When you buy something at the store, you never think of whether or not the company selling it is trying to deceive you. Sure, sometimes they make food seem healthier than it actually is. But when it comes to big issues like food contamination? It seems irresponsible to think that a company would purposely get its customers sick. Sadly, that’s not the case with this brand.
You’ve likely stopped purchasing Kellogg’s Honey Smacks after news of a salmonella outbreak came out a few weeks back. Even though nobody likes to hear that their favorite cereal had been exposed, it turns out that the plant knew this was a possibility all the way back in 2016. And even more, they failed to take action. It’s pretty despicable to know that they had no concern about keeping their customers safe.
The news came from a 2018 letter from the FDA. It was sent to CEO Michael O’Neill through UPS. It states that after the facility was inspected, a number of issues needed to be corrected.
“Based on FDA’s inspectional findings and the analytical results for the environmental samples collected during the inspection, we determined that the cereal manufactured in your facility is adulterated…in that it was prepared, packed or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health,” the letter stated.
Later in the letter, it states that this wasn’t the first time that the plant ran in an unhealthy manner. Salmonella was reportedly found all the way back in 2016. “Between September 29, 2016 and May 16, 2018, you repeatedly found Salmonella throughout your facility, including in cereal production rooms,” the letter continued. “During this time period, you had 81 positive Salmonella environmental samples and 32 positive Salmonella vector samples.”
It’s hard to predict if we can ever trust Honey Smacks again. In a world where there’s a ton of great breakfast cereals, why risk it with a brand with a facility that doesn’t believe in sanitary practices?
