A Whole Foods kitchen that prepared food for 74 stores in the Northeast had water dripping from ceiling pipes on mushroom quesadillas, egg salad and couscous among other food safety violations, according to a harshly-worded letter from the Food and Drug Administration.
FDA inspectors visited the Boston-area plant over the course of several days in February and gave its facility team leader a list of the problems. It then sent a follow-up letter outlining the violations to the Austin, Texas-based upscale grocery chain on June 8.
Inspectors saw employees cleaning work surfaces and then handing food without washing their hands or changing gloves between tasks, the FDA said.
On the same day, inspectors saw employees spraying an ammonium-based sanitizer on a work surface next to a worker packaging ready-to-eat mesculin salad, which contaminated the salad greens.
The company also used sanitizing liquid that was less than half and sometimes only a quarter of the required strength.
FDA inspectors reported seeing employees putting together bulk cartons while at the same time packaging exposed, ready-to-eat quinoa cakes without hand washing or changing gloves in between tasks
In another area, dirty dishes spilled over from the dish washing room and were stored next to next to ready-to-eat foods “for an indefinite period of time,” according to the letter.
The North Atlantic Kitchen sends out prepared foods to Whole Foods stores in Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Northern New Jersey.
In its letter, FDA asked Whole Foods to promptly correct the violations or face consequences that could include injunction or seizure.
Whole Foods sent a written response a month later saying it took the FDA comments seriously and that it was “committed to take all the necessary measures to correct all the deficiencies.”
But FDA didn’t find Whole Foods’ response acceptable. The company said it would retrain employees but didn’t explain how it would provide supervision or how retraining would ensure sustained compliance with applicable food safety laws, the FDA letter said.
The company also didn’t provide documentation about how it had fixed the problems, FDA said.
Whole Foods was taken aback by FDA's letter, said Ken Meyer,
executive vice president of operations for Whole Foods Market.
"We were honestly surprised,” he said in a statement “We’ve been in close contact with the FDA, opened our doors to inspectors regularly since February and worked with them to address every issue brought to our attention.”
He said the company had taken "thorough and tangible steps" to address each of the points FDA had raised and that these were not reflected in the agency's follow-up letter.
