Democratic lawmakers on Thursday reprimanded U. S. companies that sourced peanut products for not ensuring the goods were up to the safety mark and relying on an auditor hired by the plant, owned by the Peanut Corporation of America to assess the safety of the products.

The companies Kellogg Co, King Nut Corp and Vitamin Cottage Natural Food Markets Inc, were called before a House committee on Thursday and they defended their oversight of purchased products. They said it was common practice in the food industry to rely on a third party to conduct the audits.

The salmonella outbreak sickened an estimated 700 people and nine died as a result of eating contaminated peanut products with ingredients supplied by Peanut Corp. The recall that followed affected more than 3,400 products from crackers to ice cream and was the largest food recall in U. S. history.

Henry Waxman, chairman of the House of Representatives Energy and Commerce Committee, at a subcommittee hearing said, "There were some red flags you should have noted. PCA was a bad company and they did bad things, and they were clearly ignorant ... but this indicates to me that Kellogg was pretty sloppy."

"I think we did everything we could do," said A. D. David Mackay, the president and chief executive of Kellogg. "The third-party audit was a key part of it."

Kellogg lost nearly $70 million in products from the recall. "We were dealing with an unethical and dishonest supplier. I'm unaware how you manage for someone who is prepared to put the public at risk," Mackay added.

Martin Kanan, president of King Nut said his company depended on Peanut Corp to sell safe products. "I understand our name was on it, but we bought a closed container. We have got to start with the manufacturers."

Lawmakers released internal documents which showed that Peanut Corp was notified when an inspection was planned by AIB, the audit firm it hired, and told how to prepare.

Nestle USA on the other hand paid for an internal audit of Peanut Corp's Georgia plant in 2002 which reported finding rodent droppings and dead insects and determined it was "not in compliance" with housekeeping, sanitation or pest control standards.

In 2006 an audit of Peanut Corp's Texas facility the independent auditor reported finding dozens of dead mice and as a result Nestle never used Peanut Corp as a supplier.

Rep. Bart Stupak, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations said, "Why didn't you do the same? You all talked about safety as the No. 1 concern. It seems like you passed that responsibility to someone else."

Food and Drug Administration officials said they largely relied on the industry to ensure the safety of food while the industry representatives said at the hearing Thursday that they relied on the F. D. A. to ensure that food was produced safely.

Heather C. Isely, an owner of Vitamin Cottage Natural Food Markets, based in Lakewood, Colo., was asked why she did not send auditors to the Peanut Corporation's plants. "We rely on the government inspection system," replied Ms. Isely.

The American Institute of Baking, which conducts many of the independent audits of food plants for major manufacturers and was the auditor of Peanut Corp., was in prime focus by the committee. "There is an obvious and inherent conflict of interest when an auditor works for the same supplier it is evaluating, and several documents show evidence of this cozy relationship," said Representative Bart Stupak, Democrat of Michigan.

Despite its appalling condition the Texas plant received a "certificate of achievement". "How could a facility that was in such deplorable conditions receive such glowing reviews?" asked Waxman. "And how is it possible that any of our witnesses could have relied on such flawed inspections?"

Mackay listed nine steps that Congress should take to improve the nation's food safety system, and many of these suggestions have broad support in Congress. These include creating a single food safety agency, requiring that manufacturers have definitive plans to manufacture safely, providing federal authorities with mandatory recall authority and requiring annual government inspections of facilities making high-risk foods like peanut butter.