Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued warnings to a cattle operation, an auction facility, a seafood processing facility, and a Japanese producer of eel grilling sauce. In October 2014, South Central Livestock of Lewisburg, TN, sold a cow for slaughter as food that was found to have illegal drug residues in its tissue, FDA stated. U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) analysis identified the presence of 19.36 parts per million (ppm) of florfenicol in the liver tissue and 6.99 ppm in the muscle tissue, and 4.55 ppm of flunixin in the liver tissue and 0.27 ppm in the muscle tissue. FDA has established a tolerance of 3.7 ppm for residues of florfenicol in the liver tissue and 0.3 ppm in the muscle tissue of cattle, and 0.125 ppm for residues of flunixin in the liver tissue and 0.025 ppm in the muscle tissue. Lewisburg Livestock Market, an auction facility located in the same city, was cited for selling a cow that was slaughtered on or about Oct. 15, 2014, and found to have the same levels of drug residue in its tissues, suggesting that both FDA warning letters were referring to the same animal. South Central Livestock was cited for extralabel use of NuflorGold and Prevail without the supervision of a licensed veterinarian FDA warned the Lewisburg Livestock Market about its lack of a system to ensure that the animals it buys and sells for slaughter for food have not been medicated, or, if they have, to allow them to be withheld from slaughter for an appropriate period of time to deplete potentially hazard residues of drugs from edible tissues. Lanter Distributing, a seafood processing facility in Madison, IL, was found to have “serious violations” of seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulations. “Accordingly, your refrigerated, ready-to-eat seafood products are adulterated, in that they have been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby they may have been rendered injurious to health,” the warning letter read. FDA stated that the firm failed to have a HACCP plan in place to control the pathogens associated with its seafood products and didn’t monitor for the protection of food, food packaging material, and food contact surfaces for adulteration; the proper labeling, storage, and use of toxic chemicals; the exclusion of pests, and/or “any other sanitation conditions and practices pertinent to your firm’s specific operations.” The letter also stated that, according to Lanter’s operations manager, no one at the company has completed the required HACCP training or is HACCP-qualified through job experience. After an inspection of Suzukatsu Co. in Yaizu, Japan, last September, FDA found issues with the labels on two of the company’s products. The company’s label for Eel Grilling Sauce Unagi Kabaya No Tare Regular was considered misbranded because it declared “corn syrup,” even though the ingredient is not in the product formulation, and it failed to list the sub-ingredients “sweet potato starch,” “potato starch,” and “corn starch.” This label, plus a second for Eel Grilling Sauce Unagi Kabaya No Tare Thick Type Koikuchi, were also declared misbranded for failing to declare the appropriate serving size. Each company was given 15 days to respond to the concerns raised by FDA in the warning letters.