Three warning letters published last week by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) dealt with issues involving food processing companies.

FDA considers Wonder Natural Foods Corp.’s Better’n Peanut Butter Original product to be misbranded. The labeling of the Watermill, NY, company’s Better’n Peanut Butter Original product online bears the claim “healthy” in connection with the statement “low fat, low calorie,” but FDA stated that the product doesn’t meet the requirements for use of a “healthy” nutrient content claim. It doesn’t include a high enough percentage of nutrients and has more than 40 calories per Reference Amount Customarily Consumed. In addition, some of the product’s ingredients are not listed by their common or usual name. Among FDA’s other comments were that the claim of “no refined sugars” may mislead customers who are seeking products that are sugar-free or contain no added sugar and that the nutrition information on the website is missing declarations of trans fat, polyunsaturated fatty acids, monounsaturated fatty acids, and cholesterol amounts, according to the letter. Kangadis Inc. of Hauppauge, NY, (doing business as Gourmet Factory) was cited for “serious violations” of the regulations for acidified foods. The company didn’t have scheduled processes including conditions for heat processing and control of pH, salt, sugar, and preservative level, and source and date of the establishment of the process on file for the acidified food products manufactured. Those included, but were not limited to, chopped garlic in oil and chopped garlic in water in 128-oz. and 32-oz. clear plastic jars. Also, FDA stated that the products’ processes were not established by a competent authority with expert knowledge in the processing of acidified food products. Keshodwala Foods of Veraval, Gujarat, India, was warned about violations of the seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points (HACCP) regulation. The company’s HACCP plan for “Scombroid Fishes” didn’t list critical control points for processing to control histamine formation as a result of cumulative exposure to unrefrigerated conditions, a critical limit for decomposition, adequate monitoring procedures, or an appropriate corrective action plan, FDA stated. Each company was given 15 days to respond to the concerns FDA raised in the warning letters. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)