Boars Head fired sanitation manager at listeria-laden Virginia plant after he flagged health, safety issues: They took shortcuts

A former sanitation manager at Boar’s Head’s listeria-ridden Virginia plant claims he was fired last year after he raised red flags over lax health and safety standards at the now-shuttered facility.Terrence Boyce — who has nearly two decades of experience as a supervisor at food plants — was hired in 2023 for a newly created position at the Jarratt, Va., plant amid a food safety audit by federal regulators, Boyce told The Post.“The government found a bunch of deficiencies or deviations and I guess I was brought in as a preventive and a corrective measure,” Boyce said.But when the sanitation veteran began to speak up and recommend certain changes, he lost his job, he claims.“I wrote that ‘management was not committed to safety’ and two or three days later, the plant manager tells me I need to change my investigation,” Boyce alleged.“I said, ‘no.’”Boyce was fired in August of last year after the report about an injured worker.

Less than 10 months later, the Jarratt plant was linked to the nationwide listeria outbreak in Boar’s Head products that has been blamed for nine deaths and dozens of hospitalizations.Among the problems Boyce flagged during his eight-month stint at the bug-infested plant was that the water used to clean the facility wasn’t hot enough to “break up grease” from animal fat, he said.

Boyce also pushed for stronger cleaning chemicals such as chlorine bleach to be used on the walls, floors and equipment.“The plant was old and kind of dilapidated,” he told The Post.

“Some of the piping that runs through the equipment had mold and they didn’t have bleach in their solutions for at least three years.”He specifically pointed a finger at the meat smokehouses – which are similar to walk in freezers.“The process for cleaning the smokehouses was a major problem,” he said, adding that they used a powder solution instead of spraying them down.“They took shortcuts,” Boyce said.Boar’s head did not immed...