Family Dollar Stores was hit with a record fine for violating product safety standards after selling items that were stocked in a rat-infested warehouse filled with live, dead and decaying rodents.
The retailer, a subsidiary of Dollar Tree was fined $41.6 million, “the largest-ever monetary criminal penalty in a food safety case,” the Justice Department said in a statement Monday.
Family Dollar and Dollar Tree will also be under robust corporate compliance and reporting requirements for the next three years, according to the DOJ.
“When consumers go to the store, they have the right to expect that the food and drugs on the shelves have been kept in clean, uncontaminated conditions,” Benjamin Mizer, acting associate attorney with the DOJ, said in the statement. “When companies violate that trust and the laws designed to keep consumers safe, the public should rest assured: The Justice Department will hold those companies accountable.”
Family Dollar’s rat and mice problem goes back to 2020 when the US Food and Drug Administration issued an inspection report describing a distribution facility operated by the discount chain in Arkansas as dirty and rat-infested, and where merchandise including human and animal food was stored.
The inspectors noted in that report of observing “rodent evidence, including live rodents, dead rodents of various states of decay, rodent excreta pellets … gnawings, nesting, and odors indicative of rodents throughout the entirety” of the facility.
The agency said at the time that Family Dollar has been aware of the rodent problem since at least January 2020.
Yet the retailer continued shipping goods from the warehouse until January 2022, when the FDA’s investigation revealed the extent of the infestation. After the building was fumigated, exterminators found 1,270 dead mice, the DOJ said.
In 2022, the FDA’s discovery prompted Family Dollar to voluntarily recall dozens of food items, cosmetics, drugs and other products and temporarily close more than 400 stores in six southern states.
The DOJ said Family Dollar, which has more than 8,000 stores nationwide, pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor count of causing FDA-regulated products to become adulterated while being held under insanitary conditions.
“Having reached full resolution with the DOJ, we are continuing to move forward on our business transformation, safety procedures and compliance initiatives,” Dollar Tree CEO, Rick Dreiling, said in a statement Monday.
“When I joined Dollar Tree’s Board of Directors in March 2022, I was very disappointed to learn about these unacceptable issues at one of Family Dollar’s facilities … we have worked diligently to help Family Dollar resolve this historical matter and significantly enhance our policies, procedures, and physical facilities to ensure it is not repeated,” Dreiling added.
–CNN’s Nathaniel Meyersohn and Rebekah Riess contributed to this story.
