New York Times Posts PCA's Third Party Audits
Reporters Michael Moss and Andrew Martin today posted a copy of March 27, 2008 and April 29, 2008 third-party audits done at PCA’s Blakely, GA facility.
In their story, “Food Safety Problems Slip Past Private Inspectors,” Moss and Martin report that the inspector for the March audit was an expert in fresh produce, and quote industry expert Craig Wilson of Costco as doubting the expertise of the auditor’s employer, the American Institute of Baking:
“The American Institute of Baking is bakery experts,” said R. Craig Wilson, the top food safety official at Costco. “But you stick them in a peanut butter plant or in a beef plant, they are stuffed.”
The AIB Report notes that the most recent regulatory inspection had been done three months earlier, on December 14, 2007, by the Georgia Department of Agriculture, Consumer Protection Division. The Report states at p. 7, item 16, “No violations were noted.”
An April 29-30, 2008 audit by NSF Cook & Thurber also accompanies the story. That audit gave the plant a passing grade, but noted that plant management “is shorthanded as they have been without a Quality Assurance Manager since December, 2007.”
The Cook & Thurber audit also comments in the section on Facilities and Equipment, where several minor defects are noted, that “Peanut products produced at this facility are a direct consumable product without further treatment by the consumer. Considerations as a Ready-To-Eat Product need to be kept in mind for the production and storage environment.”
Of interest for follow up is the plant’s HACCP program. The AIB audit reports that a HACCP program “had been developed and implemented for all processes and product lines.” (page 6, item 11). Cook & Thurber’s audit reports, however, that “there is not a documented detail of Hazard Analysis for each of the process steps.” (Section B, No. 2).
Also, Cook & Thurber reported that although the Ready-To-Eat Operational Area “must be separated and effectively isolated from other operations,” via use of positive room air pressure, in fact “plant air is negative bringing outside air into an area where Ready-To-Eat products that have already been through a kill step are exposed to the plant environment.” (Section C, Item 4).
The final report on these audits will have to await a determination of where the contamination came from and how it ended up in finished product. Until then, we do not know the significance of these findings – which were irrelevant and which, if any, were wrong and represent a missed opportunity to protect the public health.
