Flowers Foods settles kosher crust suit for $2.5 million

<p>A food company accused of putting pig fat into what were supposed to be kosher pie crusts has agreed to give $2.5 million to charity to settle a lawsuit.</p><p>Flowers Foods, a Georgia-based company that once owned a Mrs. Smith's Bakery in Pembroke, didn't admit to passing off pie crusts containing pork lard as kosher, but the company agreed Thursday to a settlement in Wake County to end a class-action lawsuit filed this spring.</p><p>The company issued a letter of apology for what it calls an embarrassing incident.</p><p>The plant in Pembroke has closed and Flowers no longer owns Mrs. Smith's bakeries or makes pie crusts.</p><p>If the allegations are true, Orthodox Jews who ate the crusts inadvertently violated their religious principles while eating Mrs. Smith's pie crusts in 2000 and 2001.</p><p>Jews who follow kosher diet rules are strictly prohibited from eating pork products.</p><p>The Mrs. Smith's plant made regular pie crusts with pork lard, and crusts stamped kosher by the Orthodox Union, a New York organization that certifies kosher foods. The kosher crusts contained no milk or meat products.</p><p>In 2001, Raleigh lawyer Marvin Schiller heard the allegations of a plant employee that workers often substituted regular crusts for kosher ones when they plant ran out.</p><p>Schiller doesn't observe kosher rules, but he said he agreed to become the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit out of respect for his Orthodox Jewish upbringing.</p><p>The lawyers in the case said it was impractical to find every Jewish person who had eaten a Mrs. Smith's pie crust, so they decided instead to give the settlement money to charity.</p><p>Schiller gets $2,000 from the settlement, but he said he will donate it to the neurology department at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.</p><p>Flowers, which makes baked goods at 34 plants throughout the country, will divide $1 million in cash among five groups, including the Orthodox Union.</p><p>The neurology department will get a $100,000 slice, in addition to Schiller's contribution.</p><p>The company will donate $1.5 million worth of bread products to America's Second Harvest, a national charity that helps the needy get food.</p>

http://accesswdun.com/article/2004/12/155210