Investigations

Harada alleged Driscoll's sought plausible deniability on pesticide violations

An internal audit allegedly found half of Canadian shipments exceeded legal residue limits.

David Harada alleged that after he flagged pesticide overapplications on Driscoll's contracted farms, the company's director of agronomy asked whether it had plausible deniability. More Perfect Union traced how that complaint fit a contract-grower model that keeps independent farmers out of national grocery chains.

Driscoll's sells roughly one in three berries in American stores without growing any itself, according to economist Austin Frerick, author of Barons. The Watsonville company licenses plant genetics and packaging to growers who carry production risk. Berry trade analyst Matt Kinsella-Walsh said the arrangement let Driscoll's supply Walmart and other chains year-round while offloading weather, labor, and liability costs.

Driscoll's scaled export production in Mexico after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect in 1994. Mexico now produces about 1.2 million metric tons of berries annually, with Peru and Chile feeding California gaps. Only Coca-Cola outsells Driscoll's in U.S. grocery stores, and the brand held about 30 percent of the berry market in 2017, including 60 percent of organic strawberries.

In central Florida, Hugh Kent farms blueberries at King Grove under pine canopy and microbial soil stewardship. His berries rarely reach the supermarkets that stock Driscoll's year-round. After Kent sold 30,000 pounds to a national chain one season, buyers told him they needed a full domestic blueberry calendar from a single supplier, work he said belongs to brokers, not farmers.

Harada worked three years as a food safety manager and said he first noticed contracted growers applying pesticides above legal limits in late 2022. He reported the issue and received a call from his director of agronomy about plausible deniability rather than a plan to fix it, he alleged. Consumer complaints reached him about berries tasting like chemicals or nail polish.

An internal audit he cited found that about half of Driscoll's shipments to Canada from 2022 through 2024 included at least one tray above legal pesticide residue limits, worth roughly $100 million in exports. Harada also alleged the company stripped internal audit systems from its food safety department and shrank its safety manual to limit liability.

Harada filed suit in Ventura County Superior Court as a whistleblower. The complaint alleges retaliation after he refused to conceal violations from the public and says he resigned under pressure in October 2025.

A Driscoll's spokesperson denied Harada's allegations and said the company maintains robust food safety programs with independent laboratory testing and third-party audits. The spokesperson added that no food safety regulator has determined Driscoll's berries are unsafe.

On Driscoll's-contracted California farms, a worker who asked reporters to withhold his name said crews faced long pesticide exposures without safety training. Organizers in Watsonville alleged schoolchildren and field hands breathe the same chemicals applied near campuses. Workers said Driscoll's fruit sold for nearly $7 a box while pay stayed low.

In water-scarce Baja California, large contractors including BerryMex, owned by the same Reiter family that controls Driscoll's, built desalination plants as groundwater disappeared. Erica Diaz Cervantes of the advocacy group CAUSE said Driscoll's avoids being the public face of field conditions while BerryMex and other suppliers absorb the blame. The USMCA trade pact includes a cross-border union complaint process, but agriculture is exempt.

Kent left wholesale and now ships blueberries directly to customers nationwide. More Perfect Union ran blind strawberry taste tests with chef Tristan Kwong and produce worker Edward Dupree, and rankings split between Driscoll's Organic, farmers market berries, and competitors, with several tasters calling grocery fruit flavorless.

Harada filed the 27-page complaint on June 24, 2026, seeking damages and a jury trial.

Source video: We Investigated the Berry Empire Crushing American Farmers