The former purchasing director for Nabisco had steered contracts for tomatoes to SK Foods at inflated prices in exchange for bribes. SK Foods had formerly been in trouble for lying about the quality of potentially mold-filled shipments of tomato.
Maybe these people should face a firing squad armed with moldy tomatoes.
By Denny Walsh
Sacramento Bee
The national scandal of corruption in the food industry unfolding in Sacramento federal court claimed another corporate executive Tuesday with a guilty plea to fraud charges by a former purchasing chief of two industry giants.
Robert C. Turner Jr., who was purchasing director for Nabisco Inc., and later for B&G Foods Inc., admitted accepting $65,000 in bribe payments from Randall Lee Rahal, a former sales broker and director of SK Foods LP.
Nabisco, a manufacturer, distributor, and seller of cookies, snacks and other products, and B&G, a multinational manufacturer, seller and distributor of a wide array of food products, are both based in New Jersey.
Monterey-based SK Foods is one of the nation’s largest growers of tomatoes and processors of tomato products. It has plants in Williams, 50 miles north of Sacramento, and Lemoore, south of Fresno.
