ARKANSAS, USA — On Monday, Family Dollar Stores LLC pleaded guilty to having stored food, drugs, medical devices, and cosmetics in unsanitary conditions inside its almost 30-year-old warehouse in West Memphis.
In February 2022, the FDA announced that there were about 1,000 rats found inside the facility. In response, the store chain issued a recall that impacted more than 400 of their stores in the southern United States.
More than 230 employees who worked for the facility were impacted by the infestation, said West Memphis Mayor Marco McClendon.
A criminal information that was unsealed in a Little Rock federal court on Monday charged Family Dollar with a misdemeanor count of "causing FDA-regulated products to become adulterated while being held under insanitary conditions."
The company, (which is a subsidiary of Dollar Tree Inc.,) entered a plea agreement and must now pay a fine of $41.675 million. This fine is the largest-ever monetary criminal penalty involving a food safety case.
As part of the agreement, both Family Dollar and Dollar Tree must now meet "robust corporate compliance and reporting" requirements for the duration of the next three years.
“Consumers trust that products purchased from retail stores such as Family Dollar are safe,” said U.S. Attorney Jonathan D. Ross for the Eastern District of Arkansas. “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. 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.”
During their guilty plea, the company said that their distribution center in West Memphis, Arkansas shipped FDA-regulated products to over 400 stores in the states of Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Tennessee.
They went on to explain that the company first got reports of both mouse and pet issues with deliveries being made to stores in August 2020. By the end of that year, several stores reported having received both rodents and products damaged by rodents from their warehouse.
They also admitted that they continued to ship those products from their warehouse until January 2022 when an inspection done by the FDA showed that there were live, dead, and decaying rodents as well as rodent feces, urine, orders and so much more throughout the facility.
Fumigation that was later done showed that more than 1,200 rodents were exterminated inside the warehouse.
In February 2022, the company then made the decision to recall all the drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, and both human and animal food products that were sold in their over 400 stores since January 2021.