ConAgra Foods is likely to face a criminal charge now that the U.S. government has completed its investigation of the company's 2007 peanut butter recall.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in Georgia, Pam Lightsey, said Tuesday that prosecutors plan to reveal details of the investigation Wednesday.
ConAgra spokeswoman Teresa Paulsen declined to comment Tuesday, but the company previously has said it was negotiating an end to the investigation that would likely include a misdemeanor charge of shipping tainted products.
Earlier this year, two former Iowa egg industry executives were sentenced to three months in jail. Last year, two Colorado cantaloupe farmers were convicted and received probation in a deadly 2011 listeria outbreak, and the former owner of Peanut Corporation of America was convicted in a 2008 salmonella outbreak. The peanut executive, Stewart Parnell, could face jail time when sentenced.
ConAgra recalled all its peanut butter in 2007 after its Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butter was linked to a salmonella outbreak that sickened at least 625 people in 47 states. The peanut butter was produced at ConAgra's Sylvester, Georgia, plant.
