Friday, October 10, 2014

Foster Farms head to leave

Ron Foster has announced his intention to leave his posts as president and chief executive officer of Foster Farms.

He will stay until a replacement is recruited. He is a major shareholder.

Foster Farms has struggled to get on top of Salmonella Heidelberg bacteria.

By mid-summer, 634 customers had been sickened, 38 per cent of them sick enough to require hospitalization. 

Yet contaminated products continued to show up in the marketplace long after the initial outbreak at the beginning of March, 2013.

In September, Reuters news agency reported on inspection records it obtained from the United States Department of Agriculture, revealing a litany of complaints about sanitation lapses at the company’s three plants in California.

According to the U.S.D.A. reports, raw chicken headed for chilling tanks was smeared with feces.


Yet the company consistently claimed it adheres to stringent food-safety standards and has a good track record.