Former Boar’s Head sanitation manager recounts where Virginia plant went wrong

a. ( WRIC ) — The Boar's Head deli meat plant in Jarratt, Virginia, was shut down indefinitely earlier this month after being linked to a deadly listeria outbreak . Nexstar's WRIC sat down with its former sanitation manager, Terrence Boyce, to find out where it all went wrong.

"One thing I did find out about Boar's Head is they were just not open to new ideas," Boyce said. "Just not open at all."

Boyce, who was hired in January 2023, said he was told he was Jarratt's first on-site manager for sanitation.

According to Boyce, practices at the plant were very outdated.

"Boar's Head had these ... veteran employees, I guess you could call them," he explained. "They were not keeping up with the new guidelines and everything. They were kind of following it, but not every little detail that has come out recently."

Boyce tried to implement several improved sanitation methods, including things like creating a buddy system for training cleaners and implementing the use of flashlights and scrub pads — which he said were nonexistent.

"As I tried to establish different ways of cleaning, there was a lot of pushback," Boyce said. "Pushback on old methodology, things they used to do that nobody does anymore ... If you push against management, I think you become a target."

Boyce said he was terminated in August 2023 after repeated pushback led to "controversy."

Boar's Head did not respond when WRIC asked if it hired another sanitation manager afterward, but Boyce said he believes they did not, as he keeps in touch with former coworkers.

Boyce said he worked to update the plant's sanitation standard operating procedure guidelines (SSOP), which he breaks into these five steps: dry pickup/precleaning, pre-rinse, scrub, post-rinse and sanitize.

He noticed flaws in how these reports were kept and shortcomings in how multiple steps were performed.

"Dry pickup was nonexistent — they didn't allow enough time for cleaning," Boyce said. "We say 95% of the debris should be removed in a good top-to-bottom pre-rinse. The chemical is supposed to be the nail in the coffin ... It can't clean properly if there is still debris left over. Your chemical can't touch what's under the debris."

Boyce said that the water temperature for the pre-rinse was never hot enough — averaging around 130 degrees when it needs to be at least 180. He said that, if you can't get the water hot enough, you need a contingency plan.

"Chemical concentration, time, temperature and manpower are the four components in sanitation," Boyce said. "If you're lacking on one, you need to increase another."

He said this was not done. Reports from the USDA revealed troubling conditions, including bugs, mold, mildew, blood puddles on the floor and meat buildup on the walls.

The plant has not produced any product since the recall in July. The USDA reports there were a total of 69 violations between then and August 2023, when Boyce was fired.

"The USDA was bringing attention to it, but who was doing the fixing?" Boyce said. "We're saying, 'We sealed up this window to prevent this and this,' but that was not being done. Who's verifying that it's done?"

Virginia is one of 10 states operating under a federal-state inspection agreement called the Talmadge-Aiken Cooperative Inspection Program. By law, state employees are responsible for conducting federal inspections.

A Virginia Department of Agriculture and Consumer Service inspector would have verified corrections for the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), which works with the USDA and the FSIS (Federal Safety Inspection Service) to keep state inspector's records on their own behalf.

WRIC is working to get the names of the inspectors who conducted each check. A federal investigation has been launched.

"It was too late," Boyce said. "The sanitation system should've been updated years before."