A Second Listeria Recall Links to Leafy Vegetables
December 29, 2021 Just a few days after the Fresh Express Listeria outbreak, CDC and FDA announce a second, separate Listeria outbreak, this time tied to Dole Fresh Vegetables’ bagged salads.
The outbreak involves 13 states, 16 known illnesses, 12 hospitalizations, and two deaths.
The 16 illnesses, however, are not necessarily from the current contamination. Following identifying two individual packages as contaminated with Listeria (one per implicated facility), investigators’ genetic testing matched the strains to previous illnesses.
“[The samples were linked to] a strain of Listeria monocytogenes which FDA and CDC believe is responsible for sixteen illnesses since 2014,” the FDA release states.
CDC’s time line shows one of the 16 illnesses taking place in August 2014, the next three in late 2018, five in 2019, two in 2020, and four in 2021 (all prior to end of October).
Dole Fresh Vegetables says it’s recalling all Dole-branded and private label bagged salads processed at two facilities, located in Yuma, AZ, and Bessemer City, NC. It shut down the two facilities for sanitation. Dole announced the lots being recalled have a sell-by date between November 30 and January 8. Like the Fresh Express recall, this involves a large number of products, about 180 in Dole’s case. All but three came from the NC facility.
“This recall does not include whole head packaged lettuce,” FDA says in its outbreak announcement.
Subscribe Today For
