South Africa’s worst food safety lapse – the 2017 listeriosis outbreak which killed more than 200 people and sickened more than 1 000 – may finally be approaching closure.
The source of the outbreak was determined in early 2018, when the National Institute of Communicable Diseases (NICD) identified it as the Enterprise Foods factory in Polokwane owned by Tiger Brands.
Six years later Tiger Brands has not admitted liability, although it is facing a class action lawsuit brought against it on behalf of the victims, who are claiming both compensatory and punitive damages.
The case has yet to come to trial, but attorney Richard Spoor has published the results of a scientific investigation which he hopes will speed up the case and possibly result in an early settlement.
“This case is watertight, perhaps the strongest case I have ever worked on,” Spoor told Business Day, which said the case involved “the world’s worst recorded listeriosis outbreak”.
The newspaper quoted a Tiger Brands spokesperson as saying the company was committed to ensuring resolution was reached in the shortest time possible. Legal teams for Tiger and its insurers were preparing for trial, and liability would be determined by the court, she said.
In the course of the NICD’s investigation, RCL Foods and its then subsidiary Rainbow Chicken, had wrongly come under suspicion and were ordered to recall food products, costing the company millions.
