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.
