Pick up today’s edition of just about any major daily and you’ll find more than you wanted to read about food producers, and the auditors who are supposed to hold them in check, behaving poorly.  Try Stephanie Armour’s article, or this from the AP, just for starters.  The upshot is that the companies that participated in the food safety audit of Jensen Farms, the company that produced cantaloupes that have killed 31 people since August, failed miserably.  See Third Party Auditing Industry Indicted for more. 

Here are a few more examples of food companies behaving badly:

  • FDA Warning Letter to Greencore OARS LLC for the presence of Listeria in the processing facility, and for other serious food safety violations.
  • FDA Warning Letter to Jang Soo Farm Inc. d/b/a “Rainier Sprouts”:  During the inspection, FDA collected two samples — consisting of various mung beans, rodent excreta pellets, rodent hair, old nesting material, and rodent-gnawed packaging material — from your facility that confirmed the presence and activity of rodents and insects. Our investigators documented insanitary conditions and practices that contribute directly or indirectly to possible contamination of your sprouts with filth and pathogens. Accordingly, sprouts grown in your facility are adulterated within the meaning of Section 402(a)(4) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) [21 U.S.C. § 342(a)(4)] because they have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have been contaminated with filth or rendered injurious to health.”
  • FDA Warning Letter to Homeneeds Samamish, Inc.: FDA’s laboratory tests of samples collected from your warehouse and various lots of food product confirmed the findings of rodent excreta pellets (REPs), rodent hair, and rodent urine stained and gnawed packaging throughout your facility.
  • FDA Warning Letter to Gulfish LP: Failure to have a HACCP plan, which is incumbent upon seafood processors.
  • FDA Warning Letter to Li Da Seafood Trading Inc.:  Failure to have a seafood processing HACCP plan, as well as failure to monitor temperature and sanitation, failures in recordkeeping, and a failure to do just about everything necessary to protect consumers from dangerous bacteria and viruses.