DEL.ICIO.USPeanut inspection system filled with holes
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, March 08, 2009
Georgia’s food inspectors had rules for butchering alligators. They had procedures for the proper handling of “feral swine.”
But only since last month has the inspectors’ manual told them specifically how to ensure the safe processing of a more everyday fare: peanuts.
CURTIS COMPTON / ccompton@ajc.com
The quality of food processing inspections is under scrutiny since the salmonella outbreak thought to have begun at Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely. Here a pest control employee checks a rat trap at a neighboring plant.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution examined reports of the more than 200 state inspections of Georgia peanut processing plants since 2006, as well as manuals, personnel files, congressional testimony and documents from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The AJC obtained the material through state and federal open records laws.
Other information came from interviews with peanut company executives, state officials, and former federal regulators, among others.
• For all the latest developments on the peanut crisis and the salmonella outbreak, with an updated list of recalled items, plus background on the scare, go to the AJC's special report: ajc.com/peanuts. Recent headlines:
• Metro and state news
The state Agriculture Department inserted the new guidelines after a fatal outbreak of salmonella poisoning was traced to a southwest Georgia peanut processing plant. The outbreak exposed the agriculture agency to unprecedented scrutiny amid questions about how its inspectors could have missed what seem to have been obvious problems at Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely.
But the lax oversight of Peanut Corp.’s factory typifies how the state regulates all 27 peanut processors in Georgia, an investigation by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution shows.
The agriculture agency defends the work of its 60 “sanitarians,” the inspectors who oversee 16,000 Georgia food processors, warehouses, groceries and bakeries. Few, however, have backgrounds in food safety, or in any other science. Of the 11 inspectors assigned to peanut factories, just one holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, two in biology. Others majored in such subjects as child development, history and anthropology.
The inspectors often spend no more than one to two hours examining the sprawling peanut plants, checking for compliance with 54 general rules for safe food processing.
When they find violations, inspectors frequently fail to document whether plants correct the deficiencies. Since 2006, the AJC’s review found, inspectors have cited peanut plants for 152 violations of food safety standards. But they failed to record how — or whether — 99 of those infractions were resolved, leaving both the public and other regulators in the dark.
The absence of such notations, Agriculture Department officials said, should imply corrections occurred.
In any event, the department has imposed no fines or other penalties against the peanut plants in the three years for which the agency maintains records. Even persistent failures to keep equipment sanitary or to protect food processing areas from rodents and other pests kindled little sense of urgency in the hundreds of pages of inspection reports reviewed by the AJC.
In October 2006, for example, an inspector cited GFA Peanut Co. in Cordele for gaps in doors where rodents could enter a peanut storage area. The inspector did not return to the plant until seven months later. That day, his report said he had discussed a “mice issue” with the plant manager, who “agreed to notify me of a plan of action ASAP.” But later reports mentioned neither the rodent problem nor a solution.
At the Lance Inc. plant in Columbus, another inspector spotted live cockroaches in November 2007, the fourth time in a month. After watching an employee kill the insects, the inspector wrote that the violation was “corrected on site.”
In February 2008, yet another inspector cited eight food safety violations at John B. Sanfilippo & Son Inc. in Bainbridge. Paper towels and cardboard were substituting for gaskets in nut-grinding machines. Exposed insulation hung from the ceiling of a peanut shelling area. Food scraps and water were accumulating in broken tiles on the plant floor. The inspector returned to the plant in August and again this January and reported that the floor had not been replaced. In February, she cited the floor problem yet again. As of last week, the state still has not penalized the plant.
State officials and peanut company executives say these and other deficiencies were corrected as quickly as possible.
“We try to make as many corrective actions as possible while the [inspector] is still on site, so they can observe it and put it in their report,” said Mike Cannon, senior vice president of operations for Sanfilippo, based in Elgin, Ill.
“Haphazard” enforcement allows dangerous conditions to flourish inside Georgia processing plants, said Bill Marler, a lawyer in Seattle who specializes in food contamination cases. He represents several clients who say they were sickened by Peanut Corp. products.
“It is almost impossible to reconcile inspection reports with findings after outbreaks,” Marler said. “You look at them and think, ‘Gee, were they in the same facility?’ Is it really inspecting, or is it about keeping that product flowing?”
‘Excellent’ relationship
Donna Adams last inspected Peanut Corp. on Oct. 23. No one had made the connection at the time, but by then, federal authorities say, hundreds of people in more than 40 states already were ill from the plant’s contaminated products.
After a one-hour, 40-minute inspection, Adams cited Peanut Corp. for two violations: mildew and dust on the ceiling of a peanut butter storeroom and a “black buildup” on shipping containers.
Her report, however, drew no link between the unsanitary conditions and the possibility of bacterial contamination. Nor did it mention the plant’s inspection history – 30 other violations since January 2006.
Adams gave Peanut Corp. 13 days to clean up the mildew. But she never documented whether the plant corrected the violation — or whether she returned to check.
Adams, 48, of Albany is one of the Agriculture Department’s most experienced inspectors, with more than 20 years on the job.
“She expends extra effort to insure firms are adhering to health and food sanitation regulations,” Adams’ supervisor wrote in a 2007 evaluation. “She consistently maintains an excellent working relationship with firm personnel.”
Like most others who inspect peanut plants, Adams came to the job with no background in food safety.
She graduated from Auburn University in 1982 with a degree in family and child development. On a state employment application in 1985, she listed her work history: restaurant hostess, intern at Auburn, assistant head teller at an Albany bank.
Another inspector who visited Peanut Corp., Chad Beard, 48, of Ashburn, earned a degree in anthropology from Georgia Southern University in 1985. Before joining state government, he held several low-skilled jobs, such as laborer, guitar instructor, greenhouse worker and service station attendant.
In a job application, Beard described his qualifications: “While in high school, I was an active member of the FFA. In 1975 I received the highest score in the State Meat judging contest and received a bronze medal in the national competition in Kansas City.”
The Agriculture Department declined to allow Adams, Beard or other inspectors to be interviewed.
Federal food safety agencies require inspectors to have a combination of an education in the sciences and relevant work experience, such as jobs in the food industry.
Georgia inspectors must be college graduates who took at least 40 hours of science courses — anything from agriculture to zoology.
“You can get a wide variety of degrees” and qualify to become a food inspector, said Oscar Garrison, Georgia’s assistant agriculture commissioner for consumer protection.
But the starting salary is about $26,000.
“That’s the reason,” Garrison said, “we can’t get a microbiologist or a chemistry major or those sorts of things.”
‘Repeat’ violation?
Inspector Tony Colvin, 35, of Buena Vista does have a degree in chemistry. After college, he worked as a food safety consultant, then as a technician in a state lab.
An executive with Lance Inc. described Colvin as exceedingly thorough.
“It’s really similar to a home inspection when you’re trying to sell a house,” said Blake Thompson, a senior vice president for Charlotte-based Lance. “He certainly is looking for issues.”
On May 21, 2007, Colvin found plenty at the Lance plant in Columbus, known until 2006 as Tom’s Snacks Co.
Unscreened windows and open doors left unshelled peanuts in silos exposed to insects, birds and rodents, Colvin wrote in an inspection report. Doors had gaps big enough for rodents to enter. Hoses used to clean processing equipment were exposed to contamination.
Colvin told the plant to take care of six violations no later than June 21.
But he didn’t return until Oct. 11.
Colvin’s report that day described a “heavy insect infestation” in an interior drainpipe, 10 uncovered windows and doors, and a “heavy foul odor” in the drain.
He also discovered that while the company had begun installing screens on its silos, it had completed only 60 percent of the job. So he cited the plant again.
But Colvin chose not to use his toughest enforcement tool — declaring a “repeat” violation that could lead to expensive fines or a shutdown of production.
“Did not mark repeat,” Colvin wrote, “due to the manner in which firm is correcting the issue.”
Lance says it rebuilt the drainpipe and took other steps to mitigate violations.
In the 16 months since, however, Colvin has cited Lance for unsanitary conditions after each of seven more inspections. In all, he has documented 30 food safety violations in the plant since May 2007.
None resulted in fines or other penalties.
‘Firm but fair’
It takes no more than a warning to persuade most food processors to make needed corrections, said Garrison, who supervises Georgia’s inspection program. Strong punishment, he said, rarely becomes necessary.
“You try to be firm but fair,” Garrison said of his agency’s regulatory approach. “The goal is to get the facilities to maintain themselves in a manner consistent with the standards.”
Clearly, that approach failed at Peanut Corp.
Three inspectors who visited the plant from 2006 through 2008 documented such unsanitary conditions as standing water that could breed bacteria, mildew on walls of food production areas, and gaps where rodents could enter.
But they never recognized patterns — persistent moisture inside the plant, a leaky roof — that would have predicted the extensive contamination the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has now documented. FDA officials recently told a congressional committee that the state inspectors, who were acting on the federal agency’s behalf, should have detected unsafe conditions.
Garrison said state inspectors usually visit plants during business hours, which limits their ability to closely examine equipment and production areas. The inspectors, he said, occasionally collect product samples to be tested in a state lab. However, their protocol does not include taking so-called environmental samples on which a quick analysis could suggest possible contamination. The Agriculture Department hopes the General Assembly will allot money this year to create a special team that could perform more detailed inspections at food plants.
Garrison and other officials continue to refer to Peanut Corp. as a rogue operation that withheld the results of at least 12 lab tests that found salmonella bacteria in peanut butter and other products. No inspector, they say, could have penetrated such duplicity.
“I can go back and second-guess this ten thousand times,” Garrison said. “Don’t think I haven’t in my head.”
But, as with reviews of other peanut plants, he added: “We’re satisfied with the inspections that were done, because they are a snapshot in time.”
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BY THE NUMBERS
27 Peanut processing plants in Georgia
5 Plants that manufacture peanut butter
184 State inspections of peanut processors since 2006
114 Number of inspections completed in two hours or less
152 Citations for violations of food safety rules
99 Violations for which corrections were not documented
Source: Georgia Department of Agriculture
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CHECKING CREDENTIALS
State food inspectors are required to have completed at least 40 credit hours in college science classes. Of the 11 state inspectors assigned to oversee Georgia peanut processors, only three earned degrees in scientific fields. Others came to the job with little or no relevant experience.
DONNA ADAMS
Age: 48
Residence: Albany
Education: Bachelor’s degree in family and child development, Auburn University, 1982
Work experience: Bank teller, restaurant hostess
Salary: $42,572
SUSAN ALEXANDER
Age: 37
Residence: Colquitt
Education: Bachelor’s in agriculture, University of Florida, 1996
Work experience: Crop inspector, sales executive with two farm chemical firms
Salary: $29,983
CHAD BEARD
Age: 48
Residence: Ashburn
Education: Bachelor’s in anthropology, Georgia Southern University, 1985
Work experience: Laborer, guitar instructor, musician
Salary: $41,624
TONY COLVIN
Age: 35
Residence: Buena Vista
Education: Bachelor’s in chemistry, Georgia Southwestern State University, 1997
Work experience: State laboratory analyst, food safety consultant
Salary: $35,667
LAUREN HARRIS
Age: 51
Residence: Dawson
Education: Bachelor’s in psychology, Georgia Southwestern State University
Work experience: Environmental inspector, peanut plant secretary
Salary: $18,429 (partial year)
WILLIAM JAMES JONES
Age: 48
Residence: Albany
Education: Bachelor’s in biology, Valdosta State College, 1984
Work experience: Substitute teacher, freelance artist
Salary: $40,544
DANIEL LEE LANCASTER
Age: 30
Residence: Eastman
Education: Bachelor’s in agriculture education, University of Georgia, 2000
Work experience: Crop surveyor, mechanic
Salary: $31,266
MICHAEL C. LOUDERMILK
Age: 53
Residence: Mount Airy
Education: Bachelor’s in history, Piedmont College, 1997
Work experience: Inspector for state Agriculture Department
Salary: $41,135
STEVE RILEY
Age: 48
Residence: Stone Mountain
Education: Bachelor’s in biology, Bethune-Cookman College, 1989
Work experience: Pest control sales and inspection
Salary: $32,087
JENNIFER V. THOMAS
Age: Not available
Residence: Moultrie
Education: Bachelor’s in agriculture education, North Carolina A & T University, 2002
Work experience: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, customer service associate with finance company
Salary: Not available (recent hire)
KATHLEEN WORTHINGTON
Age: 51
Residence: Claxton
Education: Bachelor’s in animal science, Berry College, 1979
Work experience: Assistant manager of farm supply store, farm “technologist,” agriculture inspector
Salary: $32,673
Note: Salaries are for 2008 fiscal year, which ended
June 30
Sources: Georgia Department of Agriculture, Georgia Department of Audits
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