EOC: Apple juice scandal

The Beech-Nut apple juice scandal was one that shocked Americans. The company sold apple less apple juice. The company used concentrate to help cut costs but the concentrate that used was made up of sugar water and chemicals no apples. After four years of producing the apple less juice there was an investigation done by the Processed Apples Institute that discovered the truth about the juice. The person that investigated the case was Andrew Rosenzweig who was a former New York City narcotics detective and future chief investigator for the Manhattan District Attorney’s office. He followed a truck of sugar water from Food Complex, which was the manufacture to a Beech-Nut facility in New York. He also confronted Beech-Nut’s executives about the matter and secretly recorded them which was later used as key evidence against the party. Fearing that their product would be seized by authorities Beech-Nut moved the rest of the stock of juice to New Jersey which fell out of New York’s jurisdiction. After this the company came up with a plan to ship the rest of the cases in inventory to the Caribbean. As well they shipped cases to the Dominican Republic and sold them at a 50 percent discount. The sale of the apple less apple juice made the company $60 million over a ten year time period. The juice was later recalled in New York, which later led to sate and federal investigations and recalls. New York sate sued Beech-Nut for $250,000 and at that time it was the biggest penalty ever issued for consumer violations. Also the company agreed to pay a $2 million fine and also pleaded guilty in the case. Executives Hoyvald and Lavery also paid fines totaling $1000,000 and where issued prison sentences of a year and one day. This case was so big, because it was one of the first time that executives in top-level corporations where held responsible for their violations.