Greenyard reopens plant after deadly listeria contamination

As the cause of the listeria contamination in Greenyard‘s Hungarian plant is found, the factory is reopening. The contamination in frozen foods produced in the factory caused nine deaths.

Contamination source found

Between 2015 and 2018, 47 people became ill and nine of them died from listeria after eating food produced in the plant. In June it was already established that the cause was somewhere in the fruit and vegetable processing plant in Baja, Hungary, after which the plant closed completely.

Now the specific location was found to be one of the two freezing tunnels of the production facility, where 3 % of the volume of all the group’s deep-freezing activity was produced. The contaminated tunnel remains closed, but the rest of the plant was cleared after inspection in cooperation with the food safety authorities. Production can therefore be restarted.

Consequences good and bad

After the discovery of the contamination, a large recall of packaging from between 2016 and 2018 followed. The company is now relieved to announce that the full financial impact of the recall and plant closure is likely to remain below the previously estimated 30 million euro – after insurance.

Greenyard says it will now take on a leading role in the frozen food industry, in order to increase industry regulations in cooperation with sector representatives. Starting with itself, the food producer is already looking for a quality and food safety manager to join the management team, while implementing stricter safety and cleaning measures.