Castle Cheese, Inc.

UPDATE : Castle Cheese President Michelle Myrter is facing charges in federal court in Pittsburgh brought by the U.S. attorney’s office of aiding and abetting the introduction of misbranded and adulterated food into interstate commerce. The charge alleges that the parmesan and romano cheese products were falsely labeled as 100 percent real cheese when they didn’t meet the standard and contained other ingredients. Here is TINA.org’s original alert below.

Castle Cheese, Inc. has come under scrutiny by the FDA for making a variety of false claims about its cheeses and for other violations. According to the FDA, Castle Cheese’s International Packing Parmesan Cheese, Romano 100% Grated Cheese, and 100% Grated Parmesan Cheese products are misbranded and adulterated under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.

The FDA said all of the cheeses contain substitute ingredients not listed on the label, including other kinds of cheese, cheese-like substances, and other ingredients and that the company’s parmesan cheese products contain no parmesan cheese, but do contain extra cellulose and starch designed to cheaply increase the weight of the product.

When questioned by the FDA, Castle Cheese blamed the plant manager for misbranding products without authorization, but the FDA said that there was continued misbranding products after the plant manager was no longer working for the company. Castle Cheese was also cited for coming short on certain health testing and procedures.

In 2014 the FDA issued a close out notice that the company had addressed the issues in the 2013 warning letter.

This alert was updated on 2/17/16.