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Whole Foods is closing three regional kitchen facilities in Everett Massachusetts, Landover Maryland and Atlanta that made prepared foods sold in its stores, and will instead rely on outside suppliers. There is conflicting information about the reason of the closings and if it is related to the June 8, 2016 letter from theFDA that claimed: “The inspection found serious violations of the FDA’s Current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) regulations for manufacturing, packing, or holding human food ”in the Everett plant. The FDA Letter The FDA found over 20 different violations in the Everett plant and in the letter asserted that “These...

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on November 30 that the U.S. Marshals Service seized more than 4 million pounds of product produced by Valley Milk Products LLC (Valley Milk) of Strasburg, Virginia. The U.S. Department of Justice filed the complaint, on behalf of the FDA, in the U.S. District Court for the Virginia Western District, alleging that the seized products are adulterated.   The seized products include dry nonfat milk powder and buttermilk powder packaged in 40- and 50-pound bags for further manufacturing and are worth nearly $4 million. During an FDA inspection of Valley Milk from July –...

The U.S. imports about 15% of its overall food supply from more than 200 countries or territories. Over the past 15 years, a trend of rising imported foods was observed. Foreign countries now supply about 32% of the fresh vegetables, 55% of the fresh fruit and 94% of the seafood that Americans consume. The FDA announced its new strategy designed to meet four goals in modernizing the oversight of foods imported to the US: Foreign Supplier Verification Program Preventing food safety problems in the foreign supply chain prior to entry into the U.S. FDA will take new steps to assure that imported...

On December 2, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FDA could not be held financially liable for issuing the false warning.  It is clear now that the FDA warning did not help customers who stopped buying perfectly healthy tomatoes, and continued to buy the contaminated hot peppers. This decision was devastating to the tomato growers. The demand for tomatoes plummeted by 40% due to the warnings, and prices fell by 50%. The tomato industry lost millions of dollars. Case History As part of the ruling judge Wilkinson described the detailed history of the case: “On May 22, 2008, the...