Driscoll's berries are on many Canadians' plates and all over Canadian grocery stores, with their tagline claiming to be "only the finest berries."

But a whistleblower lawsuit in California alleges the finest berries were not sent to Canada: instead, millions of pounds of fruit containing non-compliant levels of pesticides and chemicals crossed the border, and the company tried to cover it up.

California resident and former Driscoll's employee David Harada claims in the lawsuit that by Driscoll's own estimates, about 50 per cent of all shipments to Canada from 2022 to 2024 had fruit that exceeded Canadian safety levels.

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"And it's something where you start seeing it so regularly and you know that something's not right that you have to speak up," Harada said in an interview with CBC News.

Harada was Driscoll's manager of food safety and regulatory compliance for the U.S. and Canada. He filed a lawsuit for unlawful retaliation against Driscoll's. In the lawsuit's filing, Harada said he felt that he was being set up to be the "scapegoat" for compliance issues and that he was being retaliated against for speaking up.

Harada told CBC he first started noticing problems regarding pesticide safety and over-application in 2022 and reported them immediately to his bosses. He says he brought his concerns to upper management but was told it was something he'd have to manage.

"I had a conversation with my director as to whether or not they had plausible deniability...

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