PORT ANGELES — The news report out of Port Angeles spread across the nation Wednesday at the speed of light.
In the Chicago Tribune, New York Daily News and hundreds of other newspapers, on KGAN-TV in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and dozens of TV stations, along the wires of The Associated Press and even on Web sites and Web logs like BigNewsNetwork.com out of Iowa, the Port Angeles news related to the current nationwide peanut scare:
Recalled bird feed marketed by a Port Angeles business contains peanuts from a Georgia company at the center of a national salmonella bacteria controversy.
But the suspect wild bird feed weren’t from Port Angeles, and neither the peanuts nor finished bird feed ever crossed Washington’s state lines, the business’ owner told the Peninsula Daily News.
Instead, the product was distributed 10 months to 13 months ago in a four-state Midwestern region.
Recall issued
Mark Jefferies of Port Angeles, who owns the marketing business called Western Trade Group Inc., issued the cautionary recall Tuesday, which was relayed through Food and Drug Administration channels to AP.
In turn, the wire service dispatched the warning — and dateline Port Angeles — to the nation.
“Nothing in my business happens in Washington,” Jefferies said.
“Most of my customers are in the Midwest and East Coast. I don’t have any West Coast suppliers or customers.”
Jefferies said he doesn’t make the birdseed, but is more of a marketer for other companies.
He buys the peanuts from one company and supplies it to bird feed packers, doing most of his business by phone.
Georgia peanuts
The roasted feed grade peanuts, which were marketed and distributed by West Coast Trade Group and later made into the bird feed, were among those recalled by Georgia’s Peanut Corp. of America because of the risk of salmonella.
The Food and Drug Administration last month traced the source of a salmonella outbreak, which made 600 people ill nationwide, to Peanut Corp.’s Blakely, Ga., plant.
The federal agency found that Peanut Corp. knowingly shipped peanuts, peanut butter and peanut paste products to dozens of food makers even after lab tests detected salmonella at the now-closed plant.
For Jefferies, his warning was cautionary since the possibly infected peanuts in the bird feed was distributed last year.
“All that feed was used up a year ago,” Jefferies said, “but I haven’t heard anything about any animals or people who were affected by it.”
He said on occasion the birdseed companies will sell the leftovers to hog feed companies — so potentially some of it could have ended up in hog troughs as well — but he added that he doesn’t deal in that.
“Those transactions have nothing to do with me,” he said.
‘Group of one’
Jefferies runs a one-man operation out of his Port Angeles home and uses a Carlsborg post office box.
“I’m a group of one, mostly,” he said.
He said he dealt with two one-ton loads of the recalled peanuts from Georgia.
Both loads were distributed between January and the end of April last year to feed packers in Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri and North Dakota, he said.
As for the Port Angeles dateline, Jefferies said his business is based wherever his phone happens to be.
“Right now, I’m in Port Angeles,” the two-year resident said.
Salmonella symptoms
Symptoms of salmonella infection in people include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal cramping and fever, the FDA said in a news release.
Animals which have salmonella infections might be lethargic and have diarrhea, fever and vomiting and some might have decreased appetite, fever and abdominal pain, agency added.
For the record, the recall involves West Coast Trade Group-marketed bird feed loads labeled Aggieville USA with codes WT-60802 and WT-14484, and customers can contact Jefferies at 360-417-3747.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
