Thanksgiving week brought a deluge of food recalls. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced four of them at the end of the day on Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving. Three of those involve produce that could be sitting in your kitchen.
Those included a recall on baby spinach in six states and eastern Canada, one from Hy-Vee on mixed vegetable packs sold in eight states, and one on organic basil distributed in ten states. It’s a bit of a pile-up that would have been easy to miss if you were focused on the holiday late last week.
Vegpro issued a recall on Fresh Attitude baby spinach due to Salmonella contamination. That’s specifically on five-ounce and 11-ounce packages. That spinach carries best before dates of December 4 on the 11-ounce and December 4 and 5 on the five-ounce packages.
The recalled spinach was distributed throughout eastern Canada, as well as Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania. The announcement, shared by the FDA, notes that Fresh Attitude products in other US states are produced at a separate facility from the one believed to be the source of Salmonella. Fresh Attitude basil in other states should be unaffected.
The organic basil recall comes from Shenandoah Growers and is due to Cyclospora contamination. The recall impacts around 15,000 packages. Those were packed under private labels and distributed to stores from October 20 to 30 in Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and Washington, DC.
Like recalls on romaine lettuce and Fresh Express Salad Kits in recent weeks, the company says this was caught at a late stage. It’s unlikely that the packages are still kicking about in stores or in your kitchen. (That’s not necessarily a good thing because if there are more Cyclospora-contaminated packages, this was caught too late.) Of course, if you still have the basil in your kitchen, you should chuck it.
Lastly, the midwest grocery chain Hy-Vee has recalled two separate packages of its Short Cuts vegetable mix. The recall is on the Short Cuts Pot Roast Mix and the Short Cuts Grill/Over Ready Veggie Mix. Safety sampling at the production facility turned up Listeria. The packages were distributed in Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Wisconsin.
