According to documents examined by Food Safety News, officials from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) initially sought access to Dixie Dew’s manufacturing facilities on March 3. However, company representatives denied them entry, prompting the FDA to issue a formal demand for the manufacturer to provide facility records and grant access to inspectors. Upon entering the facility, inspectors documented several alarming conditions, including malfunctioning temperature controls, an infestation of flies and larvae, liquid dripping from the ceiling onto production areas, and food-making equipment stored on filthy floors. Supervisors informed inspectors that production machinery had not been cleaned since 2015 and that some equipment had been out of order for 15 years.
The outbreak associated with contaminated soy paste produced by Dixie Dew has resulted in 29 illnesses across twelve states. SoyNut Butter Co., which incorporated the paste into its I.M. Healthy soy nut butters and certain granola products, issued a recall shortly after the inspection and has since expanded it twice. These products were distributed to retail stores, schools, and daycare centers, but the FDA did not disclose which locations were involved. Furthermore, the agency refrained from identifying Dixie Dew as the manufacturer of the contaminated soy paste until compelled to do so by the Seattle law firm Marler Clark, which included the company in a civil lawsuit.
Other food safety organizations, such as the Food Safety and Inspection Service, typically name retailers and manufacturers in their recall notifications. Why does the FDA not follow suit? The agency claims it is adhering to a law that prohibits the disclosure of trade secrets. While revealing sales and distribution information might harm business interests, critics argue that the FDA’s interpretation of this law is overly convoluted, suggesting that concerns for public safety should take precedence over business considerations. Richard Raymond, who advocated for greater recall transparency as the undersecretary of agriculture for food safety under President George W. Bush, remarked that the FDA has yielded to pressures from the food industry. “I suspect they don’t want that fight themselves,” he recently told The Washington Post.
In the meantime, consumers remain uninformed and can only hope that companies will demonstrate enough diligence to notify them if they have purchased contaminated products. Retailers and manufacturers certainly do not wish for their products to cause illness, but any lack of transparency on their part can damage their reputation at a time when consumers are increasingly demanding openness. This lack of information also poses a public health risk.
It is perplexing how conditions at Dixie Dew were allowed to deteriorate and persist for such an extended period. The landscape of food safety has evolved significantly in recent years. Inspectors have been more vigilant regarding plant conditions following the salmonella outbreak that resulted in nine deaths and lengthy prison sentences for executives at the Peanut Corporation of America, as well as the major listeria outbreak that prompted the implementation of new testing protocols at Blue Bell. If Dixie Dew was already under the FDA’s scrutiny, it is unclear why it was not revisited.
The Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA), which is currently being implemented industry-wide, mandates rigorous testing and quality controls. While Dixie Dew may not yet be subject to FSMA’s preventive controls regulations due to its size, the manufacturer should still have been making efforts to comply with the new law, which is so stringent that products are often recalled before any illnesses occur.
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