Two former egg industry executives are facing potential jail time over their roles in a 2010 salmonella outbreak that sickened thousands of people — in a case that government officials hope will send a strong signal to companies about how seriously they should be taking food safety.
Austin “Jack” DeCoster and his son, Peter DeCoster, pleaded guilty in June to bribing to a U.S. Department of Agriculture inspector to allow their eggs to be sold even though the products had been flagged as failing the USDA’s minimum quality grade standards. The DeCosters have also admitted that their Quality Egg company “knowingly shipped eggs” that had falsified expiration dates to make them appear to be fresher than they actually were.
That contributed to a salmonella outbreak that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates may have affected up to 56,000 Americans, leading to an unprecedented recall of 550 million eggs. When FDA investigators examined the DeCosters’ rural Iowa farms in 2010, they found evidence of unsanitary conditions — including dead chickens, infestations of flies, and piles of manure — to suggest that the company was previously aware of potential food safety risks at their properties.
Now, a judge has sentenced the pair to three months in jail, an outcome that food safety advocates weren’t necessarily counting on. A sentence of imprisonment is not very common in cases against large food manufacturers. Bill Marler, an acclaimed food safety lawyer whose firm represented a group of more than 100 people who were sickened in the salmonella outbreak, said before the sentence was announced that he “wouldn’t be surprised” if the DeCosters didn’t get any jail time.
So the fact that one of the biggest food safety cases in recent history resulted in this punishment — which comes in addition to a $6.8 million fine for the Quality Egg company and $100,000 individual fines for each of the DeCosters — marks a victory for the consumer watchdogs who have been pushing for more oversight of big food corporations.
“A sentence of imprisonment is a fairly significant sentence in a case like this,” Peter Deegan, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted the case against the egg executives, told the Associated Press.
Food safety officials have historically struggled to keep tabs on a sprawling food industry whose activities span across more than a dozen regulatory offices. About 48 million people fall ill after eating contaminated food every year, and the rate of foodborne illnesses has remained largely unchanged in recent years, despite efforts to reduce contamination.
In 2011, President Obama approved the first overhaul of food safety laws in 70 years with the Food Safety Modernization Act, which aims to expand the FDA’s power to recall tainted products. But Congress hasn’t fully funded that initiative, leaving food safety advocates concerned that the agency isn’t well-enough prepared to prevent future outbreaks. Without more investment on the prevention side, advocates are left hoping that at least there might be some consequences if something does go wrong.
And in recent years, several high-profile outbreaks of foodborne illnesses have resulted in legal action. In 2014, two cantaloupe farmers in Colorado were convicted for their role in a listeria outbreak that spanned 28 states and killed 33 people (although they didn’t get any jail time). The executives of the now-defunct Peanut Corporation of America, which sparked the largest food recall in U.S. history, were also found guilty for knowingly shipping salmonella-tainted products across the country — representing the first time that a company executive has ever been charged with a federal felony in a food safety case — and may face jail time.
Marler, who also represented the plaintiffs in the cantaloupe case, believes this shift toward punishing executives more harshly “wakes people up” to the issues at stake, and may even help prevent future fraudulence in the food industry.
“Knowing CEOs can go to jail has more impact on behavior than a lawsuit that ends up being paid off by an insurance company,” he said in June, after the DeCosters pleaded guilty. This week, he told the Associated Press that recent prosecutions in this area have definitely made an impression on the food producers he meets.