The U.S. Department of Justice, on behalf of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, has filed a complaint for permanent injunction against Rel’s Foods Inc. (Rel’s), of Oakland, Calif., seeking to stop the company from manufacturing, producing, and selling adulterated food products.
The complaint also names Rel’s Vice President, Peder Scott Sorensen, and two managers, Patrick O’Malley and Timothy E. Ault. Rel’s prepares, processes, and distributes a variety of ready-to-eat sandwiches to convenience stores, deli markets, liquor stores, mini-marts, and gas stations in Nevada and California.
The government’s complaint, filed this week in the U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, alleges that Rel’s has an extensive history of operating under insanitary conditions. The complaint states that Rel’s has produced and distributed ready-to-eat sandwiches contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes (L. mono). Listeriosis, the illness caused by L. mono, can cause fatal infections in young children, the elderly, and individuals with weakened immune systems, and pregnant women may suffer miscarriages or stillbirths as a result of the infection.
The complaint alleges that FDA investigators have found L. mono inside Rel’s production facility on numerous occasions since 2002. Additionally, routine laboratory testing by the Department of Defense and the California Department of Public Health, Food and Drug Branch (CFDB) found L. mono in the company’s processing plant and finished sandwiches. Based on recent laboratory analyses, CFDB has embargoed and seized all in-process and finished products inside the facility.
The FDA and CFDB inspections also revealed that the company repeatedly violated the current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) requirements for foods. Investigators found poor employee sanitation practices and inappropriately maintained facility and manufacturing equipment, including excessive condensation dripping onto food contact surfaces.
“Rel’s lack of effective measures to bring its food processing operations into compliance with the law poses a serious public health threat,” said Michael Chappell, the FDA’s acting associate commissioner for regulatory affairs. “The company’s failure to comply with good manufacturing practice also demonstrates the potential for the company to continue to manufacture contaminated products.”
No illnesses have been reported so far from Rel’s products. Individuals who have eaten the products and who experience symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain, and diarrhea, should contact their health care professional.
Consumers can report problems with FDA-regulated products to their district office consumer complaint coordinator.
This company has been operating for more than 55 years, when the President of the company was just a mere driver and another person made the sandwiches. That President, Soren Peder Sorensen, passed away earlier this year from an illness that occurred before the previous “Thanksgiving”, not from anything in his plant. All I remember with this company was a recall on Tuna and another time with one of the meat sandwiches. If this has been on going since 2002 than why this alarm had not come out earlier going back the last seven years. Who gave them a pass to continue to operate. Is investigative journalism dead and the press have been reduced to something to the likes of Pravda?
Another source came through the sandwich that is being shown by NBC-TV in the bay area was actually made by a company called Jumbo foods using the Rel’s label. Rel’s needed to find another company to make their sandwiches. Another rumour for any investigative journalist (if there are still any) is that Rel’s has been sold to another business.