FBI Raids Salmonella Peanut Butter Plant
FBI agents raided the Georgia plant suspected in the current salmonella peanut butter outbreak that has been linked to 600 illnesses and eight deaths in 43 states. The company is accused of knowingly shipping the tainted products.
CNN says the plant has been sealed off by federal agents and the company, Peanut Butter Corporation of America, is not answering their phones.
A "senior congressional aid" told reporters that the FBI also had warrants for the company's headquarters in Lynchburg, VA.
FBI raids peanut butter plant suspected in outbreak [CNN]
FBI raids Ga. plant at center of salmonella scare [AP]
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Comments:
It's PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!
PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!
PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME!
Where he at?
Where he at?
...
If I operated a jelly factory, or a chocolate factory, I'd be feeling quite nervous right about now.
I give it a year before we're importing vast amounts of PB from "Peanut Corp. of Latin America"...
@rpm773: You are such a pessamist. It is all in how you market this fiasco. Remember the 1980's ad for Peanut Butter cups...Hey, you put chocolate in my salmonella laced peanut butter! Well you put salmonella laced peanut better on my chocolate. Two great tastes that go good together.
After thinking of that, my mouth is watering!
All manufacturers need to do is place one of those starbusts on packaging that say "New and Improved - Now fortified with Salmonella!" This will help push products off the shelf, and draw attention away from the fact that they secretly cut the net weight of the product by 50% while keeping the price the same.
/sarcasm
Pardon the rural saying, but this seems like closing the barn door after the horses ran out.
That's nuts!
So, how much money did we all save by reducing government enforcement activities and reinterpreting all regs to allow food companies to police themselves?
Oh wait, none. It probaly cost the economy and us more by lost sales, recalls, lawsuits, investigations, and remedial measures.
@ApologeticBale_GitEmSteveDave: I'm imagining Mr Peanut-like characters scurrying like cockroaches as they burst through the warehouse doors.
No doubt they are taking the problem seriously.
@ApologeticBale_GitEmSteveDave: Would the urban equivalent be putting the lid on after your latte spilled?
@hairyseaword: @hairyseaword: Actually technically, as legumes, peanuts are closer to peas than nuts, but "that's peas" doesn't quite have the same ring to it.
Funny. I just called the number I found in google for Peanut Corp of America in Lynchburg.. they answered..
I'm sure it was an honest mistake. Bwahahahaaha!!!
Almost time to bail out the peanut processing industry.
WHAT TOOK THEM SO DAMN LONG? IN china they'd have lopped someone's head off by now! they had plenty of time to shred and delete all the freaking evidence.
I got a letter from Costco yesterday that the trail mix I bought six months ago might have been tainted.
I've long since eaten all of it. Don't remember any crazy intestinal issues... but then, I have a cast iron stomach.
Time to stock up on Reese's.
It took the FBI just long enough to act for them to shred reams of documentation. I still hope someone goes to jail for this.
Didn't they find that Peanut Corp had an unlicensed plant operating in Texas or something?
Right now, with that headline, I am imagining a SWAT team task force bursting through the doors and rappelling down 2nd story windows with guns drawn. Everyone in a screaming panic hitting the floor and people running off in a desperate attempt to flee the scene. I don't think it was that dramatic, but the term used implied such. Anyways, its a funny image to see in my head, people swallowing peanut butter trying to hide the evidence like you see on cop movies with drug dealers.
@skizsrodt:
"Everyone in a screaming panic hitting the floor"
Oooh... Wasn't that where the salmonella was supposed to have been? Now there's some poetic justice.
"...people swallowing peanut butter trying to hide the evidence..."
Ditto... but only if it was Management doing it...
Eight deaths in 43 states?! That's some serious acrobatics right there.
*rimshot*
@MadameX: Was there peanut paste in your trail mix, or are you talking about a separate recall? We actually got a letter from Sam's Club stating that the peanut butter cookies we bought 3 months ago might have been infected. No problems for me either, I think some companies might just be erring on the side of caution.
@I_Elohel: Yep. How long has this been in the news.
How long have they had to destroy incriminating documents?
They probably weren't answering the phones because they were in a corporate meeting planning their defense, "DENY DENY DENY, if necessary, I dont' recall".
Ha..took them long enough. I see another Federal agency that 'just don't work' lets get rid of it...ha
I got a call from Sam's Club, not had a card in well over a year, that we had purchsed Kashi TLC granola, yea, thanks, 2 years later. Ya think its still on the shelf? ha
The FDA is so crummy, that the FBI has to do its job.....wow...
The FDA requires severe restructuring.
Then again, the NSA was so bad that they had to make the DHS to do its job.....and the DHS does a really crummy job...
That is just a scary name- "Peanut corporation of America". Sounds like something you would find in a dicatatorship. If you wants peanuts, you get them fromthe peanut corporation! The fact that we get so much of a product from one source is awful.
Michael Pollan argues this in his books. When you buy local, you know where your food comes from, and the chance of an outbreak like this is minimalized because the food isn't being distributed far and wide.
This company defers to GREED otherwise; they would have immediately recalled all peanut butter items and began a discovery process. I blame the FDA for their lack of intervention with their lack of action after the first reported salmonella case.
@Plates:
Peanut Corporation of America is a family-owned and operated business since 1976 based in Lynchburg, VA and operating facilities in Blakely, GA, Suffolk, VA and Plainview, TX. The company prides itself on the quality and freshness of its products and strives constantly to maintain an environment in compliance with federal, state and local regulations and guidelines to provide a clean, safe product.
All this talk about peanut butter has made me so hungry for peanut butter I am eating a PB & J sandwich right now
@I_Elohel: My thoughts exactly.
FBI - 0. As if they actually gave a shit anyways.
Who gets to raid the FBI for being late on a huge salmonella expose?
Gee if the FBI could do this to a peanut co. maybe they could do the same for Bush.....
So the FBI just became the TSA for the FDA?
Just want to be clear on this.
Does anyone out there know exactly what the pin heads at the Food & Drug Administration do?
What's the point. If any of these companies had a sliver of intelligence, they would have removed all traces of salmonella and have removed any records of knowing of it's existence.
It's a little too late, imho.