FDA says Basic Food Flavors knew plant was contaminated with salmonella

[depakid]

Source: Washington Post

The company at the heart of a growing recall of processed foods knew that its plant was contaminated with salmonella but continued to make a flavoring and sell it to foodmakers around the country, according to inspectors at the Food and Drug Administration. Managers at Basic Food Flavors of Las Vegas learned on Jan. 21 that samples taken a week earlier from their Nevada facility tested positive for salmonella, a potentially deadly bacterium, but they kept shipping their product to foodmakers, according to FDA inspection records.

The company makes hydrolyzed vegetable protein, or HVP, a flavor enhancer used in a wide variety of processed foods, from potato chips to sweet and sour tofu. The additive, which comes as a powder or a paste, is mixed into foods to give them a meaty or savory flavor -- similar to the use of monosodium glutamate.

Basic Food Flavors tested surfaces near food-processing equipment throughout its plant twice in January and once in February, and each time the samples showed salmonella contamination, according to FDA records. The company continued to ship products and to make more HVP without cleaning the plant or the equipment in a way that would have minimized contamination, the records said.

"The FDA is reviewing the evidence in association with the current inspection of Basic Food Flavors to determine the appropriate regulatory response," FDA spokeswoman Meghan Scott said. It is illegal to knowingly sell food products that are contaminated with salmonella.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/09/AR2010030903467.html

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That sort of thing tends to happen when the Justice Department fails to hold companies (like Peanut Corp) accountable for their behavior.

[DJ13]

1. Time for a test of the death penalty for a corporate person

[earcandle]

2. Agreed!

[groundloop]

5. Damn straight, corporations wanted the rights of personhood, well there are responsibilities too !!!

Like following the law, and the possibility of jail time if you don't.

[depakid]

6. Peanut Corp went bankrupt, but the managers and executives are hiding behind the corporate veil

despite knowingly selling contaminated products that killed 9 people, made tens of thousands violently ill and damaged countless businesses at the worst possible time.

And no one has been indicted, despite mountains of damning evidence- much of it in their own words.

[heli]

3. There should be a criminal investigation

The company management knowingly broke federal law, namely, the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

[Supersedeas]

14. Corporate America gets another free pass

[KILL THE WISE ONE]

4. needs more then just a fine

[1776Forever]

7. If you or I would serve someone food that we knew was tainted we would be convicted & jailed!

:grr: Damn!

[thecrow]

8. The Chinese executed the guy who sold that tainted baby milk

that was full of the melamine to pump up the protein in the milk that killed all those babies.
Just sayin'
:eyes:

[ronnie624]

11. I remember the words of those posters

who were shitting on the entire nation of China during that episode, using it as an excuse to vent their latent jingoism. I can't wait to see what they have to say about this.

[bertman]

9. No surprise here. I just watched the first half of "Food, Inc". One of the stats was the

number of food plant inspections in 1972 which was something in the thousands, compared with the number in a year during the Bush administration which was 194 or some such shit. Plus, BushCo's top officials in the pertinent federal agencies were former CORPORATE food industry lobbyists and heads of their trade associations.

Rec.

[pundaint]

12. Everybody: watch Food Inc. It is an important eye-opener.

If you have Netflix, it's available online.

[pipoman]

10. On the up side

the bulletin I received a few days ago included mainly products which would be cooked before being served. None of the products I use were on the list, but I do use Minor's soup bases, just none of the effected flavors..

[Hubert Flottz]

13. "the appropriate regulatory response,"

Fine the crooks about 1% of the money they made killing people.

[KamaAina]

15. "similar to the use of monosodium glutamate."

HVP contains monosodium glutamate (MSG). :dunce: