or gloves.
You should be alright Carol, just do not eat anything with peanut butter in it out side of your home as regular peanut butter is ok.
The last peanut butter scare was with Peter Pan peanut butter. That has been corrected.
Smiles,
Sharon
~The Baby Boomer Queen~