USDA flagged safety and health violations in Boar’s Head plant years before listeria outbreak

Department of Agriculture -trained inspectors reported health and safety violations at the Boar’s Head plant in Jarratt, Virginia , two years before the listeria outbreak.

Federal food safety assessments completed in September and October 2022 revealed there were live beetles in the bathroom hallway, patches of green mold and numerous holes in the wall, trash on the floor, leaking pipes, condensed water beading on the ceiling, and rust covering the wall where the liverwurst, the source of the outbreak, was produced.

Despite these reports, neither the plant nor Boar’s Head received any enforcement action from the USDA, a spokeswoman for Boar’s Head told the New York Times.

She said the plant performs thousands of inspection tasks each year and that the company will immediately address any problems.

However, inspectors reported on 60 separate days between Aug. 1, 2023, and July 27, 2024, of “noncompliances,” which included blood puddles on the floor, dirty machinery, flies in pickle containers, and “heavy meat buildup” on walls. There were also reports of pools of water and condensation and rust in the plant. Wet conditions are breeding grounds for the bacteria Listeria monocytogenes, the source of the listeria infection.

Under law, all food plants are mandated to have USDA-trained inspectors on-site at all times the facility is in operation, but in spite of these reports, the plant did not face any consequences.

“They shouldn’t have allowed this company to keep producing ready-to-eat products, lunch meat that’s going to go on people’s tables, when they’re seeing this level of violation,” said Sarah Sorscher, a food safety regulatory expert. “Consumers had to die before this plant got shut down, really is the bottom line.”

Nine people have died, and dozens of people have been hospitalized, in what is now one of the worst listeria outbreaks in recent times.

Symptoms of a listeria infection include fever and muscle aches, and it is especially dangerous for pregnant women, elderly people, and people with a compromised immune system.

It can take up to 10 weeks for symptoms to develop, with health experts concerned that hospitalizations and deaths are still likely to occur.

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In July, Boar’s Head recalled 3,500 tons of meat. However, there is a fear that many consumers are unaware of the recall, and some of the meat already sold has an expiration date in October.

The Jarratt facility had a protocol set in place to fight against listeria through sanitation, but now, food experts are calling for that to include a step that involves irradiation. This would mean applying intense pressure to smash bacteria off the product after it is packaged.