Lettuce Recall: Listeria May Affect 2,500 Cartons Across the US
Last week, a California farm known as True Leaf Farms voluntarily announced a recall of 90 cartons of romaine lettuce. However, it looks as though True Leaf Farms actually recalled nearly 2,500 cartons of lettuce.
The chief executive of Church Brothers, Steve Church, verified the change in numbers. The company sells and markets True Leaf Farm’s produce.
Church Brothers said that only 90 cartons went to retail sales, while the rest of the potentially contaminated cartons were sold mostly to restaurants and cafeterias.
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Thus far no illnesses have been reported, but the lettuce and salad recalls happened after the Food Safety and Inspection Service issued a random sampling of the lettuce and detected Listeria monocytogenes organisms in one bag.
The states covered by the recall include Alaska, Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Vermont and Washington. Canada is also part of the recall.
On Oct.1, a separate recall was made by the group Thorntons, Inc.
Thorntons is recalling the salads because the company is concerned that the salads they are producing have the potential to be contaminated with salmonella.
The Thorntons salads that are being recalled were manufactured and distributed by Greencore U.S.A.
The recall affects 57 pounds of Thorntons 6 oz. Garden Salads and 5.6 oz. of their Chef Salads.
These salads were sold to stores in Chicago, Illinois, Cincinnati, Ohio, Indianapolis, Indiana, Kentucky and Tennessee.
Thus far, no illnesses have been reported in connection with Thorntons lettuce recall either.
The lettuce recall comes on the heels of a recall of cantaloupes that were contaminated with Listeria monocytogenes bacteria. As of today, the contaminated cantaloupes have killed 18 people and at least 100 cases of listeria from the melons have been reported in 20 states.
Stephanie Yao, spokeswoman for The Food and Drug Administration, has said that the lettuce recall is not related to the recall of cantaloupes.
