Tiger Brands is facing another legal challenge in the listeriosis class action lawsuit as its opponents haul the consumer goods company to court to force it to provide more information about its food safety processes.
The company’s Polokwane factory, which produces Enterprise polony, was identified by the National Institute for Communicable Diseases as the source of the world’s largest listeriosis outbreak, which killed 216 people in 2018.
The owner of brands such as Beacon sweets and Tastic rice is facing a class action by families of victims who died or were injured in the outbreak. It is being led by Richard Spoor Attorneys.
The latest legal action comes days after Tiger Brands said it had reached an agreement to sell its Enterprise meat processing factories, linked to the outbreak, and inventory to a subsidiary of Country Bird Holdings, a chicken producer, for R311m. It has indemnified the new owner from liability.
In 2017, before the listeria outbreak and factory closure, value-added meats made up 20% of its consumer food business, which saw revenues of R11.1bn.
Richard Spoor Attorneys has approached the Johannesburg high court to ask it to force Tiger Brands to provide relevant documentation around its food safety systems at its Polokwane factory.
Lawyer Catherine Marcus from Richard Spoor Attorneys said the documents were required by the end of May. But Tiger Brands has missed the deadline.
Marcus said it “strains credulity to believe that more than two years after Tiger’s Polokwane facility was identified as the source of a listeriosis outbreak that killed more than 200 people and sickened hundreds more, Tiger has not yet been able to identify and compile the most relevant documents and records”.
She argued that the documents that prove Tiger Brands’s claim that it had proper food safety in place “should be readily identifiable and at hand”.
“There is a duty to maintain and to keep available all documents and records that detail the design, implementation and operation of any food safety management system.”
Some documents have been provided and Tiger Brands says it needs to check each record to decide whether it is confidential.
But Marcus said: “The documentation remains insufficient for our experts to start their work in demonstrating Tiger’s gross and reckless negligence, which resulted in the outbreak.”
A Tiger Brands spokesperson said it denies that the opposing lawyers are entitled to the relief they claim.
“The court will pronounce on the issue in due course. It is not appropriate to air the dispute in the press. However, the company has no interest in unnecessarily delaying the process.”
Despite the legal delays, Tiger Brands said it wanted to resolve the legal action.
“We cannot overstate the significant and far-reaching consequences of the listeriosis crisis, particularly on the victims of the outbreak and their families.
“We remain committed to following due process to ensure that the class action is resolved expeditiously and fairly within the confines of the legal process.”
On Wednesday, Tiger Brands stock closed at R176.13, giving it a market cap of R33.4bn.
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