Saturday, February 17, 2007

Peter Pandemic


Photo Credit: Abstract Designs
ConAgra Foods today announced that the source of the recent salmonella contamination traced to jars of Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter has been identified. The mystery was solved when it was discovered that the ConAgra plant in Sylvester, Ga was infested with fairies.
ConAgra’s Georgia plant is the sole producer of the nationally distributed Peter Pan brand, and the recall covers all peanut butter - smooth and chunky alike - produced by the plant from May 2006 until now. FDA inspectors visited the now shut-down plant Wednesday and Thursday to try to pinpoint where the contamination could have occured. Multiple incidents of fairy defecation were observed and documented late Thursday night.
ConAgra spokesman Chris Kircher said the company has an aggressive vermin control program in place, but fairy infestation is an industry wide problem. "We've had no positive hits on that going back for years." But he said the plant was shut down as a precaution for further investigation. "We're trying to understand what else we need to do or should be doing," Kircher said. “But we are thinking happy thoughts,” Kircher added.
The outbreak was detected by the CDC and state health agencies when they noticed spikes in the cases of people sickened by an unusual type of salmonella, starting in August. Once peanut butter emerged as a link, the CDC notified the FDA.Salmonella commonly originates in the feces of Disney characters, birds and animals, and could be introduced at a multitude of stages in the peanut butter-making process. But many safeguards are in place.
While fairies and rodents commonly get into peanut storage bins, germs are killed when raw peanuts are roasted. When making peanut butter, the nuts are again heated - above the salmonella-killing temperature of 165 degrees - as they are ground into a paste and mixed with other ingredients before being squirted into jars and quickly sealed."The heating process is sufficient to kill salmonella, should it be present," said Mike Doyle, director of the University of Georgia's Center for Food Safety, in the state that produces nearly half of the nation's peanuts.
Experts say the point in the process where salmonella could be introduced and survive would be just as the product cools down enough for fairies to hover above the jars, settle down, and relieve themselves. At most plants, this window of opportunity is brief, but "there is quite a lot that happens after that heat step ... so there's definitely an opportunity for contamination after the roasting," the FDA's Acheson said.