More on the HVP recall: Company knew of salmonella contamination

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Mushroom soup, kettle-style chips, honey mustard/onion pretzels, certain Pringles: Recalls related to the salmonella-tainted hydrolyzed vegetable protein from Basic Food Flavors Inc., Las Vegas, continue to trickle in.

If you’re interested in the events that led up to the recall, read today’s entry in New York University professor Marion Nestle’s ‘Food Politics’ blog.

Nestle said at first she wasn’t going to write about the recall ‘because the FDA seems on the job and nobody is getting sick (as far as we know).’ But then she learned that the FDA had had concerns about the Basic Food Flavors plant for some weeks. The agency found, among other things, that the company had continued to ship paste for weeks after positive salmonella readings in tests. Even after the FDA contacted the company it took days for the voluntary recall to begin.

Nestle thinks it’s high time the FDA had authority to order recalls.

Here’s a Washington Post story about the lead-up to the recall.

And here are FDA documents on the matter.

-- Rosie Mestel