A lawsuit has been filed against US food firm Barber Foods for allegedly selling breaded Chicken Kiev products that were contaminated with salmonella.
The lawsuit against the Maine based company was filed by PritzkerOlsen on behalf of a consumer – Elmo Lake and his wife.
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Lake claims after cooking the product in early April 2015 according to the instructions on the box he began suffering "severe gastroenteritis, which included diarrhoea, abdominal cramping, fever, chills and headache". He then tested positive for Salmonella.
The Minnesota Department of Health performed further testing on the Salmonella sample obtained from Lake and confirmed a link between the strain he had and that associated with an outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis infections linked to Barber Foods Chicken Kiev. To date, there are 6 laboratory-confirmed cases, 5 in Minnesota and one in Wisconsin. The illness onset dates range from April 5, 2015 to June 23, 2015.
"The manufacturers of Chicken Kiev and other similar frozen chicken products are in denial about how dangerous their products can be," said Ryan Osterholm, an attorney at PritzkerOlsen. "This is not the first outbreak linked to these products and won’t be the last unless the industry makes real changes."
To date, Barber Foods has recalled 1,707,494 pounds of frozen, raw stuffed chicken products dating back to 29 January. The previous recall from 2 July which included stuffed chicken breast was updated on 12 July to included all production associated with a "specific whole muscle raw material" processed in its Portland facility on nine production dates from February 2015 through May 2015.
A statement on its website said it was " working collaboratively with the USDA to modify our production practices including, but not limited to, additional levels of microbiological analysis and additional control procedures to reduce Salmonella in both incoming and outgoing raw stuffed chicken breast products."
