Stewart Parnell

Stewart Parnell was the president of the now bankrupt Peanut Corporation of America which was known for sending peanuts and peanut butter to prisons, nursing homes and schools, as well as peanuts for food processors for use in other foods that were available to the market.

In 2009, Stewart Parnell shipped out tainted peanuts to various places across the United States, causing around 714 people to get sick from salmonella poisoning. At least nine people died from it.

During the investigations, it was shown that several facilities had many health violations such as leaky ceilings, cockroaches, and rodents. Even worse, E-Mails were discovered that shown that Stewart knew about the tainted peanuts and didn't care and even faked lab tests to ship the peanuts out faster.

This lead to the largest recall of a food product ever recorded in American history and even thousands of pounds of food for food banks had to be discarded. The United States government then banned the Peanut Corporation of America from all government contracts for one year. The recall scared so many people they even refused to buy major brand peanut butters, despite the fact that the Peanut Corporation of America had nothing to do with them.

Less than 24 hours after the recall, Parnell filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

Stewart, along with his brother, Michael Parnell, and Mary Wilkerson, the plant's quality control manager, were convicted guilty on September 19, 2014. The two brothers were estimated to 30 years of prison while Wilkerson was estimated for 20 years.