ConAgra has resumed pot pie-making

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Nov 16, 2007 | by Associated Press

OMAHA, Neb.-- The USDA allowed ConAgra Foods Inc. to resume making its Banquet and private label pot pies because the company corrected the flaws in its safety plan at its Missouri plant that inspectors found after the pies were linked to a salmonella outbreak.

Those pot pies were recalled last month after hundreds of people who ate them became ill.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said Thursday that ConAgra took action to correct the problems inspectors found after the Oct. 11 recall.

ConAgra announced Wednesday that it had resumed making pot pies at the Marshall, Mo., plant, and the company expects the pies to return to stores sometime in January.

USDA spokeswoman Amanda Eamich said details of the inspectors' findings at the plant would be released only through a formal Freedom Of Information Act request.

Eamich would say only that there was a record-keeping problem and an issue with ConAgra's Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point plan that spells out what the company does to ensure its products are safe.

ConAgra spokeswoman Stephanie Childs said the USDA identified two areas of improvement at the plant that the company addressed.

"Specifically, we improved the record-keeping for how we developed our cooking instructions and improved our testing for incoming ingredients per the USDA's request," Childs said. "These measures were put in place prior to resuming production of our pot pies."

The USDA informed ConAgra about its concerns Oct. 23 in a formal notice. The company developed a plan for reform, which Childs said the USDA orally approved Oct. 31. Production resumed Nov. 1, and written approval of the plan came Nov. 8, she said. USDA inspectors will check on the reforms over the next 90 days.

ConAgra did not mention the formal notice it received from the USDA in its news release Wednesday, but it did mention working with the USDA to improve its safety plan.

ConAgra has not identified the source of the salmonella in the pot pies, but company officials have said they are confident the pies will be safe because of the changes that were made.