Feds Shut Kosher Large Warehouse in Queens After Rat Infestation
By Anne Cohen April 15, 2013
Customers can wave goodbye to KoJel kosher foods products like instant noodle soup and pudding — at least for a little while.
V.I.P. Foods, the Queens food supplier that manufactures the products, has had roughly $1 million worth of inventory seized due to rodent infestation, The New York Times reported.
The federal Food and Drug Administration seized the products from the company’s warehouse in Ridgewood, Queens, on March 19.
Inspectors had visited the site several times between October and February. The Times reported that a complaint filed in federal court last month stated that on October 25, inspectors arrived to find “over 1,200 rodent excreta pellets, at least four live and dead mice, and rodent-gnawed containers of food.” Rodent urine stains were also found around the food.
“V.I.P.’s warehouse was a picnic ground for rodents, and the company failed utterly in its obligation to provide food deemed safe for human consumption,” Loretta E. Lynch, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement.
The inspectors also found evidence the rodent population in the 50,000-square-foot warehouse was ready to explode, as nests were found hidden in pallets of food, the New York Post reported.
V.I.P. Foods sells Kojel products to various supermarkets in up and down the East Coast, and as far West as Illinois, Ohio and Minnesota, the New York Post reported, adding that the company also says it sells products to restaurants, retirement homes, and caterers.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors say they will take further legal action against V.I.P. to force it to comply with health regulations.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news. All donations are still being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000 until April 24.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
