ATLANTA — From school lunches to nutrition bars and ice cream, the salmonella outbreak has reached deep into the American food supply — even though many people had never heard of the small company at the center of the investigation until a few weeks ago.
Federal investigators Friday said the Lynchburg, Va.-based Peanut Corporation of America knowingly shipped salmonella-laced products from its Blakely, Ga., plant after tests showed the products were contaminated.
The salmonella outbreak has sickened about 575 people in 43 states and might have contributed to at least eight deaths. The Justice Department has opened a criminal investigation, and more than 1,550 products have been recalled.
The company has denied any wrongdoing but said it is investigating.
Before the scandal, Peanut Corp. was a little-known but ambitious company that began in the 1970s as a family catering operation.
“We started this business working out of our house in Virginia with my mom doing all the accounting,” company president Stewart Parnell was quoted as saying on the company’s website.
The company bought a plant in Georgia in 2001, opened another in Texas four years later, and was also running a plant in Virginia.
Belying the ambition, there were problems. About nine months after Parnell bought the Georgia plant in 2001, potential insecticide contamination and dead insects were found near peanuts inspected by the Food and Drug Administration.
A later federal investigation found roaches, mold and other unsanitary conditions.
And it was discovered that the Plainview, Texas, plant didn’t register with state health officials after opening in March 2005 and only recently was discovered and inspected.
