A Cary snack-food plant is back to business as usual, after being caught up in a nation-wide salmonella scare.

Officials with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture gave the plant the go-ahead to resume distribution on Friday.

The Austin Foods plant received tainted peanut-butter paste product from a Georgia facility earlier this year.

Since that time, state health officials have scoured the plant, doing tests to make sure it was clean.

"Out testing would have told us if there were any issues, and in this case we found none," said Joe Reardon, Director of the Food & Drug Protection Division. "They've done an outstanding job in all the things that were necessary to resume production at that facility."

Reardon said every production line was tested, and his workers tallied up about 1,800 lab hours at the plant, which is run by Kellogg's Co.

"All products coming out of the facility have been tested and found to be in compliance," said Reardon. "We're glad they're back in business."

The plant had continued to produce snack foods throughout the testing process, but had been ordered to keep everything on site until now.

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