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Food company Tiger Brand braces for class action lawsuit

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Embattled South African food company Tiger Brands on Monday, said that it would take steps to consider and address any valid claims which may be made against it over the deaths of more than 180 people due to the outbreak of food-borne disease, Listeriosis.

On Friday, Tiger Brands was served with an application for an order declaring the constitution of two classes for claims — the first comprising all people who consumed a processed meat product manufactured by the company and who became ill as a result of such food product being contaminated with Listeria any time between 1 May 2017 to the date of issue of summons in a class action to be brought.

The second class comprises the dependants of such persons. The total amount claimed against Tiger Brands and its subsidiary Enterprise Foods is estimated at R425 million.

Tiger Brands has closed its food manufacturing plants in Polokwane and Germiston after it received independent laboratory testing results that confirmed the presence of ST6 strain of Listeria monocytogenes in the physical plant environment at the Enterprise Foods Factories.

On Monday, the company decided to recall to include all products at the Pretoria facility of its Value Added Meat Products (VAMP) brand, after similar earlier moves at its Polokwane and Germiston plants over a listeriosis outbreak.

Tiger Brands chief executive, Lawrence MacDougall, estimated the cost of the recalls and suspension of production at the Polokwane, Germiston, Pretoria and Clayville sites, including the cost of destruction of the affected products, raw materials and work in progress, was between R337 million and R377 million on a pre-tax basis.

“Although no link has, as yet, been confirmed between the presence of LST6 at our Polokwane plant and the loss of life, I deeply regret any loss of life and I want to offer my heartfelt condolences to all those who have lost their loved ones. Any loss of life, no matter the circumstance, is tragic,” MacDougall said.

“We acknowledge that we are dealing with a national crisis and want to assure the public that in the event that a tangible link is established between our products and listeriosis illnesses or fatalities. Tiger Brands will take steps to consider and address any valid claims which may be made against it in due course.”

The Department of Health has reported that people have lost their lives as a result of Listeriosis and that 90 percent of these are as a result of LST6.

MacDougall said that they were investing all their time and energy into not only understanding the cause of the LST6 detection, but also how it could have come into their facility.

He said that the company was working with a team comprising some of the world’s leading local and international scientific experts in listeria management in a bid to improve quality, safety and internal controls.

“Local and international experts are helping us put measures in place to prevent this happening again in any of our meat processing facilities. While every effort is being made to get to the bottom of this outbreak it will take time to complete our investigation,” MacDougall said.

“Our Polokwane, Germiston and Pretoria factories are undergoing an extensive deep clean of all the equipment, machinery and some structural upgrades of the facilities with the view of ensuring that our facilities exceed the highest, best practice standards for meat processing facilities. We will continue to work closely with the Capricorn and Ekurhuleni Departments of Health as we progress with these remedial actions.”

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