ConAgra addressing problems that led to peanut butter recall

Now that it has identified the conditions that allowed a salmonella outbreak in peanut butter – a leaky roof and a faulty sprinkler – ConAgra Foods Inc. has to rebuild more than just parts of its plant. It has to rebuild trust.

After a nearly two-month investigation, the Omaha company determined that the moisture helped the salmonella grow and contaminate peanut butter at its Georgia plant last year, sickening more than 400 people nationwide.

Its Peter Pan brand will return to stores in July, the company said.

Persuading consumers to buy it won’t be easy, but the brand’s long history should help it, said Joe Marconi, who teaches marketing at DePaul University in Chicago.

“What they have to do is reassure a nervous public,” said Marconi, who wrote “Crisis Marketing: When Bad Things Happen to Good Companies.”

Consumers now will want to know more about what the company is doing to prevent any future problems like the one that allowed raw peanuts and peanut dust to come into contact with finished peanut butter, Marconi said.

The company plans to redesign the Georgia plant to provide greater separation between raw peanuts and the finished product, said ConAgra spokeswoman Stephanie Childs. The plant also will get a new roof and modern equipment.

And ConAgra plans to develop new testing to ensure its peanut butter is safe. Before this recall, none of the company’s recent routine testing of equipment and peanut butter had detected salmonella.

ConAgra has hired a microbiologist with three decades of experience in food production to oversee food safety, Childs said.

“We are learning that salmonella is more common in peanuts than we originally felt,” said Michael Doyle, who runs the University of Georgia’s Center for Food Safety. He agreed to lead an advisory panel to help the company improve its procedures.

“Don’t be complacent about these products simply because there’s been a long history without problems,” Doyle warned.

The company traced the outbreak to three problems at its Sylvester, Ga., plant last August, Childs said.

The roof leaked during a rainstorm, and the sprinkler system went off twice because of a faulty sprinkler, which was repaired.

The moisture from those events mixed with dormant salmonella bacteria in the plant that Childs said likely came from the raw peanuts and dust.

The plant was cleaned thoroughly after the roof leak and sprinkler problem, but the salmonella remained and somehow came in contact with peanut butter before it was packaged, she said.

The Food and Drug Administration last inspected the plant in February 2005 and found no problems, agency spokesman Michael Herndon has said. Herndon did not immediately return calls for comment Thursday.

ConAgra recalled all its peanut butter in February after federal health officials linked it to cases of salmonella infection. At least 425 people in 44 states were sickened, and lawsuits have been filed against the company.

The recall covered all Peter Pan peanut butter and all Great Value peanut butter made at the Sylvester plant since October 2004. That plant is ConAgra’s only peanut butter plant.

ConAgra plans to reopen its Georgia plant in early August.

While renovations are being done, Peter Pan will be made at another company’s plant. The renovations will add to the $50 million to $60 million recall cost company officials already had announced.

Before the recall, ConAgra sold $150 million worth of peanut butter each year. Initially, the company will not resume making Great Value peanut butter for Wal-Mart.

The company’s other brand names include Healthy Choice, Chef Boyardee and Orville Redenbacher.

Salmonella sickens about 40,000 people a year in the United States and kills about 600. It can cause diarrhea, fever, dehydration, abdominal pain and vomiting.

Most cases of salmonella poisoning are caused by undercooked eggs and chicken. The only previously known salmonella outbreak in peanut butter – in Australia during the mid-1990s – was blamed on unsanitary plant conditions.
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