Caribou Coffee joins the parade of peanut recallers

Caribou Coffee has become what appears to be the first restaurant chain to recall a product because it may contain peanuts contaminated with salmonella.

The Food and Drug Administration disclosed the recall of Caribou Fruit & Nut Blend Trail Mix this afternoon via Twitter. The announcement explains that Caribou, the (distant) Number Two coffee chain behind Starbucks, was informed the peanuts in the mix were supplied by Peanut Corp. of America, the Georgia processor implicated as the source of the two-months-long-and-counting salmonella outbreak. No one has reported being sickened by the product, which Caribou was selling in three-ounce, sealed cellophane packets, the announcement noted.

It also noted that the mix, supplied ready-to-sell by Marra Brothers/Marich Confectionary, was still being distributed as of last Friday.

Starbucks had earlier pulled some of its peanut-containing products, but had not issued a recall. The items were merely taken off store shelves or no longer sold.

More than 500 people have been sickened by salmonella that was traced back to Peanut Corp.

No mas! No mas!

The business week is barely underway, but it's already shaping up to be a stinker. The early bad news includes the bombshell that Landry's is backing out of a long-awaited buyout by founder and CEO Tilman Fertitta because the backers don't want details of the financing arrangement revealed to shareholders, as the SEC is demanding. Then there's Ruth's Chris' disclosure that fourth-quarter same-store sales dropped 18.5%. And, just to put that last smiley face on the morning's restaurant headlines, there's a full-fledged food-safety crisis involving peanut butter sold by one supplier to foodservice operators in at least 42 states.

The Landry's situation is by the far the real startler. The deal has had more ups and downs than a roller coaster at one of the company's amusement complexes. Now, with the going-private process in the home stretch, the buyout is called off, for reasons that are murky at best.

As an announcement cryptically recounts, the SEC ordered that the terms between buyer, seller and the deal's financial backers be released to shareholders. Landry's said it informed the agency that the agreements prohibit the disclosure of that proprietary information. The SEC responded in essence with, "Too bad. Tell your shareholders all the specifics."

If Landry's decided to comply with the SEC's directive, the funding might've been pulled in retribution. But, even worse for the company, the lenders could back out of a stipulation that they refinance $400 million in notes. Landry's would lose its suitor and a chance to lighten a crippling debt burden. The most responsible choice, the company argued in a press release, was to terminate the buyout. That way it wouldn't have to issue a proxy to shareholders. The disclosures demanded by the SEC would not have be made, the financiers would be appeased, and the refinancing could continue.

The big mystery, of course, is what the lenders--several Jefferies & Co. and Wells Fargo affiliates--did not want revealed. Barring a new John Grisham novel, we may never find out.

Perhaps Fertitta should shift his attention to buying out Ruth's Chris instead.