Beach Beat: It’s not rocket science, it’s computer science

If Jeff Bezos and the little online book-selling company he founded in a Seattle garage in 1994 can employee more than 314,000 people and buy Whole Foods Markets for $13.7 billion;

If he and the company known simply as Amazon can post a 25 percent revenue increase, quarter-to-quarter, taking in $38 billion from April through June this year;

If the man with a bachelor’s degree from Princeton can go toe-to-toe with Apple and Microsoft;

Why did it take six months for him and the world’s largest online retailer to stop offering and selling recalled soy butter that was — and probably still is — poisoning people across the country with E. coli bacteria?

Good question, right?

Here’s the answer from Cecilia Fan, who’s been “PR Manager” at Amazon.com since March:

“We won’t be commenting on this but appreciate your reaching out.”

I had submitted a query to Amazon.com seeking comment on the fact that it was continuing to sell I.M. Healthy brand “SoyNut Butter” as of Tuesday morning. The time stamp shows I hit send at 10:40 a.m. Fan’s above answer hit my inbox at 4:57 p.m.

During the ensuing hours a few things happened. Sales of the recalled peanut butter substitute, made by Dixie Dew Products Inc., on Amazon.com were quietly suspended. The Food and Drug Administration started investigating the situation. And, within minutes of each other around 3 p.m., Food Safety News broke the story and the Amazon PR manager sent an initial response to my morning query.

For my morning message I had used the subject line “recalled soy nut butter traced to E. coli outbreak still being sold to consumers on Amazon.com” and I asked what recall procedures and verifications Amazon uses to ensure recalled foods are not shipped to consumers.

Amazon’s response:

“Hi Coral – thanks for reaching out. Can you tell me more about your piece? Is this a product you purchased?”

If you’re not outraged,
you haven’t been reading this column
Not that I hold Fan responsible for the responses from the corporate behemoth. She’s no doubt not too near the top of the Amazon food chain, but Bezos is, and he’s apparently been asleep at the wheel.

With an intricate system of distribution routes, warehouses, suppliers and consumers connected via the massive network that is Amazon, how could there be any other answer other than the people at the very top did not pay attention to detail when they should have.

From the very first moment Bezos and the others in control at Amazon considered selling food, they should have considered how to handle recalls. They certainly represent themselves and their enterprise as being the very definition of cutting-edge of technology.

A bespectacled Sam Drucker at the General Store at Petticoat Junction could have done a better job of inventory control and customer service with his notepad, pencil and crank telephone.

Reality as of this moment
The folks at the FDA are on the case. I don’t care what people say about government workers. Civil servants may not make the world go round, but they certainly keep it from tipping too far off plumb.

“The FDA has verified that this listing has been removed from Amazon’s website. It is the responsibility of a recalling firm to ensure that the recall is effective. We are investigating further to determine how the products were still available for sale,” an FDA spokeswoman told me Tuesday evening.

The production facility of the soy nut butter producer, Kentucky-based Dixie Dew Products Inc., it still the most likely root source of the E. coli contamination, which sickened at least 32 people across the country earlier this year. The FDA inspected Dixie Dew’s soy flour supplier’s operation as part of its initial investigation into the outbreak.

“In addition to inspecting and collecting records at the manufacturing facilities, FDA inspected and sampled Dixie Dew’s soy flour manufacturer to determine if product entering the Dixie Dew facility could have been the source of the contamination,” according to the FDA spokeswoman.

“There were no objectionable conditions noted during this inspection. The supplier conducted all processing for the flour sent to Dixie Dew and did not ship out unprocessed soybeans.”

And finally, Amazon — and Bezos as founder, president and CEO — are ducking and covering and throwing a pubic relations staffer under the bus.

The I.M. Healthy “SoyNut Butter” should have been identified and pulled from availability as soon as the FDA sent out the initial recall notification in early March. If no one on the Amazon staff has signed up for the FDA’s recall alerts yet, the entire PR and quality assurance departments should do so immediately.

At the point a member of the press sends a query about continued sales of a recalled food product implicated in an illness outbreak, get a clue and put together a statement.

Finally, if you are selling food online — this goes for you Walmart and every other retailer out there in cyberspace — post all recalls on your website. Amazon and others offer consumers a list of links to the FDA and other government agencies that are involved in food recalls.

That’s passing the buck to your customers. Shame on you. Have your college interns copy and paste the recall notices into your content management system. It’s really the least you can do to protect your customers.

Oh yeah — It’s not just Amazon
A quick check of online retailers Tuesday showed some websites still appearing to offer the recalled I.M. Healthy “SoyNut Butter” for sale. Among them were Shop.com, Yumza.com and BestDeals.today.

There was also an ad for the recalled soy butter still rotating through a spot on eBay.com, but neither it nor the other sites we checked allowed transactions to go through on the product.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

from Food Recalls – Food Safety News http://ift.tt/2f1YfAQ

New details show Walmart, Publix received recalled produce

Additional distribution details are now available from Country Fresh Orlando LLC showing the company’s freshcut vegetable products that were recalled because of Listeria concerns went to Walmart and Publix stores in addition to other retailers.

The recall includes diced bell peppers, vegetable kabobs, and creole and fajita mixed diced vegetables packaged under the Country Fresh and store brand labels. Retailers in five states received the recalled products: Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

News of the recall broke during Labor Day weekend when multiple media outlets across the Southeast reported the Country Fresh products, packaged under the SEG brand, were being recalled. The reports identified Southeast Grocers LLC as the recalling entity for the products, which had been distributed to that company’s retail grocery banners BI-LO, Harveys, Winn-Dixie and Fresco y Más.

On Tuesday, in a recall alert from the Food and Drug Administration, products packaged under the Marketside brand for Walmart and the house brand for Publix Supermarkets Inc. were included with the products packaged for the Southeast Grocers chains.

“The potential for contamination was uncovered as the result of a single routine sample taken at a retail store in Georgia which revealed that the finished product tested contained the bacteria (Listeria monocytogenes”, according to the recall notice on the FDA website, which is dated Sept. 2 but was not available until Sept. 5.

“The company has ceased distribution of the affected product as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and Country Fresh continue their investigation as to what caused the problem.”

No illnesses had been confirmed in relation to the recalled products as of the posting of the notice on the FDA website.

The recalled products described in the chart below are in clear plastic containers and Styrofoam trays that are overwrapped with clear plastic film.

Consumers who have purchased any of these products are urged to return them to the place of purchase for a full refund. Consumers with questions may contact the company at 281-453-3305.

Advice to consumers
Anyone who has eaten any of the recalled products and developed symptoms of Listeria infection should seek medical attention and tell their doctors about the possible exposure. It can take up to 70 days after exposure to the bacteria for symptoms to develop.

Symptoms can include fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms. In some cases an invasive infection spreads beyond the gastrointestinal tract.

In pregnant women, the infection can cause miscarriages, stillbirths, premature delivery or life-threatening infection of the newborn. Listeria bacteria can also cause serious, sometimes fatal, infections in young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems, including cancer patients.

Description	Store	Description of Packaging	Use by Date Range	States Distributed
Fajita Blend 12 oz	Southeastern Grocers	Overwrap	8/12/2017 8/18/2017		FL
Stir Fry Vegetable	Southeastern Grocers	Overwrap	8/12/2017 8/18/2017		FL
Vegetable Kabob 23 oz	Southeastern Grocers	Overwrap	8/12/2017 8/18/2017		FL
Green Pepper Diced 6 oz	Southeastern Grocers	Clamshell	8/13/2017 8/20/2017		FL, GA
Creole Mix 6 oz	Southeastern Grocers	Clamshell	8/13/2017 8/19/2017		AL, FL, GA, LA, MS
Tri-Pepper Dice 6 oz	Southeastern Grocers	Clamshell	8/12/2017 8/19/2017		AL, FL, GA, LA, MS
Fajita Mix 6 oz	Southeastern Grocers	Clamshell	8/13/2017 8/19/2017		AL, FL, GA, LA, MS
Kabob Sensations Veggie Kabob 15 oz	Publix Supermarkets Inc.	Overwrap	8/12/2017 8/18/2017		AL, FL, GA
Dice Tri-Pepper 7 oz	WalMart Stores Inc.	Clamshell	8/13/2017 8/20/2017		AL, FL, GA
Marketside Veggie Kabobs 23 oz	WalMart Stores Inc.	Overwrap	8/13/2017 8/20/2017		AL, FL, GA

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

from Food Recalls – Food Safety News http://ift.tt/2w56QYX

Salmonella contamination forces massive egg recall in Israel

Israel has ordered the recall of about 11 million shell eggs out of fear they may be contaminated with  Salmonella. Moshav Goren in Western Galilee produced the eggs.

The Israeli egg recall is apparently not related to the withdrawal of millions of European eggs earlier in the summer because of contamination from the use of the toxic insecticide Fipronil and a cleaning agent and sanitizer known as “Dega 16.” Producers in Holland and Belgium were using the Fipronil mix to clean hen houses.

Israel’s health and agriculture ministers issued their public warning urging consumers not to consume any of the 11 million eggs because of contamination with Salmonella enteritidis. The two government ministers said the eggs sold by Yesh Maof and are marked with stamps for consumption up to and including Oct. 20.

The Israeli public should not bother returning eggs to retailers, according to the warning. Instead, they should immediately destroy them and their cartons to prevent secondary infections. Officials do not want to risk the return of egg cartons that might spread the Salmonella.

Routine inspections by Israel’s Agriculture Ministry revealed the Salmonella enteritidis contamination. One Moshav Goren hen house was the source of the contamination, but two others in the Western Galilee area are also suspected of being contaminated.

Israel banned egg sales from the area and announced plans to destroy the chickens as a way of eradicating the pathogen. It is also inspecting all other egg farms. After completing 60 percent of the inspections, it the ministry reported it found Salmonella at about 3 percent of the farms.

Salmonella enteritidis is not as prevalent in Israel as it is in Europe and the United States. When Israel destroys animals to control diseases, it reimburses farmers so they can rebuild their flocks or herds.

In Europe, Fipronil had led to the recall of more than 20 million eggs from as far away as Hong Kong and Taipei. At least one cleaning company used the insecticide to combat red mite infestations.

European food safety agencies also recalled at least 39 products made with eggs because of the concern over Fipronil.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

from Food Recalls – Food Safety News http://ift.tt/2wDUdHS

Amazon today removed nut butter recalled in March for E. coli

Earlier today, Amazon.com was still selling I.M. Healthy soy nut butter that was recalled in March when federal officials traced an E. coli outbreak to the product.

No one from Seattle-based Amazon immediately responded to mid-morning requests for comment from Food Safety News, but by 11 a.m. Pacific time, the recalled peanut butter substitute had been pulled from the retailer’s website.

Officials with the Food and Drug Administration are investigating the situation, but were not able to provide details as of mid-afternoon.

Although the outbreak was declared over in May by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, that agency’s “final” report indicated additional illnesses were expected to be confirmed in relation to consumption of recalled soy nut butter products. The CDC cited the products’ long shelf life and the likelihood that some consumers still have unopened product in their homes as contributing factors to the lingering nature of the outbreak.

As of early May, the outbreak had sickened a confirmed 32 people across a dozen states. A variety of products made with soy nut butter produced by Dixie Dew Products Inc. remain under recall, including all varieties of I.M. Healthy “SoyNut Butter” products.

As of 9:45 a.m. Pacific time today, recalled I.M. Healthy brand “SoyNut Butter” was still available for purchase.

It is against federal law for anyone to sell or resell recalled products in any setting, including yard sales and thrift shops. The Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act, which became law in 2008, was used earlier this year by the Consumer Product Safety Commission against Home Depot. The big box home improvement retailer agreed to pay $5.7 million in relation to charges it sold recalled smoke detectors, light fixtures and other products.

After the Blue Bell Creameries ice cream recall that was linked to a deadly, multi-year Listeria outbreak, multiple sellers — many of them private individuals — offered the recalled ice cream for sale online. The auction site eBay, which has a policy against recalled items, removed all offers for recalled Blue Bell products from its offerings.

The Amazon.com website does not appear to offer a list of recalled products that it has offered for sale, as do many retailers. Amazon provides a list of government recall links and a “recall policy” that includes the following statement:

“Amazon monitors public recalls alert websites and also learns of recalls directly from manufacturers and vendors. When we learn of a recall, we suspend all impacted product offerings from our website and quarantine any related inventory in our fulfillment centers. We also reach out to any customers that previously purchased impacted products (and any seller that may have offered such products) to inform them about the recall.”

Linda Harris

Linda Harris, chair of the world renown Food Safety and Technology Department at the University of California-Davis, said Monday that she ordered recalled I.M. Healthy SoyNut Butter from Amazon.com during Labor Day weekend. She received the $50 shipment of three jars of the recalled product in less than 24 hours.

“The story really is about recalls and the ability in today’s world of recovering all product when you have a recall,” said Harris, who is the immediate past president of the International Association for Food Protection.

“They have sophisticated programs that set prices and figure out complicated delivery schemes – they should be able to make sure recalled product isn’t available for sale.”

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

 

from Food Recalls – Food Safety News http://ift.tt/2eIFFkp

Southeastern Grocers recalls SEG freshcut produce for Listeria

Multiple media outlets reported Sunday that Listeria concerns prompted Southeastern Grocers LLC to recall freshcut produce products from BI-LO, Harveys, Winn-Dixie and Fresco y Más grocery stores.

However, no recall information had been posted by the Food and Drug Administration, Southeastern Grocers or any of the retailers as of 11 p.m. EDT Sunday.

The recalled products are packaged under the Southeastern Grocers SEG brand. Media reports Sunday did not include details about how the possible Listeria contamination was discovered. Officials with Southeastern Grocers did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The specific products reportedly under recall are:

• SEG “Tri Pepper Dice” in 6-ounce packages with a UPC number of 3825911565;
• SEG “Stir Fry Vegetable” in 10-ounce packages with a UPC number of 3825911781;
• SEG “Fajita Blend” in 12-ounce packages with a UPC number of 3825911785; and
• SEG “Vegetable Kabob” in 23-ounce packages with a UPC number of 3825911592.

The packages reportedly have “sell by” dates between Aug. 12 and Aug. 20.

Customers with questions about the recalled products may contact the Southeastern Grocers customer call center at 866-946-6349, Mondays through Fridays from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. EDT, and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. EDT.

Anyone who has eaten any of the recalled products and developed symptoms of Listeria infection should seek medical attention and tell their doctors about the possible exposure. It can take up to 70 days after exposure to the bacteria for symptoms to develop.

Symptoms can include fever, muscle aches, headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance and convulsions sometimes preceded by diarrhea or other gastrointestinal symptoms. In some cases an invasive infection spreads beyond the gastrointestinal tract.

In pregnant women, the infection can cause miscarriages, stillbirths, premature delivery or life-threatening infection of the newborn. Listeria bacteria can also cause serious, sometimes fatal, infections in young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems, including cancer patients.

Based in Jacksonville, FL, Southeastern grocers LLC has more than 700 grocery stores under its four banners of BI-LO, Harveys, Winn-Dixie and Fresco y Más, according to the company’s website. The stores are throughout the seven southeastern states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

from Food Recalls – Food Safety News http://ift.tt/2gvRUO3

Salmonella risk spurs breading/batter mix recall in Canada

Shore Lunch brand fish breading and batter mix is under nationwide recall in Canada because of possible Salmonella contamination.

To view the full-sized photo of the recalled product on the CFIA’s website, please click on the image.

A recall in another country spurred the action in Canada, but the other country was not named by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA). As of 11 p.m. EDT Saturday the U.S. Food and Drug Administration did not have any recent Salmonella-related recalls involving breading or batter products posted on its website.

No illnesses in Canada had been reported in relation to the mixes as of the posting of the recall notice on Friday.

“Check to see if you have recalled products in your home. Recalled products should be thrown out or returned to the store where they were purchased,” the CFIA said in the notice.

“Food contaminated with Salmonella may not look or smell spoiled but can still make you sick.”

Two flavors of Shore Lunch brand breading and batter mix are included in he recall. Consumers and retailers should look for the following label information to determine if they have recalled product in their possession:

• Shore Lunch “Fish Breading/Batter Mix – Cajun Style” in 255 gram packages with a product code of 1064828, a date code of 1/18/2018 and a UPC number of 0 24739 19363 5; and
• Shore Lunch “Fish Breading/Batter Mix – Original Recipe” in 255 gram packages with a product code of 1064839, a date code of 1/17/2018 and a UPC number of 0 24739 19362 8.

Anyone who has eaten or handled any of the recalled mixes recently and developed symptoms of Salmonella infection should seek medical attention and tell their doctors about the possible exposure to the pathogen.

Symptoms can include fever, headache, vomiting, nausea, abdominal cramps and diarrhea, according to the CFIA. Young children, pregnant women, the elderly and people with weakened immune systems may contract serious and sometimes deadly infections.

“The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is conducting a food safety investigation, which may lead to the recall of other products. If other high-risk products are recalled, the CFIA will notify the public through updated Food Recall Warnings,” according to the recall notice.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

from Food Recalls – Food Safety News http://ift.tt/2euBkNU

Papaya Salmonella cases top 200; more farms implicated

To view the full-sized map on the CDC’s website, please click on the image.

The victim count in ongoing Salmonella outbreaks traced to papayas from Mexico has topped 200, with U.S. officials not only reporting they linked two more farms to sick people, but that they expect to identify even more farms and victims.

Infections from three additional serotypes of Salmonella bacteria have been confirmed in outbreak victims, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those same serotypes have also been confirmed in papayas tested by the Food and Drug Administration. The two agencies posted updates Friday on their outbreak investigations, with little good news to report.

As of Thursday, there were 210 confirmed victims in the U.S. They are infected with seven different serotypes of Salmonella. The victims are spread across 23 states, with one death reported in New York, according to the CDC.

“Because three separate outbreaks linked to papayas from different farms have been identified, CDC is concerned that papayas from several other farms in Mexico might be contaminated with Salmonella and have made people sick,” the CDC reported Friday. “FDA continues testing papayas from Mexico to see if other papayas from other farms are contaminated with Salmonella.”

One bit of positive news in the FDA’s outbreak update on Friday was that papayas from the two additional Mexican farms were not distributed in the United States. They were tested and destroyed as part of FDA’s outbreak investigation and response.

However, the two farms sent papayas to the U.S. earlier this year, causing concern among CDC and state public health officials who say it’s likely that U.S. consumers contracted Salmonella infections.

“To the FDA’s knowledge, there are no papayas from these farms currently on the market, but the agency is continuing traceback and trace forward activities to see if other importers may have sourced papayas from them,” the agency reported Friday.

Food safety measures at the Carica de Campeche farm in Mexico are illustrated on the grower’s Facebook page with this and several other photos.

The three farms in Mexico that FDA has confirmed as having Salmonella-contaminated papayas are:

• Carica de Campeche in Tenabo, in the state of Campeche;
• Caraveo Produce in Tecomán, in the state of Colima; and
• El Zapotanito in La Huerta, in the state of Jalisco.

Three brands of maradol papayas — all sourced from the Carica de Campeche farm, which was the first one linked to the current outbreaks — have been recalled in the United States. They are:

• Caribeña brand, distributed by Grande Produce;
• Cavi brand papayas distributed by Agroson’s; and
• Valery brand papayas distributed by Freshtex Produce LLC.

If anyone has these papayas in their home, they should dispose of them immediately.

The FDA is working to ensure that there are no other brands of papayas on the market that may have originated from the Carica de Campeche, Caraveo Produce of Mexico, and El Zapotanito farms.

Outbreak victim demographics
In the main outbreak investigation, the CDC has confirmed 201 victims with infections from one of four Salmonella serotypes: Salmonella Kiambu, Salmonella Thompson, Salmonella Agona and Salmonella Gaminara.

Those victims range in age from less than 1 year old to 95 years old. Their illnesses have onset dates ranging from May 17 through Aug. 20. The CDC reports additional victims who became sick after Aug. 1 likely have not yet been added to the tally because of the lag time between when a person become sick and when their illness is lab confirmed and reported to CDC, which can take up to a month.

Complete information is not available to the CDC for all 201 victims, but of details that have been reported show a higher than normal percentage of victims requiring hospitalization.

Of 158 victims with hospitalization details available, 65, which is 41 percent, had symptoms so severe they had to be admitted.

Also, a disproportionate number of victims are Hispanic. Of the 153 people with ethnicity reported, 101, which is 66 percent, are Hispanic, according to the CDC. Consequently, the agency is urging people who have Spanish-speaking family and friends to share links to outbreak updates that are posted in Spanish.

Two new outbreaks identified
For purposes of the investigation, the CDC is referring to recently discovered matches between Salmonella bacteria from sick people and two additional farms in Mexico as two separate outbreaks, rather than including them in the outbreak traced to the Carica de Campeche farm.

Two people confirmed as having infections from Salmonella Newport and one with an infection from Salmonella Infantis all reported eating papayas during the week before they became ill, according to the CDC. The three people were from the states of Illinois, Massachusetts and Michigan.

The FDA isolated the same strains of Salmonella serotypes on fruit from the Caraveo Produce farm in Tecomán, Mexico, as CDC documented from the three victims.

Six other people, from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, were sickened by a single strain of Salmonella Urbana, which the CDC says suggests a common source.

The FDA isolated that strain of Salmonella Urbana on papaya from the El Zapotanio farm in La Huerta, Mexico.

Advice to consumers, restaurants and retailers
State and federal public health officials recommend applying the golden rule of food safety regarding papayas on hand in homes and businesses — when in doubt, throw it out.

To view the full information graphic on the CDC’s website, please click on the image.

Additional recommendations from CDC include:

• If you have had whole, fresh papayas in your home or business, wash and sanitize countertops, cutting boards and utensils, as well as drawers or shelves in refrigerators where papayas were stored, with a solution of one tablespoon of chlorine bleach to one gallon of hot water; dry with a clean cloth or new paper towel.
• Wash your hands with running water and soap following the cleaning and sanitation process.

Anyone who has eaten fresh papaya recently and developed symptoms of Salmonella infection is urged to seek medical attention and tell their doctors about the possible exposure so the proper diagnostic tests can be performed.

Salmonella bacteria can cause diarrhea, vomiting, stomach pain and fever.

Symptoms usually begin between 12 to 36 hours after exposure, but they may begin as early as 6 hours or as late as 72 hours after exposure.

Symptoms can be mild or severe and commonly last for two to seven days. Salmonella can infect anyone, but young children, older adults and people with weakened immune systems are the most likely to have severe infections.

Timeline provided by FDA
June 26 — the CDC notified the FDA about a Salmonella Kiambu cluster detected by PulseNet. All 47 cases have the same pattern by pulsed-field gel electrophoresis (PFGE). Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) analysis was conducted on ten patient samples in the outbreak cluster and all were highly related. This indicates that the patients were likely sickened by the same type of food.

Maryland Department of Health (MDH) informed the FDA, CDC, and state partners that several ill people shopped at the same Baltimore retail location and purchased papayas. Records and samples of green and yellow papayas were collected.

July 17 — Maryland reported that three of ten samples had preliminarily tested positive for Salmonella. All positive samples were Caribeña brand yellow Maradol papayas from Mexico; none of the green papayas were positive. Further WGS testing linked one of the papaya samples to the Salmonella Kiambu outbreak and another to Salmonella Thompson. However, Maradol papayas are green before they ripen and turn yellow, so consumers should not eat Caribeña brand papayas regardless of the color.

July 19 — MDH issued an advisory warning consumers not to eat Caribeña brand yellow Maradol papayas. Further WGS testing linked one of the papaya samples to the Salmonella Kiambu outbreak and another to Salmonella Thompson.

July 26 — Grande Produce issued a press release to notify consumers that it had conducted a limited recall of Caribeña brand Maradol papayas distributed during the dates of July 10 to July 19, 2017.

July 27 — the FDA issued an outbreak posting advising consumers to avoid all Caribeña brand Maradol papayas, regardless of color or date of distribution.

Aug. 3 — following extensive traceback and testing, the FDA added papaya farm Carica de Campeche to Import Alert (IA) 99-35. Papayas from the Carica de Campeche farm tested positive for Salmonella Kiambu, Salmonella Thompson, Salmonella Agona, Salmonella Senftenberg, and Salmonella Gaminara.

Aug. 4 — Agroson’s LLC, issued a press release announcing the recall of certain Cavi brand Maradol papayas. Agroson’s states that the papayas were distributed on July 16-19, and available to consumers until July 31.

Aug. 4 — CDC announced it is adding Salmonella Thompson illness to this outbreak investigation because of epidemiological evidence. Also, FDA and Maryland state testing has indicated that both serotypes of Salmonella were present in a single fruit.

Aug. 7 — Freshtex Produce, LLC, issued a press release announcing the recall of Valery brand Maradol papayas that were distributed in the state of Illinois from July 10-13. These papayas may have been further distributed outside of Illinois.

Aug. 18 — CDC announced it is adding Salmonella Agona and Salmonella Gaminara illness to this outbreak investigation because of epidemiological evidence.

Sept. 1 — FDA and CDC announced increased case counts. In addition, FDA announced that papayas from two more farms in Mexico tested positive for Salmonella strains that matched illnesses not related to the previously identified outbreak. These additional farms were added to Import Alert (IA) 21-17 and the CDC added the two additional outbreaks to the ongoing investigation.

(To sign up for a free subscription to Food Safety News, click here.)

from Food Recalls – Food Safety News http://ift.tt/2wZCQTl