A month before William Beach collapsed on his living room floor, an independent food safety auditor surveyed Jensen Farms. Inspector James DiIorio liked what he saw — he gave the Colorado cantaloupe grower a 96 percent “superior” rating on July 25, 2011.
Except some of the farm’s harvest that summer was poisonous, tainted with the pathogen listeria. In the following weeks, contaminated cantaloupe from Jensen Farms killed Beach and 32 others, sickening many more in the deadliest food poisoning outbreak in more than 25 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
