According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, the outbreak of Listeria in bagged salad mixes is now officially over. Contaminated salads sent 19 people to the hospital, killing one patient, and made an unknown number of other people sick. How did the greens get contaminated? Was there a problem with the Ohio facility, and is it still shut down? We don’t currently know.
While the outbreak happened in a Dole processing facility, Dole packages greens for numerous store brands, including Kroger, Walmart, Aldi, and Canadian supermarket chain Loblaws. These were all eventually recalled, though the recall didn’t occur until random testing turned up Listeria bacteria in lettuce packaged at the plant. The pathogen was matched to Listeria that had made people 19 people sick enough to be hospitalized in cases dating back to October of 2015.
Food Safety News is waiting for the results of a Freedom of Information act request for the report on the FDA’s post-outbreak inspection of the Dole plant in Ohio.
CDC says deadly outbreak over; Dole, FDA silent on salad plant [Food Safety News]
Multistate Outbreak of Listeriosis Linked to Packaged Salads Produced at Springfield, Ohio Dole Processing Facility (Final Update) [CDC]
by Laura Northrup via Consumerist
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