The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is barring Captain Neill’s Seafood, Inc. from importing food into the country after the company was convicted of mislabeling more than USD 4 million (EUR 3.4 million) worth of Asian blue crab meat as a U.S.-sourced product.
While Captain Neill’s was convicted of the felony over a year ago, the FDA issued the debarment on 22 October after the company did not respond to the agency or request a hearing on the matter.
“Captain Neill’s failure to respond and request a hearing constitutes a waiver of the company’s right to a hearing concerning this matter,” FDA said in the order.
The import ban is in effect for five years.
The U.S. Department of Justice alleged that Columbia, North Carolina-based Capt. Neill’s, along with company president and CEO Phil Carawan, intentionally mislabeled foreign crab meat as “Product of the U.S.A.”
For periods of time from January 2012 through June 2015, Captain Neill’s “was unable to satisfy customer demand for domestically harvested blue crab; nor did Captain Neill’s have frozen domestically harvested blue crab to satisfy customer demand,” the complaint said.
As a result, Carawan led Captain Neill’s to purchase foreign crab meat from South America and Asia, according to the complaint.
“Carawan then directed Captain Neill’s employees to repack foreign crab meat into containers labeled ‘Product of U.S.A.,’ which Capt. Neill’s then sold to customers as jumbo domestically harvested blue crab,” the DOJ stated.
Captain Neill’s sold around USD 4.08 million (EUR 3.5 million) of the mislabeled crab meat to U.S. grocery stores, wholesale clubs, and other retailers between 2012 and June 2015, according to the DOJ.
Photo courtesy of JHVEPhoto/Shutterstock
