ConAgra agrees to $11.2 million settlement for tainted peanut butter produced in 2006-07 in Sylvester

SYLVESTER — The U.S.s Department of Justice and ConAgra Foods have reached an $11.2 million settlement in an accusation that the company shipped salmonella-tainted peanut butter to other states from its Sylvester plant in 2006-07.

The settlement is not final until it is approved in U.S. District Court.

The criminal fine would be the largest ever paid in a food safety case, government officials said. The tainted peanut butter, under Peter Pan and private-label brands, made at least 700 people sick. No deaths were reported.

The Justice Department in a statement Wednesday said that ConAgra Grocery Products LLC, a subsidiary of ConAgra Foods Inc., had agreed to plead guilty to a one-count information and pay $11.2 million in connection with the shipment of contaminated peanut butter linked to a nationwide outbreak of salmonellosis — salmonella poisoning — in 2006-07. The product originated at the company’s manufacturing facility in Sylvester.

The company signed a plea agreement to the misdemeanor count of introducing adulterated food to interstate commerce, admitting that it introduced Peter Pan and private label peanut butter contaminated with salmonella into interstate commerce during the 2006 through 2007 outbreak. The plea agreement provides that ConAgra Grocery Products will pay a criminal fine of $8 million and forfeit assets of $3.2 million, both within five days of approval of the agreement by the federal court.

The criminal fine is the largest ever paid in a food safety case, Justice Department officials said.

“As parents, we can make sure that our kids look both ways before they cross the street and wear a helmet when they ride their bikes,” said Acting Associate Attorney General Stuart F. Delery. “But we have to rely on the companies that make their food to make sure it is safe. That’s why the Department of Justice is dedicated to using all the tools we have to ensure the processors and handlers of our food live up to their legal obligations to keep the public’s safety in mind.”

“The safety of the nation’s food supply is a top concern, and every company, large and small, must take appropriate measures to ensure that their products don’t make customers sick,” Principal Deputy Assistant Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer said. “No company can let down its guard when it comes to these kinds of microbiological contaminants. Salmonellosis is a serious condition, and a food like peanut butter can deliver it straight to children and other vulnerable populations.”

ConAgaa officials issued a statement Wednesday morning before the Justice Department’s announcement.

“Peter Pan peanut butter is safe. This recall dates back eight years, and since then, ConAgra Foods has become a recognized leader in food safety. There have been no food safety incidents in the Sylvester facility since 2007,” Teresa Paulsen, vice president for communication and external relations said in the statement. “We’ve invested heavily in leading-edge food safety technology and practices, and we are thankful for all of the people who recognize that and are Peter Pan fans. We took full responsibility in 2007, taking immediate steps to determine the potential causes of and solutions for the problem and acting quickly and definitively to inform and protect consumers.

“We appreciate and applaud the ConAgra Foods employees at our Sylvester facility who have been so diligent over the years; they work hard to earn the trust of consumers each and every day.”

According to prosecutors, the federal Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Feburary 2007 stated that an ongoing salmonellosus outbreak in the U.S. had been traced to the Sylvester plant. ConAgra halted production at the plant on Feb. 14, 2007, and recalled all peanut butter that had been manufactured there since January 2004.

Justice officials said the CDC linked more than 700 cases to the outbreak with illnesses reported beginning August 2006. The health agency also said that it estimated thousands more cases had gone unreported, and that no deaths had been associated with the outbreak. The criminal information filed in the Middle District of Georgia alleged that around Dec. 7, 2006, the company shipped peanut butter contaminated with salmonella from Georgia to Texas and that the company admitted in the plea agreement that samples obtained after the recall showed that contaminated peanut butter had been made at the Sylvester manufacturing facility on nine dates between Aug. 4, 2006 and Jan. 29, 2007.

Environmental testing conducted after the recall identified the same strain of salmonella in at least nine locations throughout the Sylvester plant, prosecutors said.

“We, as consumers, take for granted that the food we feed our families is safe,” said U.S. Attorney Michael Moore. “We count on the companies who prepare and package the things we eat to be just as concerned with the product we put in our mouths as they are with the profit they put in their pockets. The proposed criminal fine and sentence in this case should sound the alarm to food companies across the country – we are watching, and we are expecting you to hold yourselves to a standard reflective of the trust that your consumers have placed in you. No more excuses. A lot of people got very sick because of the conduct in this case and we are committed to doing all we can to make sure that does not happen again.”

In the agreement, government officials said, ConAgra admitted that in October 2004 it been aware of some of salmonella contamination, identifying several potential contributing factors including an old peanut roaster, a storm-damaged sugar silo and a leaky roof. Conditions were not fully corrected until after the 2006-07 outbreak and “company officials hypothesized that moisture entered the production process and enabled the growth of salmonella present in the raw peanuts or peanut dust,” federal officials said.

“The company also admitted in the plea agreement that between October 2004 and February 2007, employees charged with analyzing finished product tests at the Sylvester plant failed to detect salmonella in the peanut butter, and that the company was unaware some of the employees did not know how to properly interpret the results of the tests,” prosecutors said.