Pennsylvania Convenience Store Chain Settles over Tainted Tomatoes

The Pennsylvania-based Sheetz convenience store chain has settled out of court with a West Virginia firm that allegedly supplied salmonella-tainted tomatoes that sickened more than 400 customers in 2004.

Sheetz was suing Coronet Foods of Wheeling, W. Va. Coronet, a food wholesaler, acknowledged supplying the tomatoes that were sold by Sheetz on sandwiches and other foods. A Blair County judge in 2007 dismissed claims filed by those sickened against various tomato growers after Sheetz and Coronet acknowledged they couldn’t pinpoint where the tomatoes originated.

That left Sheetz to settle lawsuits filed by its customers and then, in turn, to seek more than $11 million in damages from Coronet. A trial of that lawsuit was to begin this week, but the parties say they’ve settled out of court for an undisclosed sum.