Photo: Jan Woitas/picture alliance via Getty Images
Founded in Brooklyn in 1905, Boar’s Head is the industry standard for the modern wonder horror of processed deli meats, in which a whole lot of chicken, turkey or pork is macerated beyond recognition, injected with a flavor brine and molded into a shape not found in nature. Meat eaters mostly agree that this is a gross and delicious and easy way to make a sandwich — when the system works. But on July 26, Boar’s Head announced a recall of around 207,000 pounds of the product due to potential exposure to the coronavirus. Listeria monocytogenes at a Virginia factory after the Maryland Department of Health found that a sample of Boar’s Head liver sausage tested positive for the bacteria. Four days later, the recall was expanded to include about 7 million more pounds from the contaminated factory — everything from hot dogs to bacon to something called “Hot Butt Cappy Ham.”
By the end of August, nine people had died and 57 had been hospitalized, according to the Centers for Disease Control, which is investigating the largest listeriosis outbreak since 2011.
The adage about meat no longer applies to the recalled products from Boar’s Head Provision Co. After a summer of recalls and listeria deaths, people really want to know how their sausage and other processed meat products are made.
As food safety lawyers prepare class action lawsuits, Boar’s Head’s next few months will be about restoring its reputation beyond the shuttered Virginia plant — and beyond liverwurst, in fact. “I had a customer come in, he was about 75 years old,” said Paul DiSpirito of Lioni Italian Heroes in Bensonhurst. “He had eaten cold cuts every day for 60 years. He told me he hadn’t eaten cold cuts in a month and a half. So my bill is lower. We’re selling less Boar’s Head.” DiSpirito claims he’s missed several lunch breaks because of the volume of calls about the meat. “I’m sitting here answering calls from all these customers asking about this supplier. It’s bad because Boar’s Head Is “New York deli.”
On August 26, records released by U.S. Department of Agriculture food safety inspectors showed that the Virginia plant linked to the outbreak had 69 violations for “noncompliance” in the past year. Mold was found near sinks where workers could wash their hands. A “black mold-like substance” was found in refrigerators. Pools of water stood so long that “green algae” formed. Pools of blood were found in a refrigerator. In June, an inspector noticed “small flying, mosquito-like insects” flying around a room whose walls had “heavy meat deposits.” A food safety lawyer representing the family of an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who died after eating tainted liver sausage said USA Today that it was the “worst inspection report I have ever seen”.
“We deeply regret,” the company wrote in a statement, stressing that only liver sausage from a factory in Virginia was affected.
Boar’s Head has been known for years as a ruthless competitor, suing similarly named companies to protect its reputation and pulling its products from stores that dare to sell its private labels instead of its own. The president of rival Dietz & Watson once referred to the company as its “mortal enemy.” This came before an incident in Florida in which Boar’s Head trucks reportedly blocked parking spaces and blared air horns while customers attended a breast cancer fundraiser where Dietz & Watson was conducting taste tests on Boar’s Head meat.
Boar’s Head now has a CEO outside the family, but the descendants of founders Frank Brunckhorst and Bruno Bischoff still own the company. They are embroiled in a years-long legal battle in federal court. After Brunckhorst’s daughter Barbara died in 2020, she specified in her will that the lion’s share of her company’s shares should go to environmental organizations and neuroscience research. Bischoff’s grandson claims that Brunckhorst’s shares actually belong to him. How much the company actually makes is anyone’s guess. Court records suggest that annual revenue is over a billion dollars.
Despite the current crisis, the company is retaining its fans. A friend who worked in a family deli growing up – his winter jacket is a Carhartt with the Boar’s Head branding – sent me a picture from a recent party in Philadelphia. In the photo, cold cuts lay beneath a custom-made poster of the Boar’s Head logo, in which the brand’s pig has bloodshot eyes and appears to be foaming at the mouth. “I’d rather get the poison / than eat Dietz & Watson,” the caption read.
For those who aren’t quite so keen on sausage but are still concerned about the “toxin,” food safety expert Amanda Lathrop recommends being cautious when preparing food. “Listeria is ubiquitous, so you can find it pretty much anywhere,” says Lathrop, a professor at California Polytechnic State University. “This incredible organism is very hardy, it can tolerate very cold temperatures and very high salt levels. It can grow at refrigerator temperatures.” Another incredible aspect of listeria? “It can infect the human body by crossing the stomach lining, and it travels from cell to cell, so to speak,” says Lathrop. “It can evade the human immune system and things like antibiotics.” For most people, listeriosis causes only unpleasant but short-term symptoms like diarrhea, vomiting and headaches. “The most devastating effects are on the elderly, immunocompromised people and especially pregnant women,” says Lathrop.
