A former quality assurance director for food manufacturer Kerry pleaded guilty to charges related to the manufacture of a breakfast cereal linked to a 2018 outbreak of salmonellosis, or Salmonella poisoning.
Article continues below
Ravi Kumar Chermala, 47, pleaded guilty to three misdemeanor counts of causing the introduction of adulterated food into interstate commerce. Chermala, Kerry’s Director of Quality Assurance until September 2018, oversaw the sanitation programs at various Kerry manufacturing plants, including a facility in Gridley, Illinois, that manufactured Kellogg’s Honey Smacks breakfast cereal for Kerry’s customer, the Kellogg Company.
In pleading guilty, Chermala admitted that between June 2016 and June 2018, he directed subordinates to not report certain information to Kellogg’s about conditions at the Gridley facility.
In addition, Chermala admitted that he directed subordinates at the Gridley facility to alter the plant’s program for monitoring for the presence of pathogens in the plant, limiting the facility’s ability to accurately detect insanitary conditions.
In June 2018, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that an ongoing outbreak of salmonellosis cases in the United States could be traced to Kellogg’s Honey Smacks cereal produced at Kerry’s Gridley facility.
In response, Kellogg’s voluntarily recalled all Honey Smacks manufactured at the plant since June 2017. The CDC eventually identified more than 130 cases of salmonellosis linked to the outbreak, with illness onset dates beginning in March 2018. The CDC did not identify any deaths related to the outbreak.
Salmonellosis can cause symptoms such as diarrhea, fever, and abdominal cramps that last several days in healthy adults. Absent prompt treatment, salmonellosis can cause severe dehydration and even death in infants, young children, the elderly, transplant recipients, pregnant women, and individuals with weakened immune systems. ■