Lynchburg-based Peanut Corp. recalls peanut butter

For more information, including how to identify which lots of peanut butter were recalled, see the company's statement here (PDF).

"We deeply regret that this has happened," Stewart Parnell, owner and president of PCA, said in a statement on the company's Web site. "Out of an abundance of caution, we are voluntarily withdrawing this product and contacting our customers. We are taking these actions with the safety of our consumers as our first priority."

All of the peanut butter affected was produced on or after July 1 and was made in Blakely, Ga. The peanut butter was distributed to establishments such as care facilities, hospitals, schools, universities and restaurants; it was not distributed for retail sales.

State health and agriculture officials said last week they had found salmonella bacteria in a 5-pound package of King Nut peanut butter at a nursing facility in Minnesota. Officials tested the bacteria over the weekend and found a genetic match with the bacterial strain that has led to 30 illnesses in Minnesota and others across the country.

"The commonality among all of our patients was that they ate peanut butter," said Doug Schultz, a spokesman with the Minnesota Department of Health. While the brand of peanut butter couldn't be confirmed in every case, the majority of patients consumed the same brand, he said Monday.

King Nut Companies of Solon, Ohio, on Sunday asked its customers to stop using peanut butter under its King Nut and Parnell's Pride brands with a lot code that begins with the numeral "8." Company president and chief executive Martin Kanan said Monday that Minnesota's findings validated that decision.

"We did not want to wait around for the results," he said.

However, Kanan argued that King Nut could not be the source of the nationwide salmonella outbreak because the company distributes only to seven states — Ohio, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota, Arizona, Idaho and New Hampshire.

The peanut butter King Nut distributed was manufactured by Peanut Corporation of America. In an e-mail earlier Monday, President Stewart Parnell said the company was working with federal authorities.

Peanut Corporation of America was founded in 1976. It operates facilities in Suffolk; Blakely, Ga.; and and Plainview, Texas.

A woman in her 70s at a northern Minnesota nursing home died after contracting salmonella, although epidemiologist Stephanie Meyer of the state Health Department said it wasn't clear whether the illness or underlying health problems caused the death. The woman was not at the facility where the bacteria was initially found.

The Centers for Disease Control, in a release later Monday, said the salmonella poisonings may have contributed to three deaths. The CDC didn't detail the deaths or where they occurred, and spokesman Dave Daigle said the agency would have no other details Monday.

Minnesota officials took the lead because foodborne investigations typically start at the state level. Minnesota officials were coordinating their investigation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and other states.

The CDC on Monday raised the number of confirmed cases to 410, from 399 as of Friday, and Mississippi became the 43rd state to report a case. All the illnesses began between Sept. 15 and Jan. 7, but most of the people became sick after Oct. 1.

Kanan held out the possibility that the contamination came from another source, since the salmonella was found in an open container.

"That means there's a possibility of cross-contamination, somebody could have been cutting a piece of chicken and then stuck the knife into the peanut butter for a peanut butter sandwich," he said. "There have been no tests that have come back positive on a closed container."

The Minnesota lab took 13 samples from the container, and four of the samples, taken from different parts of the container, tested positive for salmonella. Doug Schultz, a Minnesota Health Department spokesman, said if the sample was contaminated from another source, lab tests would be expected to show positive results from near the top of the container only.

But Schultz said lab workers also aim to test unopened containers of the peanut butter and are trying to get such samples from the distributor.

The peanut butter contamination comes almost two years after ConAgra recalled its Peter Pan brand peanut butter, which was eventually linked to at least 625 salmonella cases in 47 states.

CDC officials say the bacteria in the current outbreak has been genetically fingerprinted as the Typhimurium type, which is among the most common sources of salmonella food poisoning.