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• Woodville company fined for processing and shipping bad butter

A Woodville distributing company has been fined $4,000 and sentenced to one-year probation for it role in contaminating and adulterating butter, according to Eric Peterson, U.S. attorney for western Wisconsin.

Woodville Warehousing and Distributing was given the sentence Tuesday after the company's owner Ronald Reik, pled guilty on Aug. 28 to the misdemeanor.

According to Peterson, the butter was processed and then held for sale at the warehouse. It was later shipped across state lines.

Following an anonymous tip, an inspector from the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture went to Woodville and found that the company was involved in an unlicensed butter-processing operation.

The inspector found that the butter's packaging was exposed to contamination and that dark particles appeared on the butter.

Some boxes containing butter had stickers on them indicating the butter was not fit for consumption.

The inspector also found that there were no hand-washing stations and that the equipment being used was not approved for food processing.

At the time of the inspector's visit approximately 86,000 pounds of butter had already been shipped to Minnesota. The inspector prevented an additional 200,000 pounds from being shipped.

During his hearing Reik admitted that the company had engaged in the butter processing during a three-week period in May 2003 on behalf of dairy traders working for the Minnesota-based North Central Companies.

The two NCC traders involved were Mark Anderson and Steven Perkins. Both men have pled to misdemeanors and will be sentenced on Dec. 16.

The case was investigated by the federal Food and Drug Administration's office of criminal investigations along with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection. The investigation also was aided by the departments of agriculture from both Minnesota and Iowa.