Salmonella prompts recall of Kellogg's snacks

Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials in the United States have confirmed the presence of salmonella in a popular snack made by food giant Kellogg.

The FDA says salmonella was found in a package of peanut butter sandwich crackers made by Kellogg as the company issued a precautionary recall across the food industry.

The suspect Kellogg product is the Austin Quality Foods Toasty Crackers with Peanut Butter which was among several snacks the company voluntarily recalled as a precaution after the FDA warned consumers to avoid eating products that contained peanut butter.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) a salmonella food poisoning outbreak which started in September last year has now affected almost 500 people across 43 states and is a suspected culprit in 6 deaths.

The salmonella food poisoning has been traced to the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA), which supplies peanut butter products to manufacturers and institutions, such as nursing homes.

The FDA says some samples of its products had tested positive for a salmonella strain that may have originated in a Blakely, Georgia, peanut processing plant.

The issue first surfaced January 14th when as a precaution some products were held back and others removed from retail stores; shortly after Kellogg recalled several suspected peanut butter snacks and cookies which included peanut butter and jelly sandwich crackers, cheese and peanut butter sandwich crackers, and peanut butter-chocolate sandwich crackers sold under the brand name Austin or Keebler.

Kellogg suspects a breach has occurred in the supplier's process and says it does not use PCA ingredients in any other Kellogg products apart from those already recalled.

The voluntary recall was expanded in the last week to include two types of Meijer Brand crackers and two types of Meijer Brand ice creams, along with two varieties of peanut butter-flavoured snack bars, made by General Mills which also contained products sourced from PCA.

All Wal-Mart Bakery brands of peanut butter cookies sold in the in-store bakery sections of Wal-Mart Stores, have also been recalled along with Lofthouse and Food Lion peanut butter cookies.

McKee Foods Corp has recalled two varieties of "Little Debbie" peanut butter sandwich crackers that are potentially contaminated and the PCA has also recalled peanut butter and peanut paste distributed to institutions, food service industries, and private label food companies.

Salmonella can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with damaged immune systems and even healthy individuals infected with Salmonella can experience fever, diarrhoea - which may be bloody - nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

Salmonella can also result in the organism entering the bloodstream and producing more severe illnesses such as arterial infections, endocarditis and arthritis, but these are rare.

Consumers who have any of the recalled products should destroy them and should contact their doctor if they have eaten the products and are worried about their health.