SEFFNER, FL. Back in December 2025, state inspectors walked into MK Citgo and found the convenience store selling kratom products that did not declare the concentration of 7-hydroxymitragynine, a potent opioid-like compound, as required under a Florida emergency rule that had already been in effect. The products, OPIA and Feel Free Classic kratom, were ordered off shelves on the spot.
That was not the only problem. The store was operating without a valid 2025 food permit, a violation inspectors had cited before. Both the permit lapse and the employee health reporting failure were marked repeat on the December 11 inspection report.
What Inspectors Found
The kratom violations drew the most enforcement action. Inspector notes state that OPIA kratom products in tablet form also lacked a supplement facts panel on the packaging, a separate labeling requirement from the 7-hydroxymitragynine concentration rule. Both product lines were voluntarily discarded after stop-sale orders were issued.
Inspectors also found multiple hemp extract products on the retail floor with three distinct problems: missing serving size and servings-per-container declarations, expired dates, and packaging designed in the shape of animals, humans, or cartoons, which Florida law prohibits because it makes the products appealing to children. All were pulled under stop-sale orders.
In total, inspectors issued 15 stop-sale orders during the visit, covering products cited under three separate legal grounds: distribution and marketing violations, misbranding under Florida food law, and violations of the state's broader food safety statutes.
The Repeat Problems
Two of the 11 violations were flagged as repeats, meaning inspectors had cited MK Citgo for the same failures on at least one prior visit.
The store was still operating without a valid 2025 food permit as of December 11. That is not a paperwork technicality. Selling food without a current permit means the store has not gone through the renewal process that ties a facility to current state requirements.
The second repeat violation involved employee health reporting. Inspector notes record that "employees were not informed in a verifiable manner of their responsibility to report to the person in charge information about their health related to foodborne illnesses." That procedure is meant to keep sick workers out of food-handling roles. MK Citgo had been cited for this before and still had no verifiable system in place.
What These Violations Mean
The kratom labeling requirement at the center of this inspection is not a minor formatting rule. Florida's emergency rule 5KER25-4 requires that kratom products sold to consumers declare the concentration of 7-hydroxymitragynine, the compound most associated with the substance's opioid-like effects, in parts per million on a dry-weight basis. Without that number, a buyer has no way to compare potency between products or know what dose they are consuming. The OPIA and Feel Free Classic products on MK Citgo's shelves carried none of that information.
The hemp extract violations compound that picture. Products past their expiration date should not be on a retail shelf under any circumstances. Products missing serving size information leave consumers unable to calculate how much of a psychoactive compound they are taking per use. And products shaped like animals or cartoons are prohibited precisely because that design choice targets children, who have no business consuming hemp extract at all.
The repeat failure on employee health reporting carries a different kind of risk. When a store has no system to ensure that sick workers report their illness before handling food, there is no barrier between a contagious employee and the products customers buy. That failure had already been documented at MK Citgo before December, and it was still unresolved when inspectors returned.
Operating without a valid food permit sits underneath all of it. A permit is not simply a certificate on a wall. It is the mechanism through which a facility demonstrates it has met current safety requirements and is subject to ongoing oversight. MK Citgo had let that lapse, and inspectors had seen it before.
The Longer Record
The December 11 inspection was categorized as an "Operating Without a Valid Food Permit" visit, meaning inspectors came specifically because the store had no current permit. That the permit violation was also marked repeat suggests MK Citgo has cycled through this problem more than once.
Two repeat violations out of 11 total is a signal worth noting. Both of the repeat citations, the permit lapse and the employee health reporting gap, are foundational requirements. They are not obscure technical standards. They are the starting point for any food retail operation. Finding them unresolved on a return visit indicates the corrections made after the prior inspection did not hold.
None of the 11 violations from the December inspection were corrected on site, with the exception of the products pulled under stop-sale orders and the three-compartment sink, which was cleaned during the visit. The kratom tablets lacking a supplement facts panel and the hemp products with cartoon packaging were discarded. But the permit was not resolved at the door, and the employee health reporting system was still absent when inspectors left.
