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Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc. issued an announcement that certain kit varieties of their Dole brand salad is recalled. This recall is in response to potential cross-contamination with a different recalled product – Rizo Lopez Foods cheese.
Large production facilities process and package many different brands. Unfortunately, this is a potential side-effect when entirely different brands operate on the same production line.
While the larger Dole brand salad is recalled, so are a few private label brands that are packaged under other brand names.
On February 8, 2024, Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc issued a voluntary recall for certain kits and private labeled products of their Dole brand salads. This recall was initiated due to potential cross contamination with previously recalled Rizo-Lopez Foods cheese under investigation by the US Food and Drug Administration for a Listeria monocytogenes outbreak.
Rizo-Lopez Foods cheese has been linked to 26 illnesses, 23 of which were serious enough to require hospitalization. Tragically, there have been two deaths so far associated with this outbreak.
As certain salad kits were processed on the same production line as the Rizo Lopez Foods cheese, the following salad kits are being recalled:
Recalled salad products were distributed to the states of Alabama, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, and Wisconsin. Recalled salad kits were also distributed to the Canadian provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Ontario, and Quebec.
So far, no other President’s Choice, Marketside, or Dole brand product is recalled.
Click here for a detailed list of UPC and Lot number information.
Consumers should not eat recalled salad products and should report symptoms if they begin to feel sick if they have already eaten it.
Listeria or Listeria monocytogenes is a bacteria commonly associated with dairy products. However, it is not the only food that can become contaminated with bacteria. Other food products have been responsible for Listeria outbreaks in the past.
Some recent FDA out breaks have been linked to:
Listeria monocytogenes is the harmful bacteria responsible for the potentially serious and sometimes fatal illness, listeriosis.
Listeriosis symptoms can vary in severity from mild to quite serious. However, normally healthy individuals may only suffer short-term diarrheal illness. Additional symptoms may include high fever, severe headaches, stiffness, nausea, and abdominal pain.
Certain higher-risk people, however, may be more susceptible to infection and experience more severe symptoms. These include the very young, the very old, and those with weakened immune systems. These people are more likely to experience invasive listeriosis.
Basically, invasive listeriosis occurs when the harmful bacteria leaves the digestive system and causes infection in other parts of the body.
Conversely, symptoms in pregnant people are often milder, but puts them at higher risk for miscarriage, still births, and serious infection of newborns.
Invasive illness can be life-threatening in people who are not pregnant. Common symptoms include headache, stiff neck, confusion, loss of balance, and convulsions. Non-pregnant people may also experience fever and/or muscle aches. Those with invasive listeriosis often require medical treatment and hospitalization. Around 1 in 20 non-pregnant people with invasive listeriosis will die from their illness.
Listeria monocytogenes is an organism that can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections in young children, frail or elderly people, and others with weakened immune systems. Although healthy individuals may suffer only short-term symptoms such as high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, Listeria infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women.
If you have fallen sick from eating salad products from Dole Fresh Vegetables, Inc., you may be eligible for legal compensation.
Large manufacturing facilities have an obligation to keep production lines clean and sanitized between products. Lapses in these procedures can cause large-scale contamination events. If you have become sick from eating recalled Dole brand salad products, your illness may have been prevented.
The Lange Law Firm, PLLC has helped many families with cases just like yours help hold accountable those responsible for foodborne illness. When a company becomes negligent, people become sick.
If you have become sick after eating Dole brand salad products, you should get advice. An experienced Listeria lawyer can help navigate you through the legal process.
Call (833) 330-3663 or submit your information on the online submission form for a free consultation.
If you’d like to know more about food safety in the news, such as Dole brand salad is recalled, check out the Make Food Safe Blog. We regularly update trending topics, foodborne infections in the news, recalls, and more! Stay tuned for quality information to help keep your family safe, while The Lange Law Firm, PLLC strives to Make Food Safe!
By: Heather Van Tassell (contributing writer, non-lawyer)
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