A guilty plea in Sacramento federal court by a former employee of one of the nation's largest growers and processors of tomato products has pushed a nationwide investigation beyond bribery and price-fixing into the realm of consumer confidence in food labeling.
Jennifer Lou Dahlman, who was fired as a reports and business analyst at California-based SK Foods, LP, admitted she engaged in the distribution and mislabeling of tomato paste that was "unfit for food" because it contained unlawful levels of mold.
Dahlman, 48, pleaded guilty to one count of the "introduction of adulterated and misbranded food into interstate commerce with the intent to defraud and mislead" on Wednesday.
She admitted that from Nov. 23, 2004, to Jan. 21, 2008, she participated in the shipment of tomato paste with illegally excessive mold content to customers in Wisconsin, Utah, Pennsylvania, New York, Kentucky, Maryland and Ohio.
Prosecutors stressed that the paste is not a health hazard.
"Given recent headlines pertaining to tainted foods, it bears emphasis that the tomato products in this case did not pose a health hazard to the consumer," said acting U.S. Attorney Lawrence Brown. He noted Dahlman's fraud resulted in an unfair advantage for her employer.
Several varieties of mold can grow on tomatoes and, although people should try to avoid eating them, they aren't dangerous, said Keith Ito, a safety specialist at the University of California, Davis' food preservation laboratory. Those "normal spoilage molds" are a sign that tomatoes are overripe or have begun rotting in the field, he said.
Dahlman admitted culpability in the false labeling to show mold counts far below the actual levels and percentages of "natural tomato soluble solids" materially higher than the actual percentages.
She admitted the practices were carried out routinely "at the direction of senior leaders and directors of SK Foods." Companies that bought the paste include Nestle Frozen Foods, Banilla America Inc., Better Baked Foods Inc., Carriage House Companies Inc., B&G Foods Inc., ConAgra Foods and Frito-Lay Inc., according to a plea agreement signed by Dahlman. The government hasn't disclosed a complete list.
A prepared statement released by SK through attorney Malcolm Segal states: "There was no problem with the commercial products Dahlman reviewed and no need for any recalls. The ultimate products were all appropriately labeled and of excellent quality."
The statement prompted Brown's observation, "To describe the adulterated tomatoes as being of 'excellent quality' is its own form of mislabeling. The fact of the matter is that the products ... contained illegal levels of mold, which explains why they concealed that information from their customers and, ultimately, the consumers."
Segal said in an interview, "Tomatoes come from Mother Nature, not Barbie dolls. They are not all perfect. Commercial labeling is often the subject of administrative disputes with the government, but it is important to appreciate that the government itself has said there were no health hazards with these products."
A prepared statement issued by Dahlman attorney Robert Wilkinson says his client "is saddened that the leadership of SK Foods set a course for the company that was unlawful, and that she was compliant in that course."
SK Foods is headquartered in Monterey, Calif., and has plants in Williams, 50 miles north of Sacramento, and Lemoore, south of Fresno. It is one target in an ongoing nationwide federal investigation of bribery and price-fixing in the food industry that could be jacking up the cost of groceries.
Dahlman worked for 15 years for SK, which sells tomato paste and other products to food manufacturers, food service distributors and marketers, and retail outlets. She worked in the company's Lemoore plant, most recently overseeing product inventory and shipment.
She also admitted sanctioning the shipment of products that violated one or more additional content specifications customers negotiated as part of their contracts with SK.
E-mail Denny Walsh at dwalsh(at)sacbee.com
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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