Are Driscoll’s Berries From the U.S. Sold in Canada, and Are They Safe to Eat?

Are Driscoll’s Berries From the U.S. Sold in Canada, and Are They Safe to Eat?

If you have seen recent headlines about Driscoll’s strawberries, pesticides and alleged food-safety violations, you may be wondering a fairly simple question: are Driscoll’s berries safe to eat?

The answer is not as clear-cut as some of the headlines suggest.

Driscoll’s says its berries are safe to eat and are not implicated in the current Cyclospora outbreak or any active recall. The company says it follows applicable food-safety and pesticide regulations and requires its growers and facilities to meet food-safety standards.

But a former Driscoll’s food-safety and regulatory-compliance manager has filed a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that the company sold or exported berries associated with pesticide-limit violations and concealed compliance problems. Those allegations have not been adjudicated or independently resolved.

Soval’s latest assessment classifies the claim “Driscoll’s Berries From the U.S. Are Safe to Eat Despite the Whistleblower Claims” as Contested. Five sources were reviewed: one supports the claim, three contradict it and one is neutral. Soval’s assessment concludes that the available evidence supports the narrower statement that no current recall or regulatory finding identified in the reviewed sources establishes that the berries are unsafe, but that does not conclusively prove the broader safety claim in the face of the whistleblower allegations. See Soval’s full assessment⁠

Why are Driscoll’s berries in the news?

The controversy centers on allegations made by David Harada, a former Driscoll’s employee who worked in food safety and regulatory compliance for the U.S. and Canada.

Harada filed a lawsuit alleging that Driscoll’s had knowledge of pesticide-compliance problems involving berries and that the company failed to properly address or disclose them. The allegations include claims involving pesticide limits and Canadian food-safety requirements.

The lawsuit is important because it puts specific allegations on the public record. It does not, however, establish that those allegations are true. That distinction matters throughout this story. There are now multiple lawsuits and reports concerning Driscoll’s berries, but allegations contained in a lawsuit are not the same thing as a court finding or regulatory determination.

What does Driscoll’s say about the safety of its berries?

Driscoll’s has been direct about its position: the company says its berries are safe to eat.

In its food-safety program, Driscoll’s says it operates in compliance with applicable food-safety laws and regulatory requirements in the markets where its berries are grown and sold. It says its program uses a preventive, science-based approach and includes verification activities and independent third-party food-safety certifications.

The company also says its growers must comply with pesticide laws and country-specific import and export requirements.

Driscoll’s food-safety page⁠ provides the company’s full explanation: They maintain that their berries are safe and that their food-safety program is designed to comply with applicable regulations. It is also important to recognize the limitation. A company’s own statement about the safety of its products is not, by itself, independent verification of that claim.

What does the whistleblower allege?

Harada’s lawsuit presents a very different account.

According to reporting on the case, he alleges that Driscoll’s sold and exported produce that did not comply with pesticide regulations and Canadian food-safety requirements. He also alleges that the company concealed or failed to properly address compliance problems.

A July report from KEYT News Channel 3-12⁠ described the allegations in the lawsuit, including claims concerning Driscoll’s internal food-safety and compliance tracking system.

What about reports of pesticides and “forever chemicals”?

A separate part of the controversy involves testing of Driscoll’s conventional strawberries and claims about PFAS, sometimes referred to as “forever chemicals.”

In May 2026, consumer advocacy organization Mamavation reported laboratory testing of two boxes of Driscoll’s strawberries purchased from a Southern California grocery store. Mamavation said its laboratory detected residues of 12 pesticides in the conventional sample and no detectable pesticides in the organic sample.

Mamavation characterized eight of the detected pesticides as PFAS “forever pesticides.” It also acknowledged that its investigation was based on a limited sample and that it could not make predictions about products it had not tested.

Read Mamavation’s testing report⁠

Those results have since been cited in lawsuits and media coverage. But there is an important distinction between detecting pesticide residues in a particular sample and establishing that Driscoll’s berries as a whole are unsafe to eat. The testing involved a very small number of samples. It does not establish that all Driscoll’s berries contain the same residues or that consumers have been exposed to harmful levels.

There is also scientific and regulatory nuance around the term “PFAS.” Some fluorinated pesticides are described by advocacy groups as PFAS or “forever pesticides,” while the terminology and health implications are more complicated than the shorthand used in viral social-media posts.

Have regulators found Driscoll’s berries to be unsafe?

This is where the Canadian side of the story becomes particularly relevant.

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has confirmed that it conducted several inspections involving Driscoll’s berries sold in Canada between 2022 and 2024. CBC reported that some inspections found chemical levels above Canadian legal limits.

However, the same reporting says those inspections did not result in recalls. In some cases, corrective action was implemented and investigations were closed. The CFIA also said that reports of illness associated with some investigations could not be definitively linked to the berries.

CBC’s reporting on the Canadian inspections⁠ provides the details of those findings.

A regulatory limit is a compliance standard. Finding a residue above a legal limit can be a regulatory issue without automatically establishing that eating the product caused illness or that the product presented an unacceptable health risk.

Conversely, the absence of a recall does not prove that every allegation about pesticide compliance is false.

Is there currently a recall of Driscoll’s berries?

Soval’s current assessment does not identify an active recall establishing that Driscoll’s berries are unsafe. Driscoll’s likewise states that its berries are not implicated in an active recall and says they are safe to eat.

That is an important piece of information for consumers, but it should not be stretched further than the evidence allows. The absence of a recall does not independently resolve the whistleblower’s allegations or prove that every Driscoll’s product currently on the market has been tested.

Are Driscoll’s berries from the U.S. sold in Canada?

Yes, Driscoll’s berries are sold in Canadian grocery stores, including berries that enter the Canadian market from the company’s broader supply network.

However, it is important to note: Driscoll’s does not simply operate as a single U.S. farm shipping every berry to Canada. The company works with independent growers in different regions and says those growers must comply with the laws applicable to the growing region as well as country-specific import and export requirements.

That means it would be misleading to assume that every Driscoll’s berry sold in Canada originated in the United States or that every berry sold under the Driscoll’s label is affected by the allegations in the whistleblower lawsuit.

What does the evidence actually show?

There are several pieces of the story that can be established separately.

A former Driscoll’s food-safety and regulatory-compliance manager has filed a whistleblower lawsuit making allegations about pesticide compliance and the company’s handling of those issues.

Driscoll’s denies those allegations and says it maintains robust food-safety and compliance programs.

Independent testing has been reported on a limited sample of Driscoll’s conventional strawberries, including testing that detected multiple pesticide residues. Those results have subsequently been referenced in consumer lawsuits and media coverage.

Canadian regulators have also conducted inspections involving Driscoll’s berries and, according to CBC, found some chemical levels above Canadian legal limits during the 2022–2024 period. Those inspections did not result in a recall, and some investigations were closed after corrective action.

None of those individual facts, by themselves, establishes the much broader claim that Driscoll’s berries are unsafe to eat. At the same time, they make it difficult to treat the company’s broad safety claim as conclusively settled while the whistleblower allegations and related litigation remain unresolved.

So, are Driscoll’s berries safe to eat?

The current evidence does not establish that Driscoll’s berries are broadly unsafe to eat, but it also does not conclusively resolve all of the allegations surrounding pesticide compliance.

Driscoll’s says its berries are safe and that its food-safety systems comply with applicable requirements. There is no current recall identified in Soval’s reviewed sources establishing that Driscoll’s berries are unsafe. On the other side, the whistleblower lawsuit raises specific allegations about pesticide-law violations and compliance practices. Separate testing and reporting have added further questions about pesticide residues in some Driscoll’s strawberries.

Those claims remain disputed and, importantly, have not been adjudicated or independently resolved.

That is why Soval currently classifies the claim as Contested, rather than simply true or false. The available evidence supports a narrower statement about the absence of a current recall or reviewed regulatory finding establishing that the berries are unsafe. It does not conclusively prove the broader claim that Driscoll’s berries are safe despite every allegation that has been made.

View Soval’s live assessment and follow future developments⁠