Peanut Butter Supplier in Sticky Situation

If you knew your production line was polluted with dangerous bacteria, what would you do? How about if the initial tests showed contamination, but subsequent testing showed no contamination? Would you ship product that falls in that window? Would you undertake every measure to ensure there was no procedural or other lapse that is allowing for the contamination?

These are the questions FDA and CDC are surely asking Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) in the investigation of salmonella food safety crisis at the supplier's peanut butter production facility in Georgia. Early news is PCA had its supply tested in 2007, and results showed salmonella contamination. Further sampling came back negative for salmonella, and PCA continued to ship product.

Fast Forward. Salmonella bacteria have now been found in both opened and unopened containers at PCA's facility, and the Feds are pouring over the company's records to see where things went wrong.

In its defense, PCA issued a statement, saying, "PCA has cooperated fully with FDA from day one during the course of this investigation. We have shared with them every record they have asked for."

However, FDA has a slightly different take on the open-book status of PCA. Stephen Sundlof, director of FDA-CFSAN, said the agency had to rely on special authority provided by the post-9/11 Bioterrorism Act in order to obtain the records from PCA.

FDA reported its teams found at least 12 instances in the 2007-2008 time period where PCA became aware of salmonella contamination in its environmental samples. Yet the company still shipped product.

"This was clearly a violation of good manufacturing practices," Sundlof said, noting such release of known contaminated foods known for public consumption is contrary to public health law. "Foods are supposed to be produced under conditions that are not injurious to health."

Whether it's a hedge fund siphoning investors money away to fuel a ponzi scheme, pushing drug-containing weight-loss products as dietary supplements, or shipping products once tested positive for salmonella, this is quickly becoming the era of corporate responsibility and ethics nightmare. In fact, "responsibility" (or accountability) may be the keyword in business this year.

Stay up to date on FDA's investigation of PCA and the peanut butter salmonella situation at its special Web page.

Here's an interesting AP story on the testing conducted at PCA and other peanut butter manufacturers, including info on possible loopholes that allowed PCA to ship tainted goods: In peanut checks, gaps for salmonella to sneak by.