Boar’s Head faces lawsuits after deaths and hospitalisations from contaminated meat products

Boar's Head deli meat is for sale at a Ralphs grocery store in Long Beach, California, USA. Photo: EPA

In July, US company Boar’s Head recalled over 7.2 million pounds of 71 different deli meat products due to a possible Listeria contamination. 9 people succumbed to the contamination, almost 60 were hospitalised and lawsuits are underway. At this point, only Boar’s Head Liverwurst has been found to contain Listeria monocytogenes.

The company produces various products including ham, sausages, bologna, liverwurst, bacon and charcuterie. Frank Brunckhorst founded the company in 1905 in the New York City area.

According to Newsweek, the family of 88 year-old Holocaust survivor Gunter Morgenstein, who died after a listeria infection from Boar’s Head products, has launched a wrongful death lawsuit. Another person suing the company had a near-fatal case of meningitis and is believed to have sustained permanent injuries. A pregnant woman is also suing “who nearly lost her unborn child.” However, lawsuits may also target government inspectors.

Plant inspection

During the weeks before the first of 2 recalls, at the Boar’s Head plant in Virginia, inspectors found insects, black and green mold, mildew and more. But as far back as February 2024, access to information requests show that inspector records described “ample amounts of blood in puddles on the floor” in a receiving cooler, with “a rancid smell in the cooler.”

More to come

Experts predict more reports of death and illness from this outbreak. The incubation period for listeria can be 2 months, and some people who received medical care were not tested initially for listeria.

In addition, ABC reported on 3 September that some of the affected products have sell-by dates into October 2024, so health officials are concerned people may still have them in their homes and are unaware of the recall.

Salmonella reduction

Besides listeria, Salmonella is also a concern in pork product safety. In a Food Safety News article, 2 PhDs have noted that “as part of the Healthy People 2030 objective, the US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA-FSIS) is actively working toward a 25% reduction in salmonellosis,” with current estimates suggesting pork is “responsible for approximately 10% of domestic cases.”

In 2022, USDA-FSIS proposed Salmonella performance standards for raw comminuted and raw intact/non-intact pork cuts, aligning closely with standards set for the poultry industry.

Plant shut down

On 29 August, Boar’s Head updated the apology on its website, noting that its Virginia plant remains closed. “We have been working together with the USDA and government regulatory agencies, along with the industry’s leading global food safety experts, to conduct a rigorous investigation to determine how this happened. We are very close to concluding our investigation and sharing our findings as soon as the USDA has reviewed them.”

Boar’s Head adds that “we are working to implement the appropriate actions…to prevent something like this from occurring again.”