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These eats are definitely not kosher.
The feds seized more than $1 million worth of food from a New York manufacturer of popular kosher jellies and puddings after finding a warehouse overrun by rats and mice, authorities said yesterday.
Agents from the US Food and Drug Administration raided VIP Foods in Ridgewood, Queens — makers of the well-known “Kojel” products — and found live rodents running amok in the facility as well as numerous rat and mouse carcasses.
“VIP’s warehouse was a picnic ground for rodents, and the company failed utterly in its obligation to provide food deemed safe for human consumption,” said Loretta Lynch, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.
“Those who store, package, and sell the food we serve our families have a responsibility to maintain basic standards of cleanliness in their facilities.”
The firm refused to clean up its act despite numerous warnings over filthy conditions, authorities said.
The feds also found evidence the rodent population in the 50,000-square-foot warehouse was ready to skyrocket, as numerous nests were found hidden in pallets of food.
Containers holding other foodstuffs had been gnawed open, while rodent droppings were “too numerous to count,” officials said.
VIP produces blueberry muffin mix, pancake mix, flavored mashed potatoes and chicken soup base as well as pudding and gelatin.
The firm’s Kojel products are sold at Key Food, Foodtown, Wegmans and other East Coast retailers.
Company officials could not be reached.
Other retailers carrying Kojel products include Wegman’s — a high-end chain with markets upstate — Weis Markets, Hannaford Supermarkets in upstate New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, and Cub Foods in Illinois, Ohio, and Minnesota.
VIP Foods also says it makes products for restaurants, institutional customers such as retirement homes, and caterers.
Efforts to reach company execs late Friday were unsuccessful.
After the firm vowed to clean up the mess, FDA inspectors returned in February and found “at least six live and dead rodents,” prosecutors wrote to Brooklyn federal Judge Nicholas Garaufis.
The feds also found live and dead insects in food during one inspection.
The firm has a long history of violating FDA regulations, officials said, and the feds have disciplined the company several times over the past decade, according to public records.
The FDA cited the firm in 2009 for “failure to store raw materials in a manner that protects against contamination,” and in 2003 accused the company of mislabeling its instant hot chocolate mix as “sugar free” when it wasn’t, records show.
Brooklyn federal prosecutors say they’re planning to take further legal action against the firm to force it to comply with health regulations. Efforts to reach company executives late Friday were unsuccessful.