A former sanitation manager at a listeria-infested Boar's Head, Virginia, plant claims he was fired last year for pointing out lax sanitation and safety standards at the now-closed plant.
Terrence Boyce, a food plant supervisor with nearly 20 years of experience, has been hired for a newly created position in 2023 at the Jarratt, Virginia, plant amid a food safety audit by federal regulators, Boyce told The Washington Post.
“I believe the government found a number of deficiencies and deviations and I was brought in as a preventive and corrective measure,” Boyce said.
But when the veteran sanitation manager began speaking up and recommending certain reforms, he claims he lost his job.
“I wrote, 'Management is not addressing safety measures,' and then a couple of days later the plant manager told me he needed to change the investigation,” Boyce said. “I said, 'No.'”
Boyce was fired last August following reports of injured employees, less than 10 months after the Jarratt plant was linked to a nationwide listeria outbreak caused by Boar's Head products, causing nine deaths and dozens of hospitalizations.
Among the problems Boyce noted during his eight months working at the pest-infested plant was that the water used to clean the facility wasn't hot enough to “break down the grease” from animal fats, he said.
Boyce also urges using strong cleaning products such as chlorine bleach on walls, floors and fixtures.
“The plant was old and in a pretty dilapidated state,” he told The Post. “Some of the piping running through the facility had mold and bleach hadn't been used in the solutions for at least three years.”
He particularly criticized the meat smoking rooms, which resemble walk-in freezers.
“The way the smokehouse was cleaned was a big issue,” he said, adding that they used a powder solution rather than spraying it.
“They took a shortcut,” Boyce said.
Boar's Head did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Boyce, in an email provided to The Washington Post, said he ultimately filed a whistleblower complaint with the Virginia Department of Labor, alleging that Boar's Head had retaliated against him.
An email from the department's whistleblower protection unit dated July 26, 2024, and obtained by The Washington Post, confirmed that his complaint was still under review.
Boar's Head recalled more than 7 million pounds of meat and cheese and closed its plant, which employed about 500 people, in late July after samples of its liverwurst tested positive for Listeria. The Washington Post reported last week that the company was keeping a skeleton crew on site to clean up the plant ahead of selling it.
Boyce told The Washington Post that safety hazards to workers were also an issue: In his report, Boyce alleges that one cleaning worker suffered a hernia after moving vats full of discarded meat, which ultimately led to his firing.
“The daytime workers left large chunks of meat on the floor, which should not have been allowed,” Boyce said.
Boyce alleged that government inspectors, who found 69 “non-compliances” at the plant over the past year, had “too close” ties with the plant's management.
“I met with half a dozen USDA officials,” he told the Post, “and some were tougher than others, some were more lenient. I think it depends on your relationship with management.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Among the non-compliances were a “foul odor” from a refrigerator in the raw materials receiving warehouse and “large amounts of bloodstains on the floor,” according to a government inspector.
Also on June 1, a “black mold-like substance” was found throughout the storage cooler and on the outside of four steel containers, along with 1 to 2 inches of meat.
Inspectors found mold in various locations during a total of six visits.
On June 10, inspectors found “approximately 15 to 20 flies flying in and out of four pickle barrels left in the room.”
Boyce first contacted ABC affiliates. Last week, WRIC in Greensville County, Virginia This comes after Boar's Head announced it would close the plant indefinitely.
On 13 September, Boar's Head announced that it would no longer manufacture liverwurst, which had previously only been made at its Jarratt factory.
A family-run company with 100 years of history “Specific production process” The company said there was a problem with the liverwurst production process, but did not say what part of the process went wrong.
