Go to Jail, Go Directly to Jail
Infant formula makers scrutinised
A story that dominated food safety news in 2022 — the Abbott infant formula Cronobacter linked recall and fallout — is showing signs of becoming food fraud news, as the US Department of Justice gets involved.
Is anyone else getting Peanut Corporation of America vibes here?
Reminder: the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) caused a massive Salmonella outbreak in 2008 and 2009 with at least 714 illnesses and nine deaths. It resulted in the largest US food recall at the time, affecting 360 other food manufacturers, and almost 4,000 different products that contained PCA-sourced ingredients.
PCA had a history of failing customer audits and was famous in the industry for its serious sanitation problems. After the outbreak, the FBI and the FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations got involved and discovered that managers were deliberately concealing food safety problems from customers and the FDA, including shipping products they knew were contaminated and faking micro test results. The owner of the company was sentenced to 28 years in prison, his brother to 20 years and the quality assurance manager to 5 years. The plant managers got 3 years and 6 years each. Read more about the PCA story (and get sources) in Issue #40 of The Rotten Apple.
