Former Plainview Peanut Manager Speaks Out on Salmonella Scare
By: Lisa Carr
Updated: February 16, 2009
We have much more from an exclusive interview with a former worker at the Plainview Peanut factory. Health officials have linked six cases of salmonella to the plant here on the South Plains. Kenneth Kendrick worked as an assistant manager at the plant for four months in 2006. He says, he almost immediately noticed several issues that risked contamination of the products. A leaky roof dripped water on equipment and dropped bird feces into the plant. He also says auditors found several rodents and feces throughout the building, but Kendrick says the owner of the plant, Stewart Parnell, seemed more concerned about making money than fixing any of the problems. Kendrick says, "We needed to patch up all the holes to keep rodents from coming in. We needed to patch up the roof. We needed to update the equipment and the owner quite frankly told us we didn't have the money to make those repairs. At one point, I was told(by Mr. Parnell), we're bleeding money out of the plant. We can't afford to continually have these problems." Kendrick says he's the whistle-blower who convinced health officials they needed to investigate the Plainview Plant in the salmonella outbreak. He says he knew he had to come forward after he saw all the people sickened by tainted peanuts, including his own grand-daughter.
