Food banks tossing peanut products

CLEVELAND — The nationwide peanut recall is taking a heavy toll on food banks, where granola bars and peanut butter crackers have been dumped and donations have stalled as organizations comb through their inventories in search of tainted products.

Lisa Hamler-Fugitt, executive director of the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks in Columbus, says food supplies are short.

"It is catastrophic," she said. "We need more food than we've ever needed in the history of emergency food assistance. The demand on our systems is growing every day at unsustainable rates, and quite honestly, we don't have enough."

Because donations are repacked for distribution, food pantry workers have been forced to sift through the boxes to pull recalled items.

"We're going to have to monitor for a long time to make sure none of this gets to needy Ohioans," Hamler-Fugitt said.

The Akron-Canton Regional Foodbank, one of many in the state, says it has tossed about 3,500 pounds of food. Staff at the Cleveland Foodbank spent hours sorting through boxes and discarded all snack products, regardless of whether they contained peanuts.

"We just want to be safe," said spokeswoman Karen Pozna.

Nearly 600 people in 43 states have become ill because of a salmonella outbreak linked to a peanut processing plant in Georgia. There have been at least 70 confirmed cases in Ohio.

More than 1,550 products containing peanuts, peanut butter or peanut paste have been recalled, and that has halted donations of some products that used to arrive at food banks by the truckload from manufacturers and retailers.

Federal investigators said Friday that Lynchburg, Va.-based Peanut Corp. of America knowingly shipped salmonella-laced products from its Blakely, Ga., plant after tests showed the products were contaminated.

Federal law forbids producing or shipping foods under conditions that could make it harmful to consumers' health.