Federal agents have seized 38,640 cans of cat food that had been labeled tuna for human consumption.
The 61/2-ounce cans, confiscated Monday from a Teterboro, N.J., warehouse, were labeled Ocean King Chunk Light Tuna in Water but instead contained decomposed tuna fit only for sale as pet food, the Food and Drug Administration said.Some of the cans were sold, the FDA said.
The agency said all canned foods are sterilized during processing, so it isn't dangerous. "But who wants to eat decomposed cat food?" asked Lillian Aveta, an FDA compliance monitor.
M. Chu, president of Ocean King in New York City, did not immediately returns calls.
The cans belonged originally to a lot of 25 million to 50 million cans produced in 1985 at a cannery in St. Andrews, Canada, the FDA said. The Canadian government closed the cannery because of unsanitary conditions.
The tuna was supposed to be labeled 7th Heaven cat food in the United States.
"But at some point, some cans were relabeled as tuna," Aveta said. "We don't know yet how many, or when or by whom."
Some tuna labels were pasted on top of the cat food labels.
The decomposed tuna that was distributed was labeled under four brands - Ocean King, IGA, Blue Bay and National, the FDA said.
The investigation was prompted in July by complaints in Minnesota, including one from Darlene La Musga of St. Paul, who opened a can and took a bite.
"I went to pull off the label and I saw there was another label underneath," she said.
"It said 7th Heaven cat food. It gagged me and I threw up in the wastebasket."
The affected cans carry a two-line product code; the fourth character on the first line is a "v" and the second character on the second line is a "t."