– NOTICE –
This is part II of a three -part series marking the 10th anniversary of the determination of the condemnation of Peanut Corporation of America (PCA).
With the condemnation of the leaders of Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) – including a 28 -year sentence for CEO Stewart Parnell – it seemed that food security had entered a new era. For the first time, the leaders were personally held responsible for foods of food origin and deaths caused by the negligence of companies.
At the time, I thought that the era of treatment of food security failures as simple regulatory offenses was over.
Ten years later, it is clear that this moment was an exception – not a turning point.
Historical case, limited heritage
Despite a constant flow of fatal epidemics from the ACP, no American food frame has served time in prison for a similar fault.
What followed was a disturbing scheme instead: criminal fines increased. The proceedings against the leaders have disappeared.
Consider these cases:
- Blue Bell Cremeries (2015): Listeria In her ice cream, killed three people. Former president Paul Kruse was finally charged (five years later.) In 2022, after a trial, Kruse pleaded guilty to a violation of offense and paid a fine of $ 100,000. Blue Bell himself paid $ 17.25 million, but no one went to prison.
- Chipotle Mexican Grill (2015-2018): A series of epidemics – Norovirus, Salmonellaand E. coli – More than 1,100 people. In 2020, the company paid $ 25 million to resolve criminal charges. It was the biggest food security fine at the time. However, no individual framework has faced charges.
- Family dollar (2022): Inspectors have found massive infestations of rodents in a distribution center serving hundreds of stores. The company admitted to having knowingly distributed contaminated food, drugs and other products – and paid a record of 41.6 million dollars criminal in 2023. Again, no frame was charged.
Each of these cases involved systemic failures, avoidable damage and business knowledge. Each of these companies has adopted behavior that federal prosecutors have once considered criminal conduct in the PCA case … but now seems to be welcomed by civil colonies and corporate public relations campaigns. Everyone ended with fines, press releases and reform promises – but not prison.
The new business cost – fines
There is no doubt that these fines are of historical size. But ask any food security defender or a mourning family: is it justice?
In my opinion, fines are not justice. Fines are a business expenditure – easily absorbed, quickly forgotten.
When managers knowingly ignore test results, delay reminders or reject the inspector’s warnings, the result is the same: people fall sick and some die.
The consequence? A financial penalty that reaches the balance sheet – not the C.
The test we are faced with now
In 2024, a deadly Listeria epidemic linked to Boar charcuterie meats resulted in more deaths than the case of the APC. According to USDA FSIS files, the company has ignored many warnings of federal inspectors and left contaminated products on the market. While Boar’s Head’s lawyers have argued that promises of food and quality security are nothing more than “commercial puff” (essentially a marketing language devoid of meaning.) However, the parallels with the ACP are impossible to ignore.
And yet we are still waiting. While waiting to see if the Ministry of Justice will act or if, once again, the powerful will be protected by the system itself intended to keep them responsible.
If the prosecutors refuse to file a complaint by criminal, the message will be devastating: this justice at the executive level of food security is not determined by the facts, but by fortune.
A double standard: then and now
Before his conviction, I spoke with Stewart Parnell by phone. He said something that continues to haunt me: “Jack CEO in the box should have been to prison for Riley and other children.”
He was not wrong.
And yet, while Parnell is serving his federal sentence, he probably looked at disbelief like other executives – responsible for equally fatal epidemics, and in certain cases worse as that of the ACP – paid fines and free market. All the double standard he recognized, only aggravated.
Why this model must change
Let me be clear: all epidemics do not result from criminal intention. But when managers knowingly ignore the test results, reject security warnings or delay reminders, and when they play with public public health, prison should not be outside the table.
But when managers ignore positive pathogen tests, delay reminders despite internal warnings, falsification of safety files or ship products known to be dangerous. . . Then, the fines alone are not enough.
Justice should not be random. If it depends on the luck, policy or public indignation, it is not justice – it is performance.
The true cost of inaction
Fines are not justice. Fines are a commercial expenditure: easily absorbed, quickly forgotten.
The PCA verdicts should have defined a precedent. Instead, they have become an edifying story for unlucky and a footnote in conference rooms rather than a warning.
The real cost of this failure is not measured in legal costs or damage caused by public relations. It is measured in funeral, in hospital beds and in thousands of family birthdays that have never been supposed to be celebrated.
Families like mine have the weight of these failures every day. We live with empty chairs at the table, while those responsible for the damage continue their career, the reputation intact or “restored” and lives without interruption.
What we should have learned from PCA
In 2015, the PCA affair gave us a model for justice:
- Use existing laws to continue the reprehensible acts of companies
- Protect and support denunciators
- Treating blatant food security violations as a criminal, not just civilian
- Send a message that public health comes before profit
The PCA case should have defined a previous one. Instead, it has become a historic footnote, not a fundamental change. Ten years ago, the PCA affair proved that the justice system can act with courage. He must do it again. If it is not in the case of the wild boar’s head, then in the next one (and there will be a next one.)
To come in part III:
Reflections of others on the way in which the case of the APC has reshaped – or has not failed – the responsibility for food security in America.
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