Audits are not required by the government, but food companies are increasingly requiring suppliers to undergo them as a way to ensure safety and minimize liability. The rigor of audits varies widely and many companies choose the cheapest ones, which cost as little as $1,000, in contrast to the $8,000 the Food and Drug Administration spends to inspect a plant.

Typically, the private auditors inspect only manufacturing plants, not the suppliers that feed ingredients to those facilities. Nor do they commonly test the actual food products for pathogens, even though gleaming production lines can turn out poisoned fare.

As in the Georgia peanut case, auditors are also usually paid by the food plants they inspect, which some experts said could deter them from cracking down. Yet food companies often point to an auditor’s certificate as a seal of approval.

The baking institute, which is based in Manhattan, Kan., and is also known as AIB International, says it inspected more than 10,000 food production sites in 80 countries last year. James R. Munyon, its president and chief executive, said his group’s inspections were reliable and tough, no matter who pays for them, but he declined to elaborate on specific audits.

Even worse, employees with safety concerns are told to defer to the private audits.

Both the government and industry are aware of the problem. The government’s solution? “Expanding the role of private auditors to inspect the more than 200,000 foreign facilities that ship food to the United States.”

Robert A. LaBudde, a food safety expert who has consulted with food companies for 30 years, said, “The only thing that matters is productivity.” He added that “you only get in trouble if someone in the media traces it back to you, and that’s rare, like a meteor strike.”

Dr. LaBudde said a sausage plant hired him five years ago to determine the species of bacillus plaguing its meat. But the owner then refused to complete the testing. “I called them ‘anthrax sausages,’ and said they could be killing older people in the state, and still they wouldn’t do it,” he said, declining to name the company.

Food Safety Problems Slip Past Private Inspectors [The New York Times]

WASHINGTON (AP) – What began as an investigation of bulk peanut butter shipped to nursing homes and institutional cafeterias has broadened with the Kellogg Co. (K) recalling 16 products and federal officials confirming salmonella contamination at a Georgia facility that ships peanut products to 85 food companies

Kellogg had asked stores earlier this week to pull some of its venerable Keebler crackers from shelves as a precaution. But in a statement late Friday the Battle Creek, Mich., company announced it was voluntarily recalling the crackers and other products in light of the problems in Georgia.

The nationwide salmonella outbreak has sickened hundreds of people in 43 states and killed at least six.

“The actions we are taking today are in keeping with our more than 100-year commitment to providing consumers with safe, high-quality products,” said David Mackay, Kellogg’s president and CEO. “We apologize for this unfortunate situation.”

Recall Famous Amos Peanut Butter Cookies

The recall includes Austin and Keebler branded Peanut Butter Sandwich Crackers, as well as some snack-size packs of Famous Amos Peanut Butter Cookies and Keebler Soft Batch Homestyle Peanut Butter Cookies.

Sandra Williams, a compliance officer with the Food and Drug Administration in Detroit, advised consumers not to eat the products and to contact a doctor if they have any symptoms. She also urged careful disposal of the tainted products to avoid the risk of homeless people finding and eating them.

“Kellogg reacted promptly to this potential public health risk after receiving notification of the potential problem from their supplier,” Williams said.

On Capitol Hill, the House Energy and Commerce Committee requested records as it opened its own inquiry.

Although the investigation has gone into high gear, FDA officials say much of their information remains sketchy. And new cases are still being reported.

“This is a very active investigation, but we don’t yet have the data to provide consumers with specifics about what brands or products they should avoid,” said Stephen Sundlof, director of the FDA’s food safety center. Although salmonella bacteria has been found at the Georgia plant, for example, more tests are needed to see if it matches the strain that has made people sick.

The investigation includes not just peanut butter, but baked goods and other products that contain peanuts and are sold directly to consumers. Health officials say as many as one-third of the people who got sick did not recall eating peanut butter.

“The focus is on peanut butter and a wide array of products that might have peanut butter in them,” said Dr. Robert Tauxe, director of the foodborne illness division at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Officials said they are focusing on peanut paste, as well as peanut butter, produced at a Blakely, Ga., facility owned by Peanut Corp. of America. The concern about peanut paste is significant because it can be used in dozens of products, from baked goods to cooking sauces.

Federal officials said they are focusing on 32 of the 85 companies that Peanut Corp. supplies, because of the time period in which they received shipments of peanut butter or paste. The companies are being urged to test their products, or pull them from the shelves as Kellogg did.

The government is also scrutinizing a grower, raising the possibility that contamination could have occurred before peanuts reached the processing plant, which passed its last inspection by the Georgia agriculture this summer.

Peanut Corp. has recalled 21 lots of peanut butter made at the plant since July 1 because of possible salmonella contamination. The company, which suspended peanut butter processing at the facility, said none of its peanut butter is sold directly to consumers but is distributed to institutions, food service industries and private label food companies.

But Kellogg Co., which gets some peanut paste from the Blakely facility, asked stores late Wednesday to stop selling some of its Keebler and Austin peanut butter sandwich crackers. The company said it hasn’t received any reports of illnesses.

Peanut Corp. said it is cooperating with federal and state authorities. On Friday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee wrote the company requesting inspection and internal records dating back four years.

Health officials in Minnesota and Virginia have linked two deaths each to the outbreak and Idaho and North Carolina have reported one. Four of those five were elderly people, and all had salmonella when they died, though their exact causes of death haven’t been determined. But the CDC said the salmonella may have contributed.

The CDC said the bacteria behind the outbreak – typhimurium – is common and not an unusually dangerous strain but that the elderly or those with weakened immune systems are more at risk.

The salmonella outbreak is the second in two years involving peanut butter. Salmonella is the nation’s leading cause of food poisoning; common symptoms include diarrhea, fever and abdominal cramps.

By SCOTT MCDONALD

BEIJING (AP) — Six Chinese suspects went on trial Friday accused of making and selling the industrial chemical at the center of a tainted milk scandal blamed for killing six children and sickening nearly 300,000 others.

Among those in court Friday was the owner of a workshop that was allegedly the country’s largest source of melamine, the substance responsible for the health crisis that also saw Chinese food products pulled from stores worldwide, state media said.

Police say Zhang Yujun, 40, ran a workshop on the outskirts of Jinan in eastern Shandong province that manufactured and sold a “protein powder” composed mainly of melamine and malt dextrin, the official Xinhua News Agency reported. The powder was added to watered-down milk to make it appear higher in protein content.

Prosecutors in the Shijiazhuang Intermediate People’s Court accused Zhang of producing 776 tons of the additive powder from October 2007 through August 2008, making it the largest source of melamine in the country. He allegedly sold more than 600 tons with a total value of 6.83 million yuan ($1 million), the court heard.

In the same case, a second man, Zhang Yanzhang, 24, was accused of buying and reselling 230 tons of powder to others.

State television showed both men in court in handcuffs with their heads bowed while being questioned by three judges. It was not immediately clear what penalties they face.

An official at the publicity office of Hebei Supreme Court confirmed that the trial started Friday but refused to give his name or other details.

Four other men were being tried in three separate courts across Hebei province for adding the chemical to raw milk and then selling it to Sanlu Group Co., the main company in the scandal, according to Xinhua.

Melamine can artificially inflate protein levels and was apparently added to watered-down milk to fool quality inspectors while boosting profits.

Zhang Heshe and Zhang Taizhen were accused of adding 77 pounds (35 kilograms) of the “protein powder” to 70 tons of raw milk and then selling it to Sanlu. Yang Jingmin and Gu Guoping were also charged with adding 53 pounds (24 kilograms) and 37 pounds (16.7 kilograms) of melamine, respectively.

The verdicts will be announced at an unspecified date, Xinhua reported.

The dairy company Sanlu, based in Shijiazhuang, confirmed earlier this week that it was bankrupt.

Xinhua reported Thursday that Sanlu has 1.1 billion yuan ($160 million) of net debt and that a branch of the Shijiazhuang City Commercial Bank was the creditor that applied to a court to have Sanlu declared bankrupt.

It said the intermediate court in Shijiazhuang had accepted the filing. Xinhua said Sanlu owes a creditor 902 million yuan ($132 million) it borrowed earlier this month to pay for the medical treatment of children sickened after drinking the company’s infant formula and for compensation of the babies’ families.

Wang Jianguo, spokesman for the Shijiazhuang city government, said the money was given to the China Dairy Industry Association for medical care and compensation fees for victims, according to a transcript of a news conference he gave Thursday.

A woman who answered the phone Friday at the association refused to answer any questions.

The issue of compensation for the families of the children sickened or killed has become a sensitive one, with courts so far not accepting any lawsuits filed by the families.

The Legal Daily newspaper reported that Tian Wenhua, Sanlu’s chairwoman and general manager, would go on trial Wednesday in Shijiazhuang for “selling fake and shoddy products.”

Sanlu, like a number of major Chinese dairies, had been exempt from government inspections because it was deemed to have superior quality controls — until high levels of the industrial chemical melamine were found in its baby formula and other products in September. Several other dairies were also found to have sold tainted goods.

Melamine poses little danger in small amounts, but larger doses can cause kidney stones and renal failure.

Sanlu is 43 percent-owned by New Zealand daily cooperative Fonterra Group.

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