Inside The Chaos At Boar’s Head

How a fatal listeria outbreak, a plant shutdown and a nasty beef among the founding families has left the billion-dollar deli meat empire in peril.

_{By Chloe Sorvino, Forbes Staff}

When a recall rocks the food industry as much as the deadly listeria outbreak linked to a Boar’s Head factory in Jarratt, Virginia has, the CEO or owners typically get in front of the news and try to instill a sense of calm. But the families behind the 119-year-old deli meat purveyor have been oddly silent.

The lack of response underscores how secretive Boar’s Head has become. A letter about the recall of more than 7 million pounds of ready-to-eat meat products posted on the company website—“This is a dark moment in our company’s history but we intend to use this as an opportunity to enhance food safety programs not just for our company, but for the entire industry.”—is signed simply from “Boar’s Head.” A lone company spokesperson has been cited in media reports and the company refuses to even confirm who the current CEO or chairman is. (It’s likely Robert S. Martin, one of the primary owners).

Now in the aftermath of the deaths of at least 10 people and with nearly 60 hospitalized across some 19 states, according to the Centers for Disease Control, the company that took a century to become the biggest deli meat brand in America is facing an existential threat—with multiple civil lawsuits, and talks of a congressional hearing as well as a Department of Justice investigation that could come with criminal charges. But the warring families who founded Boar’s Head seem more concerned about a series of petty legal battles over the billion-dollar brand.

“They were better at growing listeria than they were at making food for human consumption.”

The Brunckhorsts and the Bischoffs, the two feuding families who own Boar’s Head—and have been fighting over the ownership since 2021—should be at the center of the recall controversy. The company, lawyers say, could be on the hook for hundreds of millions in civil claims and criminal charges, which could come with hefty fines and perhaps even some jail time. (Boar’s Head declined to comment on current and other potential lawsuits as well as its health procedures.)

“They better have a lot of insurance or they’re going to be pushed into bankruptcy,” says lawyer Bill Marler, whose Seattle law firm, Marler Clark, has specialized in claims for food recall victims for the past three decades and filed a lawsuit against Boar’s Head on behalf of a survivor. “All of this was completely preventable. They were better at growing listeria than they were at making food for human consumption.”

Founded in Brooklyn and now based on Sarasota, Florida, Boar’s Head, with $1.3 billion in estimated annual revenue, might have been in a strong position to sell itself before the recall. Deli meat deals garner some of the highest multiples in the food industry. Hormel, the $12.1 billion (2023 sales) publicly traded giant whose brands including Jennie-O, Applegate and Spam, has paid as much as 3 times sales on recent acquisitions. Forbes conservatively estimates Boar’s Head is valued at $1 billion. Collectively, the owners are likely worth more, as it’s unclear how much cash the founding families have taken out of the business over the past century.

Boar’s Head is owned by a complex structure of trusts, with restrictions on how stock can be bought and sold thanks to a 1991 shareholder agreement. The Brunckhorsts and the Bischoffs own 100% of the company and have historically split it evenly. The 25% owned by trusts for Barbara Brunckhorst—who died in 2020 and was the daughter of Boar’s Head’s cofounder Frank Brunckhorst Jr.—is what’s in question amid the lawsuits. The Brunckhorsts’ remaining 25% is owned by Barbara’s nephew, Frank Brunckhorst III.

Frank Brunckhorst III is suing his second-cousin Eric Bischoff, who wanted to buy Barbara’s shares. Bischoff owns a little over 14% of the company. His cousin Robert S. Martin and his family became Boar’s Head’s largest shareholders with 35% ownership. (Alvina Bischoff, daughter of Boar’s Head cofounder Bruno Bischoff took the surname of her husband, Martin.) Tensions have arisen as the third-generation side of the Bischoff clan has expanded and the branches’ ownership has grown uneven.

According to legal filings and reports, Boar’s Head has been run by Frank Brunckhorst III alongside his cousin Robert S. Martin (Alvina’s son) for years. Brunckhorst, according to his biography on the website of Carnegie Mellon University where he is a life trustee, is the former chairman of Boar’s Head’s board, having stepped down in 2004. It’s unclear what Brunckhorst and Martin’s official roles at Boar’s Head are today, though Martin has been called its CEO in reports over the past two decades. Martin reportedly took the helm in the late 1990s, after his father, Robert A. Martin, retired after serving as CEO for several decades. Bischoff worked at the company until 2021 and currently does not have a role.

But the recent fatalities and the closing of the Virginia plant puts the Brunckhorsts, the Martins and the Bischoffs in a highly vulnerable position. In addition to laying off some 600 employees at the Virginia facility, Boar’s Head has permanently discontinued producing liverwurst—which is mainly eaten by older customers, who are more at risk of dying from listeria exposure. In all, Boar’s Head decided to recall everything made at the plant, including bologna and ham as well as packaged sausages, hot dogs, and bacon.

“It’s not like they couldn’t afford to upgrade this facility or to keep it clean. It’s not like they were scrimping for dollars to do that,” says Marler. “Somebody just didn’t give a shit because every one of these [USDA] violations is a reason to have shut the plant down.”

Boar’s Head—which touts that it has been “trusted since 1905”—began with Frank Brunckhorst, who delivered ham in Brooklyn in horse-drawn wagon with the now-distinctive image of a boar on the side. After he died in 1931, his son Frank Jr. and son-in-law Bruno Bischoff inherited the business and took it in a new direction: Producing their own ham. They opened their first processing facility in 1933 and incorporated the business as Boar’s Head Provisions.

It took 57 years before Boar’s Head opened another plant. The second facility opened in Jarratt, Virginia as a state-of-the-art factory for the brand as it expanded beyond hams and hot dogs.

The business was big enough by the 1960s that, according to a 1977 tax case involving the estate of Bruno Bischoff and his wife, Bertha, Frank Brunckhorst Jr. decided he wanted to protect the family’s ownership. The general partnership that owned 75% of the company was changed to a limited partnership with restrictions stipulating that only immediate family members could own shares.

That structure insulated the company through a period of major growth as Boar’s Head leveraged strong relationships with independent delis and supermarket chains on the East Coast. Under Robert A. Martin in the 1980s and 1990s, the business grew rapidly, and his son, Robert S. Martin moved the company headquarters to Sarasota to be closer to one of its top retailers, the Publix chain of supermarkets.

Whether those strong corporate relationships will continue in the aftermath of the recall remains unclear. And this is not the first time Boar’s Head has faced controversy over the conditions of its plant. According to a report, in 2000, Boar’s Head faced a recall and Martin, identified as CEO, shared a robust response: “Ours is a fourth generation family business that is very proud of the reputation it has built over the last 95 years. Our consumers have come to expect the best from us. We will take any step necessary to honor that trust.”

Admittedly, it would take a lot to oust Boar’s Head from deli counters today. According to Nielsen grocery sales data, the brand represents about 15% of the deli meat market nationwide, compared to Kraft (which owns Oscar Mayer, among other brands) at 11%, Tyson at 9% and Hormel at 7%.

“The family were so focused on fighting with each other, they weren’t paying attention to the underlying reason why they might have something to fight over.”

Kraft has been looking to sell Oscar Mayer but that may be less likely now as Boar’s Head has turned off customers from deli meat in general. Sales are down some 8% at deli counters across the country in the past month, according to Peter Galbo, Bank of America’s food and beverage equity analyst. And that stings for grocers. “Consumers don’t feel safe,” says Galbo. “It’s having a really meaningful impact across the rest of the sector. It’s going to take some time.”

While consumers decide whether they will go back to trusting Boar’s Head, U.S. food safety regulators continue to investigate potential wrongdoing at the company. According to a Department of Agriculture spokesperson, “in the interest of best protecting public health” the rest of Boar’s Head’s facilities will also be audited. “In addition to taking a holistic look at Boar’s Head establishments across the country, our investigation will include a top-to-bottom review to determine contributing factors that led to the outbreak at this particular facility, what needs to be improved, and if there are lessons learned that could be more broadly applied to ready-to-eat meat and poultry facilities,” a USDA spokesperson said.

U.S. government inspection records dating back several years indicate that the Virginia plant had serious problems. One 2022 report detailed how issues at the facility posed “an imminent threat”—which should have triggered closer scrutiny from the USDA.

The distraction over intrafamily lawsuits may have led to the owners not been minding their store. “The family were so focused on fighting with each other, they weren’t paying attention to the underlying reason why they might have something to fight over,” says Marler, the plaintiff lawyer.

The Boar’s Head family schism appears to pit Martin and Brunckhorst on one side, and Bischoff on the other. In 2019, Bischoff demanded arbitration over shares transferred to Martin’s son, Robert P., who is Boar’s Head’s chief operating officer. In 2021, Martin sued Bischoff over share transfers from 2011, 2013 and 2016.

Just two weeks after Martin filed his case, the family feud hit a new level. Brunckhorst sued Bischoff over shares owned by his aunt Barbara Brunckhorst. A devoted environmentalist, she had wanted to leave a significant portion of her shares to several charities but she didn’t amend her will, and Bischoff thought he had the right to purchase some of them.

Bischoff countersued in both cases. In the case against Brunckhorst, his suit shared more Boar’s Head history, including that Bischoff’s father, Herbert, had once owned 25% but that when he died in 1973, Barbara Brunckhorst purchased the shares, resulting in more than 50% ownership for the Brunckhorsts. After graduating from college, Bischoff claims he went to work at Boar’s Head “with the promise and expectation that he would receive the Boar’s Head shares his father once owned.” Some of those shares were transferred to him, but a lot eventually went to the Martin side of the extended Bischoff family.

The legal fight has been ugly. The initial lawsuit from Brunckhorst describes Bischoff as “apparently motivated by breathtaking greed” and “litigious.” The countersuit calls out Brunckhorst for having “launched a campaign against [Bischoff]” while calling Brunckhorst’s analysis of their Shareholder’s Agreement as “a tortured reading” that “improperly mixes and matches inapplicable provisions.”

A New York judge sided with the Martins in their case in 2023, deciding that Bischoff had no right to challenge the shares. But Brunckhorst’s lawsuits, which list Martin as an interested party, haven’t ended. After more than three years, a sealed decision was handed down on August 29. According to the docket, there are still some unresolved claims, which the judge is now preparing the parties to go to trial over in early 2025.

As the legal fight continues, these family lawsuits join a long list of other legal troubles from the recall. So far, there’s a class action case for Boar’s Head customers as well as several individual lawsuits filed on behalf of victims. One is a wrongful death suit from the family of Virginia-resident Gunter Morgenstein, an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who ate Boar’s Head liverwurst “all the time”—it was his favorite sandwich.

“He came to the U.S. and worked his way up from nothing. It’s an ironic tragedy that someone who fought through that much adversity died from eating a sandwich,” says Ron Simon, an attorney representing the Morgenstein family. “The family wants to figure out exactly how this happened. We will get promises that this will never happen again.”

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