(WHAS11) -- A Louisville company is accused of knowingly trying to send contaminated food to market.
A former employee alleges the company looked the other way, and that the results could have been deadly.
Food borne illnesses are increasingly in the news.
Over the summer, 3,000 people became sick and 31 died in a European E-coli outbreak linked to sprouts.
More recently, Listeria-tainted cantaloupes in the U.S. have killed 28 people in 12 states.
That prompted us to take another look at a local company, Caudill Seed and Warehouse Company.
The Centers for Disease Control says the company supplied seeds involved in one of the country’s largest salmonella outbreaks back in 2009, which made 228 people sick.
Now Caudill Seed is a party in new lawsuits involving a former high-level employee, who accuses the company of knowingly trying to put contaminated products into the marketplace.
Caudill Seed accuses him of stealing trade secrets when he left the company earlier in 2011.
Seeds from all over the world come to the shipping docks of Caudill Seed and Warehouse Company.
In 2009, Caudill Seed was the largest wholesale supplier of seed intended for sprouting in the United States.
At that time, the company supplied 80 t0 90 percent of the seed used to grow alfalfa, mung and broccoli sprouts.
Eventually sprouts end up on salad bars, on sandwiches and in supermarkets.
Caudill Seed's Chief Safety Officer Fred Kapp says none of those seeds leave the warehouse without passing vigorous safety checks.
Kapp says all bags of alfalfa seeds coming into the warehouse are tested for the presence of pathogens.
He says the company has strict protocols if any test results come back positive.
“We have to isolate that product and take action to isolate that from the market,” Kapp said.
But former Caudill Seed Research Director Kean Ashurst tells a different story.
Ashurst left the company in April, saying in a wrongful termination lawsuit he was forced to resign "as a direct result of Caudill Seed's constant and severe resistance to the implementation of proper safety measures and its complete disregard for the human safety of its product".
Ashurst alleges in the suit that while he worked there, a product tested positive for listeria, a potentially deadly bacteria, which Ashurst says resulted in "a significant chance for widespread contamination."
Ashurst also claims that when he raised concerns, he was "vociferously chastised by Caudill Seed Chief Operating Officer Dan Caudill" and "was told by Mr.Caudill to never again resample for listeria."
That material was ultimately refused by Brassica Protection Products, LLC, the company buying it to create a nutritional supplement, after that company also received the test results.
Brassica sued Caudill Seed, alleging the company, “failed to manufacture the products in compliance with certain good practice and quality control specifications.”
The lawsuit was eventually settled.
Ashurst says he was also asked by Caudill "to ignore test results, stop further testing and effectively look the other way when it sold a potentially contaminated product."
Ashurst's current civil complaint alleges Caudill Seed was responsible for several food-borne illness outbreaks in recent years.
According to the Food and Drug Administration, Caudill Seed recalled sprout seeds in 2004 and 2008 after suspected contamination.
Dan Caudill says the problems aren't on his end. He says the people who buy the seeds don't use proper safety precautions.
“Where we run into issues are the smaller guys that can't afford to have the quality assurance that they need,” Caudill said.
The latest outbreak happened in 2009, when 228 people in 14 states suffered salmonella poisoning.
According to the Centers for Disease Control, cases first showed up in Nebraska after people ate contaminated alfalfa sprouts on Jimmy Johns sandwiches.
The alleged contaminated seed was later traced to growing facilities in Michigan, Minnesota and Pennsylvania.
The CDC says Caudill Seed sold all of the seed involved in the outbreak. A lawsuit filed by people who got sick from that outbreak is still in the court system.
According to the FDA, Caudill Seed recalled 230,000 pounds the seed involved in the 2009 outbreak.
An inspection report we obtained through the Freedom of Information Act indicates Caudill Seed sold 110,000 pounds of the recalled seed to Canada and other countries without notifying those foreign buyers of the recall.
Dan Caudill says the 2009 incident has affected how his company does business.
“We're very selective on who we will even sell seeds to, especially after the incident in Omaha. We're cut way back on the guys we were going to sell,” said Caudill.
Caudill says his company's sprouting seeds now have warning labels.
He says his company also invested millions of dollars into high tech equipment to make sure seed is not contaminated.
“I think we have the highest standards of food safety on sprouting seeds in the industry,” Caudill said. “The problem is once it leaves our door, we don't have control over what the food processor does with it.”
Ashurst disputes Caudill’s safety claims.
But not only is he suing Caudill Seed company, Caudill Seed is suing him for allegedly stealing trade secrets and taking them to his new employer, something Ashurst denies in dozens of pages of court records.
Dan Caudill says he's been told by his attorney not to address any of the specific allegations in the lawsuit.
Our visit to his company was unannounced, and we saw nothing that raised any concerns.
Ashurst also says his attorney has asked him not to discuss the allegations while the cases are pending.
