The Food and Drug Administration has reinstated the food facility registration of Sunland Inc., a manufacturer and distributor of peanut products linked to an outbreak of Salmonella Bredeney last fall, after a federal judge entered a consent decree of permanent injunction imposing requirements on the firm.

On Nov. 26, 2012, FDA suspended Sunland’s registration because it did not provide enough assurance that existing problems would be corrected. This was the first use of the agency’s authority to prohibit a food facility from introducing product into interstate or intrastate commerce, an authority granted to the agency under the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act of 2011.

In accordance with the consent decree, FDA also authorized Sunland to resume processing and distributing raw peanuts from its peanut mill plant in Portales, NM. The company may not resume processing or distributing ready-to-eat food until it completes additional corrective actions and receives written authorization from the FDA.