Warning Letter of the Week: frozen croissants edition

A short note from the FDA to the owner of C & B Croissants Corporation: 

During an inspection of your firm located at 1339 W. Gaylord St., Long Beach, CA on October 25 through November 4, 2016, an investigator from the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) determined that your firm manufactures a variety of frozen croissants.... 

1. Your firm failed to take measures to exclude pests from the processing areas and to protect against the contamination of food on the premises by pests, as required by 21 CFR 110.35(c). Specifically, our investigator discovered evidence of insect and rodent activity near foods stored in your food processing facility. For example, the following items were discovered in the production areas of the bakery during the inspection:

1. In the weighing/ ingredient storage room off the main processing room there were about 8 apparent rodent excreta pellets on an unused slicer adjacent to a gnawed package (containing a video); and approximately 13 apparent rodent like excreta on the floor beneath the unused slicer. The table holding the slicer was about 12 feet away from uncovered buckets holding dry ingredients used to make plain croissant dough for the current day’s production.
2. In an enclosed room directly adjacent to the processing room, approximately 5 live cockroaches (less than 1” long each) were observed. In addition, apparent rodent excreta pellets were observed in the northwest corner (30 approximately), northeast corner (17approximately), and center of the room (12 approximately). No food or food packaging material was stored in this room; only small pieces of dried dough like residue.
3. Front and back roll-up doors remained open during the first day of the inspection, with no barriers to prevent pests and vermin from entering the warehouse areas in both the front and the rear of the building.
4. About 3 birds flew through the front warehouse door into the warehouse and then flew out (this is a repeat observation from the FDA inspection in 2010).
5. One fly near the 3 compartment sink in the processing room and 3 flies on a table near the employee break room...

Just in case you thought the CDER folks got to have all the fun...