The Boar’s Head Virginia plant responsible for a massive listeria outbreak was a cesspool of mismanagement that targeted those who spoke up about unsanitary and unsafe conditions, former workers told The Post.
Last week, the CDC reported that an unidentified person from New York state became the 10th person to die from the listeria outbreak linked to the Jarratt plant. At least 59 others have been sickened in 19 states since May.
“Everything starts with management,” one former employee told The Post. “I wasn’t shocked that this happened at Jarratt, but what bothers me the most is that people lost their lives” because problems weren’t addressed.
The facility in Jarrett was cited 69 times for noncompliance over the past year after health inspectors found bugs, pools of blood on the floor, growing mold and clogged drains at the plant.
It was shuttered indefinitely on Sept. 13 and will likely never reopen, as The Post reported.
Another veteran employee, who did not want to be identified, said “When you spoke up there they tended to retaliate. You were a target.”
The former worker, one of 500 fired after the plant was closed, added that the death toll “is laying on my heart.”
The accounts by Jarratt workers echo a damning accusation by the plant’s former sanitation manager Terrence Boyce that supervisors ignored red flags he raised about safety and health violations at the facility.
Boyce has filed a whistleblower complaint with the Virginia Department of Labor claiming he was unjustly fired.
The Jarratt plant was closed in late July as reports mounted of people getting hospitalized and dying from Boar’s Head products.
Weeks earlier, the century-old brand had recalled more than 7 million pounds of deli meats and cheeses.
Investigators later found that liverwurst produced at the Jarratt plant tested positive for the deadly bacteria.
Boar’s Head has said it would no longer sell liverwurst, which was made exclusively at the Jarratt plant.
“In addition to taking a holistic look at Boar’s Head establishments across the country, our investigation will include a top-to-bottom review to determine contributing factors that led to the outbreak at this particular facility, what needs to be improved, and if there are lessons learned that could be more broadly applied to ready-to-eat meat and poultry facilities,” the company said in a statement.
Boar’s Head has plants in Colorado, Arkansas, Michigan, Indiana, Virginia and Florida, according to the company’s job openings on its website. Many of the 73 openings were posted this month.
A spokesperson for the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service, said in a statement that the agency is taking an “in-depth look at other Boar’s Head facilities … in the interest of best protecting public health.”
