Now that you've polished off your last cup of leftover Passover pudding, here's a fun little tale for you: popular kosher food manufacturer VIP Foods had $1 million in inventory seized by the feds last month after inspectors found a "widespread rodent infestation" in its Queens headquarters.
The Ridgewood-based company is known for producing popular KoJel products, like dry mixes, instant soups, puddings and baking powders. But it appears there was a little more than matzoh meal getting churned out over there, because investigators say they discovered some pretty dire sanitary conditions after multiple visits to the premises between October and February.
One visit yielded "over 1,200 rodent excreta pellets, at least 4 live and dead mice, and rodent-gnawed containers of food," and investigators found rodent urine stains on and around food.
"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,” Loretta Lynch, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement— investigators also found rodent nests in food pallets and insects, both dead and alive, in food—so don't believe any of those Pareve labels!
