The headline of last week’s batch of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warning letters was about powdered caffeine. Five of the 10 letters made public on Tuesday, Sept. 1, were sent to distributors of pure, powdered caffeine, stating that their products are adulterated “because they are dietary supplements that present a significant or unreasonable risk of illness or injury under the conditions of use recommended or suggested in the labeling.” The other recent warning letters were sent to a dairy, a baker and three seafood processors. Pleasant Valley Farms of Berkshire in Richford, VT, sold a dairy cow for slaughter for food that was found to have ampicillin at 0.2 ppm in its kidney tissue. FDA has established a tolerance of 0.01 ppm for residues of ampicillin in the edible tissues of cattle. FDA found problems with some of the labels from pies produced by Main Street Cafe Bloomer in Bloomer, WI, that caused the products to be adulterated or misbranded. For example, the company’s 10-inch M&M pie was manufactured with FD&C Yellow No. 5 (as an ingredient of the M&Ms), but the label didn’t declare it in the ingredient statement. Some of the product labels also failed to declare major allergens, FDA stated. Bestway Sandwiches of San Fernando, CA, Interpage Co. of Brooklyn, NY, and Hartford Provision Company of South Windsor, CT, were found to have “serious violations” of the seafood Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Point (HACCP) regulation. Bestway’s HACCP plan didn’t list certain food safety hazards and critical control points, according to FDA’s warning letter. Interpage hadn’t implemented an affirmative step for canned ready-to-eat mackerel in tomato sauce and canned ready-to-eat roasted sprats in tomato sauce to ensure that the imported products were processed in accordances with the seafood HACCP regulation, FDA stated. Hartford Provision’s HACCP plan for pasteurized canned crab meat and refrigerated, ready-to-eat seafood salad didn’t address Clostridium botulinum growth as a food safety hazard or a critical control point, the agency stated. Each company was given 15 days to respond to the concerns raised by FDA in the warning letters. (To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)