(USNewsBreak.com) – Family Dollar, a subsidiary of Dollar Tree, established itself as a popular retail chain that offers a wide variety of goods at a lower cost. It operates over 8,000 stores nationwide and employs more than 170,000 employees, with a net revenue of around $10 billion. However, the retailer recently came under fire for how it stores its goods and got slapped with a hefty fine.
On Monday, February 26, the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Public Affairs announced that Family Dollar LLC pleaded guilty to keeping medical devices, food, cosmetics, and drugs under “insanitary conditions.” Federal prosecutors charged the company with a single misdemeanor count of causing FDA-regulated products to become adulterated due to improper storage conditions. The company agreed to enter a plea agreement, which resulted in a $41.675 million fine and forfeiture. The DOJ called the sentence “the largest-ever monetary criminal penalty in a food safety case.”
Family Dollar Stores has agreed to pay a nearly $42 million fine after pleading guilty on Monday to storing consumer products including food, drugs, cosmetics and medical devices in a rat-infested warehouse, the Department of Justice has announced. https://t.co/Ls6Kb1K4yx
— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 27, 2024
The charge stemmed from unsanitary conditions in one of its distribution centers, located in West Memphis, Arkansas. Reports had circulated about a rodent infestation in the warehouse that caused damage to products. Still, the company shipped those contaminated goods to stores in several states and sold them to unsuspecting customers.
The practice continued until January 2022, when the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspected the facility and found it full of live and decaying rodents, urine, and feces. The company paid to fumigate the center, resulting in the death of nearly 1,300 rats. The following month, the chain began recalling products from 404 stores.
In the press release, Jonathan Ross, US Attorney for Arkansas’ Eastern District, said, “It is incomprehensible” that the company, knowing about the conditions, continued to sell the wares to customers. He claimed that doing so “places the public’s health at risk [and] erodes the trust consumers” have in the products they purchase.
Dollar Tree CEO Rick Dreiling said in a company release that he has worked with the company to develop policies and standards to ensure another situation like this does not happen.
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