Food Processing Plants

Food safety inspectors say managers of a Central California plant at the center of a salmonella scare knew some of its pistachios were tainted but continued shipping nuts for six more months. The Food and Drug Administration issued a sweeping national warning in March for consumers to avoid eating pistachios after concerns surfaced about nuts from Setton Pistachio of Terra Bella Inc.

The body of a 40-year-old woman was found Tuesday in a machine at a food processing plant in City of Industry, officials said. Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives arrived about 8 a.m. at Golden State Foods, at 640 6th Ave., Sgt. Shaun McCarthy said. "It doesn't appear to be criminal," he said of the circumstances. Golden State Foods has headquarters in Irvine and distribution centers across the state. According to its website, the company is a major supplier for the McDonald's fast food chain and developed the Big Mac sauce in the 1960s.

San Bernardino County prosecutors Friday filed felony charges against a former Chino slaughterhouse manager who allegedly used cruel methods to force ailing cattle into the slaughter box. The charges follow last month's release of a video showing treatment of animals at the plant, which led to schools nationwide pulling beef from cafeterias.

More than 300 suspected illegal immigrants were arrested Tuesday morning at a chicken processing plant near Greenville, S.C. -- the latest in a stepped-up federal enforcement effort that has resulted in the deportation of thousands of illegal workers in recent months. Tuesday's raid was led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials and involved hundreds of agents from numerous agencies.

Federal meat inspectors will apply a new approach to 254 processing plants in April that will intensify monitoring of higher-risk plants but devote less time to plants deemed safer, officials said Thursday. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's "risk-based" inspection plan immediately drew fire from consumer groups that doubted the agency's ability to determine risk, and from meatpackers complaining that they were blindsided by the plan.

Federal prosecutors will not file criminal charges against the California grower or processing company linked to contaminated spinach that killed at least three people and sickened hundreds in a nationwide \o7E. coli \f7outbreak last fall. In a brief statement released by his San Francisco office Thursday, U.S. Atty. Scott N. Schools said that "a thorough and wide-ranging investigation" had determined that criminal charges "are not warranted."

Bruised by international reaction to food safety lapses, the Chinese government announced Wednesday that regulators here have shut down 180 food manufacturers this year after finding such potentially toxic ingredients as formaldehyde in candy, pickles, biscuits and other common fare. The closures followed a nationwide inspection of some of China's estimated 1 million food processing plants, most of them small and unlicensed, food safety officials said.

The company at the center of a nationwide \o7E. coli \f7outbreak linked to contaminated spinach laid off 164 employees, most of them seasonal hires who had expected to leave when the growing season ends next month. Natural Selection Foods, a processor of bagged spinach in San Juan Bautista, Calif., terminated 116 plant workers whose jobs would have normally lasted three or four more weeks, spokeswoman Samantha Cabaluna said.

Workers at a chicken processing plant who were caught on videotape kicking, stomping and slamming chickens against the wall will not face criminal charges, a prosecutor said. Ginny Conley, head of a state prosecutors' organization, said that while the incident at the Pilgrims Pride plant in Moorefield was disturbing, it does not warrant criminal charges because "these were chickens in a slaughterhouse."

A human rights group sharply criticized the U.S. meat industry and the government for hazardous working conditions at meat plants and accused companies of illegal tactics to suppress employee efforts to report abuses. In a 175-page report, the group Human Rights Watch said high production speeds and poor training at meat plants put workers at risk. The meat industry said that many of the report's allegations were either false or based on old information.