On the 3rd of February, 2023, Kerry Inc. settled the Kellogg Honey Smacks Salmonella Mbandaka criminal case, accepting what is predicted to be the largest ever food poisoning criminal fine. The nearly twenty million dollar fine would be related to the production of adulterated food, including the production of food under unsanitary conditions.
The case originated in the 2018 salmonella outbreak, as reported by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In the CDC’s announcement, customers were instructed to:
“not eat any Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal. This advice applies to Honey Smacks in any size package and with any ‘best if used by’ date. Retailers should not serve or sell any Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal. It could be contaminated with Salmonella and make people sick.”
In the investigation of the 2018 outbreak, and the announcement of the recalled Kerry Inc. Kellogg Honey Smacks, 135 Salmonella cases were reported as being caused by consumption of Honey Smacks cereal. The reports came in from 36 states, including: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
The CDC subsequently posted an update on the recalled Kellogg Honey Smacks in September, 2018, confirming the presence of Salmonella in Honey Smacks, stating:
“Health officials in several states collected Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal from retail locations and ill people’s homes for testing. Laboratory testing identified the outbreak strain of Salmonella Mbandaka in a sample of unopened Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal collected from a retail location in California. Laboratory testing also identified the outbreak strain in samples of leftover Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal collected from the homes of ill people in Montana, New York, and Utah.”
The case was settled when Kerry Inc. pleaded guilty to the charges, which held that they had manufactured their Kellogg Honey Smacks in unsanitary production conditions in the state of Illinois. If approved by the court, the settlement amount would be almost $20 million.
