A vending machine company that provides food throughout the Northeast was fined by the Rockland Board of Health today for not having the proper permits to package and sell food.

Kosher Vending Industries of Valley Cottage was fined $1,275 for failing to get permits before putting vending machines in three locations in Rockland: Rockland Community College, Good Samaritan Hospital and the 7-11 Convenience Store in Monsey.

Inspectors saw the vending machines and noted that the food stocked in it indicated that it was manufactured in Valley Cottage, health department sanitarian John Stoughton told the board.

But when inspectors went to the Valley Cottage facility, they saw that food was being repackaged there, but manufactured elsewhere.

“We had no idea where this food was coming from,” Stoughton told the board. Not knowing the origin of the food would make it hard to figure out the cause if anyone got ill from eating the products, he said.

The county shut the company down temporarily until its owners could provide documents showing where the food was from. The Rockland Department of Health notified health officials in other places where the vending machines were located, including New York City, Westchester, Orange, Sullivan and Nassau as well as in other states, including New Jersey, Connecticut and Massachusetts.

The three vending machines in Rockland were ordered closed. Health officials in some of those places also shut down the machines.

The business was allowed to reopen. But its owner Michael Shucht told health officials earlier this month that the business was closing temporarily and hoping to relocate elsewhere, Stoughton told the board.

Shucht did not attend the board meeting. But in a telephone interview after the meeting, he said that he planned to keep the Valley Cottage location open.

“We have done everything that the Rockland Board of Health wanted us to do,” he said. “We meet the requirements 100 percent.”

(Source: The Journal News / LoHud.com)