PLANT CITY, FL. Back in February 2026, state inspectors walked into United Food Store on Plant City's retail strip and found the convenience store operating without a valid food permit while its shelves held kratom products shaped like cartoon characters, hemp extract in packaging with no expiration dates, and breads sold in Ziploc bags from an unpermitted vendor.
The February 11 inspection by the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services turned up 18 violations, including 2 priority violations and 2 that were repeats from prior inspections. Not a single violation was corrected on site before the inspector's report was filed.
What Inspectors Found on the Shelves
The kratom violations were extensive. Inspectors documented that five brands, BOTANIC TONICS, OPIA, HEAT, EASIE, and one product with no brand name at all, did not declare the concentration of 7-hydroxymitragynine in parts per million on a dry-weight basis, as required under Florida's emergency rule for kratom products. Stop-sale orders were issued for BOTANIC TONICS, OPIA, HEAT, and EASIE. The no-brand-name items were voluntarily discarded.
Three of those same brands, HEAT, OPIA, and EASIE, also lacked a supplement facts panel entirely.
The hemp extract violations were equally broad. Inspectors found hemp products on the retail floor without child-resistant packaging, without expiration dates, without batch numbers, and without serving size information. Some products contained color additives prohibited under Florida law. Others were packaged or labeled in the shape of an animal, human, or cartoon, making them attractive to children in violation of Florida Statute 581.217(7)(e). All of those products were subject to stop-sale orders and were voluntarily discarded during the inspection.
The bread on the shelves presented a separate problem. An inspector noted that breads packaged in Ziploc bags were not obtained from a permitted vendor. Those items were also voluntarily discarded and a stop-sale release was issued.
The Basics Were Missing Too
Beyond the product-specific violations, the inspection exposed gaps in the store's most fundamental food safety practices.
The person in charge could not correctly answer questions about preventing the transmission of foodborne illness, a priority intermediate violation the inspector recorded without noting any correction. The store had no certified food protection manager on staff.
Employees were washing and rinsing utensils and then air-drying them without ever sanitizing them, a priority violation. An inspector showed the employee how to set up the sanitizer sink, and the utensils were sanitized before the inspector left.
No paper towels were available at the hand-washing sinks in the restroom or the warewashing area. No sanitizer solution was set up at the three-compartment sink. No sanitizer test kits for chlorine were on hand. The store had no written procedures for employees to follow when a customer or employee has a vomiting or diarrhea event on the premises.
What These Violations Mean
The operating-without-a-permit violation is not a paperwork technicality. A valid food permit is what places a retail food establishment inside the state's inspection system. Without one, the store had no current regulatory standing, and an application had been submitted but fees had not yet been paid as of the inspection date. This was a repeat violation, meaning inspectors had flagged the same problem before.
The unapproved-source violation on the breads matters because food from unpermitted vendors has no traceability. If a customer became ill from one of those Ziploc-bagged loaves, there would be no supplier records to trace, no lot numbers, no way to identify who made the product or under what conditions.
The kratom and hemp labeling failures carry a specific risk that goes beyond regulatory compliance. Products sold without declared potency levels, without expiration dates, and without batch numbers give consumers no way to assess what they are taking or whether a product has degraded. The cartoon-shaped and animal-shaped hemp products are explicitly prohibited because they are designed in ways that make them appealing to children who cannot read a warning label.
The person-in-charge knowledge failure is a foundational concern. When the employee responsible for overseeing food safety cannot answer basic questions about preventing foodborne illness transmission, every other safeguard in the store becomes less reliable.
The Longer Record
The two repeat violations documented in February 2026, operating without a valid food permit and the absence of a food temperature measuring device, indicate that inspectors had cited United Food Store for both of these problems on at least one prior visit.
A store operating without a permit on a repeated basis, while also lacking basic temperature monitoring tools across multiple inspections, suggests these are not oversights that slip through once. The permit violation in particular requires active steps to resolve, and the inspection record shows those steps had not been completed before inspectors returned.
Zero violations were corrected on site at the time the February 11 report was filed. Stop-sale orders were issued for multiple kratom and hemp product lines, and while some products were voluntarily discarded during the inspection, stop-sale orders for BOTANIC TONICS, OPIA, HEAT, and EASIE remained open pending a follow-up inspector visit and written release from the state's Business Center.