Family Dollar fined $41.6 million over rodent-infested Arkansas warehouse

Federal officials have fined value-retailer Family Dollar more than $41 million as part of a plea agreement to settle a case stemming from a rat infestation and other sanitation concerns in an Arkansas facility.

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (KARK) – Federal officials have fined value-retailer Family Dollar more than $41 million as part of a plea agreement to settle a case stemming from a rodent infestation and other sanitation concerns at an Arkansas facility.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas said Family Dollar Stores LLC admitted in federal court on Monday to holding food, drugs, medical devices and cosmetics in unsanitary conditions in a West Memphis, Arkansas, warehouse facility.

The plea agreement included a fine and forfeiture of $41.675 million, the largest ever for a food safety case, according to federal officials.

Family Dollar is a subsidiary of Dollar Tree. Officials said the Monday ruling will require both companies to meet heightened corporate compliance and reporting requirements for the next three years.

According to a spokesperson for the attorney’s office, the guilty plea included admissions that the store had shipped Food and Drug Administration-regulated products to 404 stores in Arkansas, Alabama, Missouri, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee from its West Memphis facility.

Officials said Family Dollar admitted in its pleading that it began receiving reports of mouse and pest issues at the site in August 2020. The plea agreement stated that by the end of 2020, stores began receiving rodents and rodent-damaged packages from the distribution center.

The spokesperson said that in January 2022, FDA inspectors found living and dead rodents in the warehouse, along with rodent feces, urine and odors, as well as evidence of gnawing and nesting throughout. A subsequent fumigation resulted in 1,270 rodents being killed, investigators said.

As a result of the findings, Family Dollar issued a voluntary recall on Feb. 18, 2022, of all drugs, medical devices, cosmetics, and human or animal food shipped from the West Memphis facility since Jan. 1, 2021.

“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,” Acting Associate Attorney General Benjamin C. Mizer said.

The FDA’s Office of Criminal Investigations was the investigating agency in this case, according to the U.S. Attorney spokesperson.