DALLAS – The bankrupt company at the center of a national salmonella outbreak hasn’t carried out a recall of its products manufactured in Texas, so the state is notifying customers itself, officials there said Friday.
Texas health officials ordered Peanut Corp. of America on Feb. 12 to recall all products ever shipped from a plant in Plainview after inspectors found dead rodents, feces and bird feathers in a crawl space above a production area.
But the Texas Department of State Health Services said the company hasn’t responded to its order, so state workers have begun asking manufacturers, distributors and retailers to keep products from the Plainview plant away from the public.
“When you order a recall and don’t get a response you’ve got to do something to protect the public,” Doug McBride, a spokesman for the Texas Department of State Health Services, said Friday. “They weren’t going to do it, so we are doing it.”
The company said in a press release on its Web site Friday that the bankruptcy proceedings were hampering its ability to carry out recall orders.
“PCA is informing customers who received products from its Georgia or Texas plants not to distribute or further use those products,” the release stated.
However, it wasn’t clear whether the company had made efforts beyond posting the release to contact customers. The company’s bankruptcy attorney Andrew Goldstein didn’t immediately respond to a phone message seeking further comment.
A day after the Texas order last week, the Lynchburg, Va.-based company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy as it faced fallout from the outbreak that has sickened hundreds, may have caused nine deaths and prompted one of the largest food recalls in the nation’s history. The outbreak had been traced to another of its plants in Georgia.
Federal investigators have launched a criminal investigation, and Peanut Corp. faces mounting lawsuits.
McBride said that while Peanut Corp. was obligated to comply with the health department’s order related to its plant there, the health department has no authority to compel companies outside the state to do what it says.
However, a company that ignored a state’s recall would likely run afoul of its insurance carriers, McBride said.
A company also could make itself vulnerable to civil lawsuits.
Some companies that did business with the Texas plant have already issued recall notices in response to news coverage of the recall last week. Notices are posted online at. www.fda.gov.
