Federal food safety officials have placed a hold on canned goods in an Augusta processing facility until the company runs tests to verify their safety.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration closed Castleberry's Food Co. last week after inspectors found that machinery on some processing lines wasn't operating properly, says Stephen Sundlof, director of the agency's Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition.

FDA officials say there's a large margin of safety, and have not issued any consumer advisory. The hold applies only to products still in the plant. There has been no product recall and no reports of illness.

"At this point, we have no evidence the product is not safe," Sundlof said.

Castleberry's senior vice president Dave Melbourne echoed that assessment.

"Products are safe for consumers to eat," he said in an e-mailed response. "We are working closely with the FDA to answer its questions and hope for a quick resolution."

The FDA closed the plant 10 days after a Feb. 27 inspection. The delay occurred because it took several days to get the suspension letter drafted and reviewed, according to the agency.

Castleberry's was involved in a massive recall of canned hot dog chili sauce, hash and other products last summer, tied to eight cases of botulism. As a condition of allowing the plant to reopen last fall, the FDA prohibited Castleberry's from using the equipment that produced those canned goods. Operations resumed on other processing lines last October.

The latest hold, triggered when the FDA suspended a temporary emergency operating permit, is precautionary and intended to give the company time to verify the products were properly cooked, Sundlof says. That permit was issued last September and allowed Castleberry's to resume operations after the botulism recall.

Maintenance issues on processing lines were tied to the botulism outbreak and cropped up again in the Feb. 27 inspection, Sundlof says. The agency had last checked the plant in October, as it was starting to resume operations. The February inspection was its first since the plant was fully operational.

Because Castleberry's operates numerous kinds of machinery for canning foods, installed at different times and in varying ways, maintenance is more complicated, Sundlof said. Most canneries use just one type of machine.

The company must come up with another corrective action plan before the agency would allow it to resume operations, he said.

"We think a lot of the problem just stemmed from the fact that they have too complicated an operation and they need to simplify it in order to maintain it," Sundlof said.