Driscoll’s Berries: Regulators Found Excess Pesticide Residues. What Happened Inside the Company?

Driscoll’s is not simply a collection of berry farms. It is a global berry brand built around proprietary varieties, independent growers, and a company-run network of food-safety controls, cooling, distribution and sales.

The company develops and patents its berry varieties, then licenses them to independent farming partners. Those growers cultivate and harvest the fruit. Driscoll’s markets and sells the berries under its name and says it maintains food-safety standards across its grower network, including pesticide reporting, market-specific residue limits, testing and audits.

That division of responsibilities matters. Independent growers make decisions in the field, but Driscoll’s owns the brand promise and says it operates systems designed to ensure that berries meet the rules of the markets where they are sold.

The question raised by the allegations in this case is not simply whether a grower used a pesticide incorrectly. It is whether Driscoll’s compliance systems properly accounted for Canadian requirements—and whether commercial concerns affected decisions about those controls.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) confirmed that inspections of some Driscoll’s berries sold in Canada between 2022 and 2024 found residues above Canadian legal limits for three pesticides: bifenthrin, iprodione and captan.

No recalls resulted. According to reporting on the CFIA’s response, some cases involved corrective action, while others were closed after investigation.

These are the strongest independently confirmed facts in the story: regulators found above-limit residues in some berries. The findings do not establish that every Driscoll’s product was noncompliant, that all the cases had the same source, or that the berries caused reported illnesses.

Against that background, a former Driscoll’s food-safety manager has made allegations about the company’s internal compliance system that go well beyond individual growers.

DOCUMENTED: Canadian regulators confirmed above-limit residues of bifenthrin, iprodione and captan in some Driscoll’s berries during 2022–2024. No recalls resulted; some cases involved corrective action, while other investigations were closed.

ALLEGED: Former food-safety and regulatory-compliance manager David Harada alleges that Canadian pesticide limits were removed from Driscoll’s tracking system in 2022, that noncompliant exports increased, and that commercial concerns later impeded efforts to restore those limits. He also alleges retaliation after raising concerns.

NOT ESTABLISHED: The broader allegations about management decisions, company-wide shipments and retaliation have not been established by a court. The regulatory findings do not show that all Driscoll’s berries were unsafe or that the berries caused the illnesses reported by some consumers.

According to Harada’s lawsuit, Driscoll’s vice president of Food Safety directed the removal of Canadian pesticide limits from the company’s compliance-tracking system in 2022.

The suit alleges that Driscoll’s internal audit group estimated that more than 50% of Canadian-bound shipments from 2022 to 2024 contained fruit exceeding Canadian limits. The roughly US$100 million figure cited in the case is attributed to that alleged internal audit estimate—not simply to Harada’s personal calculation.

Harada alleges that exports to Canada “soared” after the tracking controls were removed. He says the system helped ensure enough time elapsed between pesticide application and harvest for residues to fall within the applicable limits.

Driscoll’s denies the allegations, including the claim that it removed the tracking system. The audit estimate and the alleged decision to remove the limits remain claims described in the lawsuit, not findings established in court.

If the account is accurate, the issue extends beyond whether individual growers followed pesticide instructions. It raises questions about whether the company’s compliance system continued to track the rules applicable to fruit destined for Canada.

The lawsuit alleges that Harada asked for the Canadian limits to be restored in February 2025. According to the complaint’s account, the same vice president of Food Safety cited concerns about disruptions to the supply chain and sales.

That is the key alleged connection between commercial pressure and the compliance system: the limits were allegedly removed in 2022, and restoring them was later resisted partly because of concerns about business disruption.

The allegation is serious. Its accuracy, context and implications remain matters for evidence and the legal process.

A May 2024 email reportedly shows the Canadian sales vice president pushing back against changes intended to strengthen the tracking system because they “may adversely affect Sales.” This supports the allegation that commercial concerns were raised about tighter safety controls, but it is not evidence that those particular changes weakened the system.

The alleged removal of Canadian limits in 2022 and resistance to restoring them in February 2025 are separate events—and more directly address the question of whether safeguards were weakened or left out of the compliance system.

The complaint reportedly cites material from third parties and customers, including an October 2023 RQA report and a March 2024 warning from Sysco.

These documents matter because they originated outside Driscoll’s rather than being written by its own employees. They may provide evidence of concerns raised beyond the company’s internal discussions. Their precise contents, what they establish and how Driscoll’s responded must be assessed from the documents themselves; their mention in a complaint does not automatically prove every allegation.

The case also includes an allegation that, in fall 2022, Driscoll’s director of agronomy raised whether the company had “plausible deniability” concerning growers applying pesticides above label limits, potentially avoiding liability. If substantiated in context, that would be a troubling question to have raised in a food-safety discussion. It remains an allegation, not a judicial finding about the director’s intent or the company’s conduct.

The CFIA’s findings involved three pesticides:

• Bifenthrin, an insecticide.
• Iprodione, a fungicide.
• Captan, a fungicide.

A residue above a legal maximum residue limit is a regulatory compliance finding. It does not automatically establish that a particular serving caused illness or that a product posed an unacceptable health risk.

The Canadian findings raise legitimate questions for American consumers, but they do not establish that Driscoll’s berries sold in the United States violated U.S. pesticide limits.

The distinction matters. Canada and the United States do not always set the same maximum residue limits for the same pesticide on the same fruit. An amount that exceeds Canada's limit can sometimes fall within the U.S. legal limit. That does not, by itself, establish that the residue poses a health risk—or that the difference between the limits is irrelevant to consumers.

The United States has higher permitted pesticide-residue limits for some berries and pesticides, while Canada has higher limits for some other pesticide-and-crop combinations.

U.S. vs. Canadian limits for strawberries

The following figures reflect the limits reported in a September 2026 comparison of Canadian and U.S. regulations. Residue limits are measured in parts per million (ppm).

The CFIA also reportedly investigated complaints involving a chemical taste or smell and suspected illness after people ate Driscoll’s blueberries. The agency did not conclusively link the reported illnesses to the berries.

The CFIA emphasized that cases involved different products, residues, importers and locations over several years. The Driscoll’s label alone does not establish that all the noncompliances came from one producer or source.

That context neither erases the confirmed residue violations nor proves the broader allegations about a company-wide decision.

Driscoll’s has rejected Harada’s allegations and described his lawsuit as “fundamentally an employment matter.” The company says it will vigorously defend itself and has stated that it maintains food-safety and compliance programs designed to meet applicable regulatory requirements.

The employment context matters: Harada alleges retaliation after raising concerns. Driscoll’s disputes the allegations.

But an employment dispute and food-safety questions are not mutually exclusive. The complaint makes claims about both alleged retaliation and the company’s compliance practices. Neither side’s account should be mistaken for a court finding.

In September 2026, a proposed class action was filed in Quebec against Driscoll’s entities. It seeks to represent people who bought Driscoll’s strawberries, raspberries, blackberries or blueberries in Quebec from January 1, 2022 onward.

The claim alleges that consumers were not properly informed about berries allegedly containing pesticide or other chemical residues above regulatory limits, and that relevant representations or omissions were misleading.

The case is at the authorization stage. Filing does not mean the court has authorized the class action or found the allegations to be true. Reports indicate that a decision on authorization could take a year or more.

Nothing in the cases described here establishes that the affected samples were organic, so these findings should not be presented as proof that Driscoll’s organic berries were involved.