For the second time in a little over a decade, Tiger Brands is embroiled in a scandal. But unlike the bread cartel scandal of 2007, this time 180 people – many of them infants – lost their lives in what the UN has called the worst outbreak of listeriosis recorded globally. On Sunday the health department, which had for months been battling to find the source of the outbreak, announced that an Enterprise Foods factory in Polokwane was the culprit. Enterprise Foods is a subsidiary of Tiger Brands. The National Institute for Communicable Diseases (NICD) has supported the department’s finding, saying it has conclusive proof that the Enterprise factory is the source of the outbreak, according to a Daily Maverick report. Despite the NICD’s claim that the deadly strain of listeriosis has the same DNA footprint as that carried by Enterprise products, Tiger Brands CEO Lawrence MacDougall has insisted there is no direct link between the company’s products and the disease. He said only low lev...
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