Another food safety scandal in the US

This scandal begins with a whistle-blowing customer and ends with thousands of kilos of food being recalled.

In early February, a customer of Las Vegas-based manufacturer of hydrolysed vegetable protein (HVP), Basic Food Flavors, advised the US government’s new ‘Reportable Food Registry’ that they had found Salmonella Tennessee in a shipment of HVP. The Registry is an electronic portal for food industry insiders to use when they believe there is a reasonable probability that food intended for human consumption might be at risk.

The FDA inspected the Basic Food Flavors plant on 12 February and found Salmonella. It also found records indicating that HVP tested positive for Salmonella on 21 January.

Basic Food Flavors had tested surfaces near food-processing equipment throughout its plant twice in January and once in February, and each time the samples showed Salmonella contamination, according to FDA records. The scary thing is that the company had continued to ship products and to make more HVP without cleaning the plant or the equipment in a way that would have minimised contamination.

Federal inspectors conducted 14 inspections in the span of about two weeks after they received the complaint. They documented dirty utensils and equipment - mixers and tubing coated with brown residue - and cracks and fractures in the floor, as well as standing water on the floor - all conditions where bacteria can breed.

In one area where paste mixers and belt dryers were positioned, FDA inspectors noted "standing, grey/black liquid" in the drain near the area where the hydrolysed vegetable protein was turned from paste to powder. "We sensed an odour in the vicinity of this drain," the inspectors wrote.

Believing the contamination dated back to September 2009, the FDA began discussions with Basic Food Flavors regarding the firm’s intentions to conduct a voluntary recall of the HVP the company had made, in both powder and paste form.

In the US, the FDA does not have the authority to issue recalls itself - the agency urges companies it knows have a product with health concerns to issue recall notices (the FDA then posts those notices). Because the releases are done by the individual companies they lack uniformity and don't always identify the source of potential contamination or identify it in the same way, creating some confusion about links between different recalls.

On 26 February, Basic Food Flavors began notifying its customers that it was recalling all of the HVP product in powder and paste form made since 17 September. The FDA announced the recall on 4 March.

HVP production was halted and the recalls began.

As a umami flavour enhancer, HVP is used in a wide variety of processed food products, such as soups, sauces, stews, hot dogs, gravies, seasoned snack foods, dips and dressings. It is often blended with other spices to make seasonings that are used in or on foods.

Luckily, most of these food products require heating prior to consumption and this kill step probably destroys the salmonella before the food is eaten. This means the recall is not as huge as it may otherwise have been.

Even so, one company affected, Windsor Farms of Lampasas, Texas and Oakland, Mississippi, is recalling more than 770,000 kg of ready-to-eat beef taquito and chicken quesadilla products containing HVP. And that’s just one of the hundreds of items that have been recalled. The FDA expects that the recall that will affect over 10,000 products.

To date, no one is thought to have fallen ill from contaminated HVP, and the health risk is considered to be low because of the kill step. Ready-to-eat products, such as chips and other snack foods, would obviously carry greater risks.

It is illegal to knowingly sell food products that are contaminated with salmonella. Legislation that would require companies to take measures to prevent contamination was overwhelmingly passed by the House last year but has been held up in the Senate.

"The FDA is reviewing the evidence in association with the current inspection of Basic Food Flavors to determine the appropriate regulatory response," FDA spokeswoman Meghan Scott said.