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Salvaged Food: Lessons Learned from the Americold Fire

RCED-95-76 Published: Mar 08, 1995. Publicly Released: Mar 24, 1995.
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Highlights

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided information on the events surrounding a fire at a food storage warehouse in Kansas, focusing on the: (1) disposition of food salvaged from the facility; and (2) lessons learned from the incident that could be used to improve regulation of the food salvaging industry.

Recommendations

Recommendations for Executive Action

Agency Affected Recommendation Status
Food and Drug Administration FDA should more actively assist states in managing food salvaging operations following major disasters. At a minimum, FDA should ensure that: (1) the information it has about a private food testing laboratories and key personnel is communicated to state officials responsible for monitoring food salvaging operations after a major disaster; and (2) these state officials are made aware of FDA guidance for maintaining the integrity of the food sampling process.
Closed – Not Implemented
FDA disagrees with the conclusions and recommendations in the report and has no plans to implement this recommendation. Therefore, GAO recommends that this be closed.

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Topics

CarcinogensFloodsConsultantsContaminated foodsstate relationsFood facilitiesFood inspectionHazardous substancesHealth hazardsSafety regulationSafety standards