The Food and Drug Administration recently sent warning letters to a Nebraska dairy and a seafood processor in Thailand because inspectors found significant violations of U.S. food safety laws at their operations. Businesses have 15 days to respond in writing to the FDA after receiving a warning letter. If they don’t correct the violations, the FDA can take action up to and including shutting down operations. Dolezal Dairy — Pender, NE Inspectors found excessive antibiotic…

An audit of the control system in Thailand on poultry meat for export to Europe has found it has got worse in some areas since the last inspection in 2013. Auditors from the Directorate-General Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) visited one laboratory, five slaughterhouses and cutting plants and three meat preparation sites from Jan., 22 to Feb., 2 this year. These eight sites included six major exporters to EU, two of whom have been…

Opinion Every year at about this time–after it appears highly unlikely that our Colorado Rockies will take the National League West–I begin thinking about what type of year the rest of us are having. Worldwide the year’s top story is very likely to be South Africa’s worst in the world listeriosis outbreak with 1,060 laboratory-confirmed cases of listeriosis, including 216 deaths. But here in the good old US of A, it’s been Salmonella, Salmonella and…

Two-thirds of 30 European countries were routinely using whole genome sequencing in 2017 for national surveillance of at least one human pathogen, according to a survey. This figure is up from 16 countries in 2016 and none in 2013. A European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) report found 29 of the 30 countries surveyed said they are either using or planning to start genomic surveillance by 2019. The only exception was Cyprus. The…

Junior’s Smokehouse Processing Plant in El Campo, TX on Friday recalled approximately 690 pounds of ready-to-eat teriyaki beef jerky products, which the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) said may also contain pieces of hard metal, An extraneous material in a food product presents a health hazard situation with only a remote probability of adverse health consequences from the use of the product and requires a Class II recall. Junior’s Smokehouse…

Rochester, NY-based Zweigle’s Inc. late Thursday recalled approximately 6,082 pounds of ready-to-eat olive loaf pork products because sodium nitrite levels were over the regulatory limit, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). The elevated sodium nitrite levels present a health hazard situation where there is a only a remote probability of adverse health consequences from the use of the product, thereby making it a Class II recall. Zweigle’s produced…

A four-state outbreak of E. coli O26 with 18 illnesses including six hospitalizations and one death was reported late Thursday by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which issued a Food Safety Alert about the incident. CDC’s alert followed by several hours the announcement by Cargill Meat Solutions of a recall of beef produced in Colorado that was likely contaminated with E. coli O26. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection…