Fish firm faces closure over safety failures
a warning shot across the bows of companies that breach food safety
regulations.
In what is believed to be one of the first attempts to shut down a company due to a failure tofollow hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) laws, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)filed suit earlier this month in Minnesota's federal court, asking a judge to shut down Worldwide Fish &Seafood due to breaches of safety regulations.
Company president and owner, Suzanne Weinstein, and general manager Timothy Lauer, are also named in the suit and could face fines.The company distributes seafood products to restaurants in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and North and South Dakota.
When contacted FoodProductionDaily-USA.com, Weinstein said the company was still trading andwould defend itself against the allegations.
"Of course we are still trading," she said. "Of course our food is safe.It was never unsafe."
In a summary of the filed docket, the FDA alleged that seven inspections of the company over the past sixyears revealed it had failed to establish and implement adequate HACCP plans, as required by FDA regulations.The FDA said it filed the suit after settlement talks with the company failed to produceresults.
HACCP is an international standard for food safety procedures in processing plants. The FDAembodied the in law in 1995 and it came into effect in January 1998. HACCP is a science based andsystematic method of identifying specific hazards and measures for their control to ensure thesafety of food.
The principles are used by processors as a tool to assess safety hazards and establish controlsystems that focus on prevention rather than relying mainly on end-product testing.
The FDA alleged its inspections, including those conducted between November 1 to 3, and on November 6, showed the defendants failed ensure their equipment was recording refrigerator temperatures and did not monitor their temperature recording devices.
The FDA said the defendants' lack ofan appropriate seafood HACCP plan poses a public health risk, because seafood such as clams, oysters, and smoked salmoncan be sources of pathogenic bacteria, including E. coli. Staphylococcus aureus, Listeriamonocytogenes, and Clostridium botulinum.
Worldwide Fish also handles fish species such as tuna, mahi-mahi, and mackerel that when handled inappropriately are known to develop histamine, which can cause severe rash, nausea, vomiting anddiarrhea, stated the FDA.
The suit does not allege that any of Worldwide Fish's products have been unsafe or caused anyoneto become sick.
The fishery products handled by Worldwide Fish are susceptible to pathogen growth and histamine formation when exposed to abusiveconditions, the FDA said.
The FDA said Worldwide Fish has consistently failed to implement adequate seafood HACCP plans for each of its potentially hazardousproducts, despite the repeated warnings.
The regulations require that all seafood processors develop and implement adequate HACCP plansincorporating all food safety hazards that are likely to occur for each kind of product. The planmust also contain an outline of preventative measures that the food processor is using to control those hazards.
Forexample, HACCP requires processors to have temperature controls in place. They must also recordtemperature data for each step along the supply chain.
