Health Law

FDA Inspection of Nestle Toll House Cookie Dough Plant finds Plant Design and Workmanship does not allow for "appropriate sanitary conditions" and "proper cleaning."

By Marler Clark

After inspecting the Danville Plant on 06/18/2009, 06/19/2009, 06/22/2009, 06/23/2009, 06/24/2009, 06/25/2009, 06/26/2009, 07/07/2009, 07/08/2009, and 07/09/2009, the FDA posted the following observations.  The full report can be found by clicking on image to left.

OBSERVATION 1

The workmanship of equipment does not allow proper cleaning. Specifically, inside the "Toll House" brand cookie dough preparation room, dry ingredients are placed inside hoppers. The dry ingredients are gravity fed to blending mixers through gate valves that are installed on the hoppers. As a result of this investigation, the firm disassembled all gate valves from all hoppers on production lines 8, 10, 11, and 12. The gate valves appear to have food contact surfaces that are not easily cleanable as evidenced by rough, pitted and discolored cast metal alloy.

OBSERVATION 2

Lack of appropriate design to enable manufacturing systems to be maintained in an appropriate sanitary condition. Specifically, as "Toll House" brand cookie dough was mixed on 6-18-09, ice build-up surrounded pipes that transport a processing aid to mixers on production lines 8, 10, 11, and 12. On line 8, condensate from the ice dripped onto a metal rake that personnel then used to scrape cookie dough from the mixer into a dough trough for transport to the filling line.

"I understand that hundreds if not a thousand samples were taken - and presume that they were negative.  Certainly, the above observations are some cause for concern, but I have seen far worse "483's" from other plants in 16 years of foodborne illness litigation," said William Marler.

Full post as published by Food Poison Blog on July 11, 2009 (boomark / email).