Calgary company at centre of daycare E. coli outbreak pleads guilty to bylaw offences
Charges to be dropped against Fueling Minds directors Faisal Alimohd and Anil Karim
The Calgary company at the centre of an E. coli outbreak at several daycares across the city pleaded guilty to bylaw offences and the prosecutor for the city indicated charges against the corporation's directors will be dropped.
Hundreds of children fell ill in September 2023 with dozens hospitalized in an outbreak that the City of Calgary said was traced to Fueling Minds Inc., a catering company that provided meals and snacks to Calgary daycares.
Fueling Minds and its two directors, Faisal Alimohd and Anil Karim, were charged with operating without a proper business licence in September 2023 following the outbreak that began earlier that month and lasted eight weeks.
On Thursday, the corporation pleaded guilty, admitting it did not have a food services business licence at the time of the outbreak.
$10,000 fine imposed
City of Calgary prosecutor Ed Ring and Fueling Minds' lawyer Steve Major, asked the judge to impose a fine of $10,000 as part of a joint sentencing recommendation.
Justice of the Peace Mathieu St-Germain said he would return a decision next month.
Ring told St-Germain that at the conclusion of the proceedings, he plans invite dismissal of the remaining charges against the two directors.
Court heard that in June 2021, a Fueling Minds administrator inquired with Alberta Health Services via email, asking what further steps were required for approval to operate their food service business.
AHS never responded.
'We take this seriously'
In reading from an agreed statement of facts, Ring told the court that the city had not established that Fueling Minds' failure to obtain a proper licence caused the E. coli incident, and referenced an ongoing lawsuit against the company, filed by the parents of the children who fell ill.
In his sentencing submissions, Major told the court that Fueling Minds had a kitchen licence but not a catering licence, "an administrative box that was not checked."
When given the chance to address the court, Faisal Alimohd said the business has since closed down.
"We take this seriously," he said. "I am sorry that our business did not obtain a catering licence.… I wish we would have had this."
39 children hospitalized
In September 2023, the City of Calgary said it had traced the outbreak to the catering company that prepared food for its daycares, Fueling Brains, as well as other child-care businesses in the city.
There were at least 448 E. coli cases connected to the outbreak, which resulted in 39 children and one adult being hospitalized.
Of the most severe cases, 23 patients were diagnosed with hemolytic uremic syndrome, a condition that can lead to life-threatening kidney failure.
A report released by Alberta Health Services found the E. coli likely came from a beef meatloaf served from the Fueling Minds central kitchen on Aug. 29, 2023.
The outbreak was the largest of its kind in Alberta's history and led to a third party review.
The Food Safety and Licensed Facility-Based Child Care Review Panel released 12 recommendations on preventing similar outbreaks in the future.
Recommendations included increasing the frequency of inspections at child-care facilities, mandatory training programs for food workers and improving response times in facilities where food safety concerns are raised.
In the wake of the outbreak, several lawsuits were filed against the company, including a proposed class-action suit that is still before the courts.
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