FDA Closes Sunland Peanut Plant

No more peanut butter will be produced in the Sunland peanut plant based in Portales, N.M., says the U.S. Food and Drug Adminstration.

On Monday, and for the first time ever, the FDA used its authority to suspend the registration of peanut butter processor Sunland Inc. of Portales, N.M., the plant connected to a Salmonella outbreak that has sickened at least 41 people across 20 states, reports Food Safety News.

Locally, Sunland products were sold at Fresh & Easy as well as Trader Joe's in Laguna Niguel.

"Without a proper FDA registration, Sunland — the country’s largest organic peanut butter producer — would be prohibited from selling any products within America," the report states.

The FDA was granted the authority to suspend registrations when the U.S. Food Safety Modernization Act was signed into law on January 4, 2011.

The agency cited Sunland’s recent outbreak and its history of health violations as the reason for this suspension. The company has had trouble with Salmonella for several years, including multiple instances of environmental contamination from at least nine different Salmonella strains.

“A review of Sunland Inc.’s product testing records showed that 11 product lots of nut butter showed the presence of Salmonella between June 2009 and September 2012,” an emailed FDA statement read. “Between March 2010 and September 2012, at least a portion of 8 product lots of nut butter that Sunland Inc.’s own testing program identified as containing Salmonella was distributed by the company to consumers.”

During an inspection of the plant beginning in September, the FDA found Salmonella in 28 environmental samples, 13 nut butter product samples, and one sample of raw peanuts. Four of those nut butter product samples contained Salmonella Bredeney, the strain at the center of the current outbreak.

Sunland has denied shipping any contaminated product to consumers, saying anything that tested positive for pathogens was destroyed.

“At no time in its 24-year history has Sunland, Inc. released for distribution any products that it knew to be potentially contaminated with harmful microorganisms,” President and CEO Jimmie Shearer wrote in a statement on the company’s website.

You can read more at Food Safety News here.

Additionally, read more here on Patch about the peanut recalls and products affected.