PORT ST LUCIE, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors walked into Soulpowerful Slb Llc, a convenience store on the Treasure Coast, and found the entire stock of kratom products on the shelves missing required concentration labeling, with no valid food permit authorizing the store to operate at all.
The inspection, conducted February 6, 2026, by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, resulted in 14 total violations and three separate stop sale orders. Every kratom product in the store was voluntarily discarded during the visit.
What Inspectors Found
The operating-without-a-permit violation was a repeat, meaning inspectors had flagged the same problem during a prior visit. The inspector's notes recorded it plainly: "Establishment is operating without a valid food permit."
The kratom findings were the most documented part of the inspection. Inspectors cited the store twice on kratom alone, once under Chapter 500 of Florida Statutes for products not labeled as required, and once under emergency rule 5KER25-6 for products missing concentration labeling measured in parts per million. The inspector noted: "Multiple kratom products not labeled with concentration of PPM." All products were voluntarily discarded during the inspection, and three stop sale and release orders were issued, each citing misbranding under Florida Statutes 500.04 and 500.11.
In the retail cooler, inspectors found packaged ice cups inside a small ice freezer that were missing source labeling. Those were removed from the sales floor during the inspection.
Multiple water beverages were found stored directly on the floor adjacent to the entrance doorway, a violation that was not corrected on site. In the back of the store, pegboard material was being used as shelving above the three-bay sink, milk crates were being used as additional shelving, and the three-bay sink itself was unsealed from the wall.
A soap dispenser was found mounted above the mop sink, not a designated handwashing area. Paper towels were missing at the handwashing sink next to the three-bay sink, though they were obtained and replaced during the inspection.
What These Violations Mean
Operating without a valid food permit is not a paperwork technicality. A food permit is the state's mechanism for verifying that a retail food establishment has met baseline safety requirements before selling consumable products to the public. When a store sells food without one, there is no current state-verified assurance that the facility has been evaluated for the conditions that prevent contamination and foodborne illness. The fact that this was a repeat violation means the store had already been put on notice and continued operating without resolving it.
The kratom labeling violations carry a specific public health weight. Kratom products sold for human consumption are subject to Florida's emergency labeling rules precisely because concentration levels matter for anyone consuming them. A product missing its parts-per-million concentration label gives buyers no way to assess what they are ingesting or in what amount. The three stop sale orders issued on site were the state's mechanism for pulling those products from commerce immediately.
The person-in-charge violations, which were not corrected on site, point to a gap in food safety awareness at the staff level. When the person running the store cannot correctly answer questions about foodborne illnesses or symptoms of diseases transmissible through food, and when there are no written procedures for handling vomiting or diarrheal events, the store lacks the basic protocols that contain contamination when something goes wrong. The absence of a probe thermometer compounds this, since there was no tool on hand to verify whether any temperature-controlled products were being held safely.
The Longer Record
The February 2026 inspection was categorized as an "Operating Without a Valid Food Permit, Met Sanitation Inspection," meaning the store met the minimum sanitation threshold to remain open despite the permit violation and the 14 citations. The repeat designation on the permit violation is the most significant historical marker in the record, indicating this was not the first time inspectors had documented the store operating outside the bounds of its licensing requirements.
None of the 14 violations recorded on February 6 were corrected on site in the sense that zero violations carried the corrected-on-site designation in the final tally, though the inspector's notes document that ice cups were pulled from the sales floor and paper towels were supplied to the handwashing sink during the visit. The kratom products were discarded. The water beverages on the floor, the pegboard shelving, the unsealed sink, the milk crate shelving, and the three foundational food safety failures involving the person in charge, written illness procedures, and the missing thermometer were all left unresolved when the inspector departed.
The supplemental report issued during the visit, referenced in the inspector's notes, contains additional information for management that is not reflected in the public violation record.