Tainted meat may bring stiff fines

The ESR was sent 62 unopened Bay Cuisine cold-meat packages and all were found to contain listeria. Photo / Thinkstock

Napier meat-processor Bay Cuisine, a director and a manager face possible six-figure fines after admitting selling contaminated food, discovered in an investigation of a fatal listeria outbreak at Hawke's Bay Fallen Soldiers' Memorial Hospital three years ago.

The Ministry of Primary Industries originally laid 155 charges, which were denied in the court last July, but most were later withdrawn, leading to guilty pleas on five representative charges and five other charges yesterday in the Napier District Court.

Sentencing is due to take place in the court on July 15.

While the listeria outbreak was linked to the deaths of two women and infection of two other patients, the charges did not relate to the infections and were laid under the Food Act, the company admitting five representative charges of selling contaminated food, one of suppressing test results and one of omitting to supply information to the ministry.

Production manager Christopher Mackie pleaded guilty to the charge of suppressing the results and not supplying the required information, and director Garth Wise pleaded guilty to the omissions charge.

According to an MPI summary, the inquiry began after the listeria outbreak was linked to the hospital kitchen in July 2012. The ESR was sent 62 unopened Bay Cuisine cold-meat packages and all were found to contain listeria.

In responses to DHB requests to Bay Cuisine for results of tests on its products, Mackie had said a batch of corned silver side tested negative for listeria, although it had actually tested "presumptive positive", and the company had omitted sending other reports showing that some other product also tested "presumptive positive".

The investigation also included text messages showing Wise suggested Mackie withhold the presumptive results, because there were only three or four of them, and said: " ... we just send the good."

In a statement yesterday, the company said while some products had tested positive, the results were at "a very low level," which in MPI guidelines were described as "marginal".

"The company did not knowingly sell any contaminated cooked meats," it said, but added that in pleading guilty it acknowledged that "with the benefit of hindsight" it could have acted "more appropriately in some of its communication with the ministry".

The company said it ceased production of sliced cooked meats in July 2012 and implemented procedural and management changes which included adopting a listeria management plan, although there was no statutory requirement to do so at the time.

The company said its cooked hams are released after confirmation of clear product tests.