By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com
April 10, 2009
The Texas Department of State Health Services has fined a subsidiary
of Peanut Corporation of America for violations of food safety
regulations. The state levied $14.6 million in administrative
penalties against Plainview Peanut Co., LLC.
The alleged violations include unsanitary conditions, product contamination, illnesses linked to consumption of peanuts from the plant and operating for almost four years without a food manufacturers license from the state.
DSHS sent a "notice of violation" letter to the company yesterday. The company can accept and pay the penalties, ask for an informal conference with DSHS to discuss the allegations and penalties or request a formal hearing before an administrative law judge to dispute the allegations or penalties.
Any money collected will go the state's general revenue account, the agency said.
On February 12 DSHS ordered the facility to officially close and to recall all products shipped since it opened in March 2005.
PCA, the parent company, was at the center of the extensive peanut product recall in the first three months of this year. A nationwide outbreak of salmonella was traced to PCA's Georgia peanut processing plant.
At least nine deaths are attributed to the tainted peanuts and more than 600 people were sickened. Food companies were forced to recall and dispose of hundreds of millions of dollars of food products containing peanuts and peanut products.
The large number of products and brands recalled already, and the large quantities of some products recalled, makes this one of the largest food recalls ever in the United States.
