Blue Ridge Food Ventures releases a statement regarding local salmonella outbreak

From a Blue Ridge Food Ventures press release:

“Smiling Hara, which is under investigation as a possible link to the salmonella outbreak in Buncombe County, manufactures and packages tempeh in bulk at Blue Ridge Food Ventures, a shared-use food production facility in Buncombe County.

The company supplies frozen tempeh to local restaurants and stores. It is one of several businesses, products and restaurants in the community being investigated. The company is initiating a voluntary recall of their products out of an abundance of caution.

Immediately upon learning of the investigation, Blue Ridge Food Ventures temporarily halted our normal production schedule and began extensive environmental testing as a proactive, voluntary and precautionary measure.

This is the first time in our six-and-a-half-year history that there has been a food contamination issue among the businesses that use our facility. Blue Ridge Food Ventures was inspected on March 8 by the Buncombe County Department of Health and earned a sanitation rating of 99.5% out of 100.

About 20 small, local food production companies rent time and industrial kitchen space at BRFV during any given month. Each of these businesses is its own legal entity and operates independent of Blue Ridge Food Ventures. Each business is inspected by the regulatory agency relevant to its product and has its own food production and safety plans.

Blue Ridge Food Ventures has strict safety protocols in place for the use of our physical facility and equipment. One of those policies requires that all facility users sanitize the kitchen and equipment both BEFORE AND AFTER production. Our scheduling policies for the use of the facility are designed to prevent cross-contamination. There has been no indication of any cross-contamination among the other businesses that use the facility.

Blue Ridge Food Ventures’ policies and procedures are continuously under review. Human health and food safety is our top concern and we are cooperating fully to help find the source of the outbreak.”

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0 thoughts on “Blue Ridge Food Ventures releases a statement regarding local salmonella outbreak

  1. “has issued a voluntary recall of their products.”

    I thought the government had to force business-people to stop killing their customers.
    ……………………..

    • bill smith

      Your horse is not only dead, but it has fully decomposed and you are beating nothing but bare ground.

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