Peanut Corp Closes Texas Plant

The peanut company at the center of an investigation into a deadly national salmonella outbreak said today that it has suspended operations at a second processing plant. Peanut Corp. of America said in a statement that it was voluntarily suspending operations at its Plainview, Texas, plant while state and federal health officials complete an investigation into procedures and food-safety records there.

Peanut Corp. closed its plant in Blakely, Ga., last month after federal investigators identified that facility as the source of the salmonella outbreak. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported today that the number of cases linked to the current outbreak has reached 600, with one case in Florida bringing the number of affected states to 44. It may also have contributed to eight deaths. (More Peanut Corporation of America stories.)