State to shift focus of food-plant inspectors

State health officials Thursday summoned virtually all of the state’s inspectors of food-processing plants for a meeting in Atlanta, as concerns mounted regarding the state’s oversight of the peanut butter plant linked to the national salmonella outbreak.

Oscar Garrison, an assistant commissioner at the Agriculture Department, confirmed that the meeting brought together almost the entire force of some 60 inspectors, who regularly inspect food-processing plants such as the peanut butter plant in Blakely. They also inspect supermarkets and grocery stores.

He said the inspectors will shift their emphasis from checking for outdated products toward more food-safety issues in processing plants. They were also provided with additional training, he said.

Products from the Georgia plant, owned by Peanut Corp. of America, have been linked to a salmonella outbreak that sickened more than 500 people in 43 states and has been linked to the deaths of eight people.

Garrison said the inspectors will still inspect markets for some outdated items such as milk, eggs, dairy, meat, baby formula and prepackaged food. But they will spend less time checking for outdated items such as dry cereal and canned goods, which he said will place more responsibility on the merchants and consumers.

This change will save upwards of a hour or more in each inspection, time that can be used in their inspection of food-processing plants and other food-safety duties.

Garrison said the inspectors also received training to go over policies and procedures, which he said was routine. He said that he believes the inspectors were already well trained but refreshing and bringing them up to date was a good practice.

A spokesman for a food-safety group has said the state should have been tougher on the Blakely plant after inspections found problems with sanitation there.

“It’s obvious there was a sanitation issue with the plant, ” and there should have been tougher action from state if not federal health officials, said Tony Corbo, a legislative representative with Food & Water Watch, a Washington watchdog nonprofit group. “These violations were recurring.”

Garrison said the state inspections found largely “housekeeping” issues and that the plant was generally clean and in compliance with regulations.

A federal report released Wednesday on the salmonella outbreak fueled outrage and calls for a criminal probe into the South Georgia plant.

The report from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration detailed how the Blakely peanut butter plant failed to control contamination and retested tainted products before shipping them to market.

Georgia legislators vowed to sharpen laws regulating food-processing plants, forcing them to do internal testing and to report those findings to the state.

The state Agriculture Department is continuing its investigation of the Blakely plant.

“We’re still down there, gathering information in the area,” Garrison said.

Garrison said he did not know the name of the outside lab the FDA said retested products from the plant after they tested positive with salmonella. After the batches of peanut butter and peanut paste were declared safe by the outside lab, the company put them on the market, federal officials said.

Garrison responded to criticism that the state inspectors should have detected problems at the plant, saying when Georgia inspectors visited the plant they took a “snapshot in time” and conditions at the plant could have changed afterward.

“You have to remember that we have 16,000 firms that we inspect in the state, and 60 inspectors, who stay on average three hours at the site,” said Garrison. “The FDA was at the plant for 14 days.”

For a list of recalled products call 1-800-232-4636 or visit this FDA site.

— The Associated Press contributed to this report.