Family Dollar Stores LLC has entered a guilty plea in a case that accused the company of holding FDA-regulated products in “insanitary conditions” in an Arkansas warehouse infested with rodents.
According to a release from the Department of Justice, the guilty plea from Family Dollar came on Monday, and in the plea agreement, the company agreed to pay a fine and forfeiture sentence totaling $41.675 million, the largest-ever monetary criminal penalty handed out in a case concerning food safety.
The company will also be forced to “meet robust corporate compliance and reporting requirements” for the next three years.
Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin Mizer shared in a press release that the company had overtly violated guidelines meant to keep customers safe.
“When consumers go to the store, they have the right to expect that the food and drugs on the shelves have been kept in clean, uncontaminated conditions,” Mizer said.
Products being stored in the warehouse included drugs, medical devices, food, and cosmetics, the DOJ shared. A total of 404 stores in Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee received products kept at the warehouse.
Family Dollar admitted that it knew the warehouse was delivering rodents and products damaged by them. Officials first started receiving reports of the rodents in August 2020.
Despite this and some employees being aware of the conditions in January 2021, the warehouse continued to distribute merchandise to stores until January 2022.
It was then that the FDA conducted an inspection of the warehouse, finding “live rodents, dead and decaying rodents, rodent feces, urine, and odors, and evidence of gnawing and nesting throughout the facility.”
In total, fumigation of the warehouse “resulted in the reported extermination of 1,270 rodents,” the DOJ shared. All FDA-regulated products sold at the stores serviced by the warehouse have since been recalled.
“It is incomprehensible that Family Dollar knew about the rodent and pest issues at its distribution center in Arkansas but continued to ship products that were unsafe and insanitary,” U.S. Attorney Jonathan Ross for the Eastern District of Arkansas said in a statement. “Knowingly selling these types of products not only places the public’s health at risk but erodes the trust consumers have in the products they purchase.
"Products shipped and sold are required to be safe for consumers, and the safety of Arkansans and others are extremely important to this office. Let me be clear, if you conduct business in Arkansas and allow the shipment or sale of unsafe and insanitary products, you will be held accountable.”