Dive Brief:
- Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc. is being sued after the company's listeria-contaminated salad mix placed a woman in a coma. The woman's daughter has filed the suit.
- The product was contaminated with the same strain of listeria as the salad mixes produced at Dole's Springfield, OH, plant, which Dole recalled in January.
- The listeria contamination has sickened 18 people in the U.S. and 11 in Canada, all of whom have been hospitalized, and four have died.
Dive Insight:
If this case follows recent food safety criminal prosecutions, Dole executives or management could see not only criminal charges but also a prison sentence.
There hasn't been a pattern in length of prison sentences in food safety cases, but the trend is that jail time is a more common punishment. The PCA salmonella case, the Quality Egg salmonella case, and the Midamar mislabeled beef case all resulted in prison sentences of varying lengths.
Since announcing last year to crack down on food safety cases, the Department of Justice has sent a message that it will not tolerate either negligence or purposeful endangerment when it comes to food safety. The escalation of punishment follows a period of companies paying hefty fines.