THE FOLLOWING IS A NEWS-GAZETTE STORY BY JENNIFER BAILEY
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DANVILLE — The local Quaker Oats plant that closed in June may have been contaminated with salmonella for as long as four years, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
In a letter to parent company PepsiCo last month following a recall of millions of granola bars and cereal products, the FDA said investigators found the presence of the bacteria in the Danville plant, as well as “serious violations of the current good manufacturing practice, hazard analysis and risk-based preventive controls for human food regulation.”
The swab that detected salmonella was collected from a crack in the floor during a December 2023 inspection, the FDA said.
Two weeks later during a conference call with the agency, Quaker Oats “acknowledged it had identified historical isolates of (salmonella) in your facility since at least 2020,” the FDA’s letter stated. “These findings may indicate that the same strain of (salmonella) has survived since 2020.”
In a statement Thursday, Quaker Oats said it took action upon receiving the FDA’s lengthy letter, which was sent June 12 but not made public until this week.
“We took immediate steps to ensure consumer safety, permanently closed the site, and we are decommissioning all the equipment,” Quaker Oats’ statement noted.
Quaker Oats informed the agency on Dec. 14 of its decision to recall specific granola bars and cereals “due to the potential of being contaminated with salmonella” but didn’t go far enough, the FDA said in its letter.
“Your corrective action procedures did not ensure appropriate action was taken, when necessary, to reduce the likelihood that environmental contamination will recur, as required … when you detected salmonella in your facility’s environment,” the letter went on to say.
“You found salmonella cubana in 13 environmental samples since June 2022, including on Sept. 7, 2023, and Oct. 4, 2023. … Finding (salmonella) with the same pattern over this period of time indicates you likely had a resident strain, and you should have developed your corrective actions accordingly.
“Your root cause analysis identified the leaking HVAC pipe as the source of water in the area, but a leaking pipe would not be the source of salmonella,” the FDA wrote. “… It is essential to identify the areas of the food processing plant where salmonella can survive and grow to take such corrective actions as necessary to eradicate the organism by rendering these areas unable to support the survival and growth of the organism and prevent the organism from being re-established in such sites.”
The FDA said it was notified April 3 that the facility — and the 500-plus jobs it supported in Danville — would close.
“However,” it said, “you have other manufacturing facilities and should evaluate if such corrective actions are necessary in your other plants to reduce the likelihood of a similar event.”
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