The FDA has issued a warning letter to Mid America Pet Food LLC for significant violations at the Mount Pleasant, TX, facility that resulted in persistent Salmonella contamination of its pet food products. A letter dated November 22, 2024, that came after several inspections revealed multiple regulatory violations under the cGMP, Hazard Analysis, and Risk-Based Preventive Controls for Food for Animals regulation. The FDA conducted the 2023 inspection in response to the company Class I recalls initiated on September 3, 2023, expanded on October 30, 2023, and further expanded on November 9, 2023, to include all their dog and cat food with best by dates before October 31, because they had the potential to be contaminated with Salmonella. The FDA conducted the 2023 inspection, along with the CDC and state and local partners, after a multi-state foodborne illness outbreak of Salmonella Kiambu implicated in human illnesses through epidemiological traceback. A total of seven people from seven states were infected with the outbreak strain from January 14, 2023, to August 19, 2023, and one person was hospitalized. Six of the affected people were children under one year of age. WGS linked these illnesses to dog food manufactured at the facility in 2023 through a sample of Victor Super Premium Dog Food Classic Hi-Pro Plus collected by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture on August 15, 2023. On October 30, 2023, the company expanded the initial recall to include Victor Super Premium Dog Food, Select Beef Meal & Brown Rice Formula. Analysis of these samples using WGS revealed that three of the Salmonella-positive environmental swabs collected in the post-process area of the facility during the 2024 inspection are closely related to seven Salmonella-positive environmental swabs collected in the pre-process areas of the facility during the 2023 inspection, indicating that the facility may have three resident strains of Salmonella: Salmonella Rissen, Salmonella Minnesota, and Salmonella Mbandaka. @ https://www.fda.gov/inspections-compliance-enforcement-and-criminal-investigations/warning-letters/mid-america-pet-food-llc-681516-11222024
