Nicho Produce Company – Stealth Recall Revisited

In December 2011, USDA tested samples of “Cut Above” brand shredded bagged lettuce and spinach from Nicho Produce Company, Inc. (Edinburg, TX). And found Listeria monocytogenes.

These positive test results prompted the company to initiate a recall of the affected production lots. If you don’t remember this recall, you’re not alone. There was no press release issued. It was announced by letter.

The positive test results also triggered an inspection of Nicho’s processing facility by FDA. According to a Warning Letter issued on May 21, 2012 and posted earlier today on the FDA website, 12 out of the 72 environmental samples taken during the inspection yielded Listeria monocytogenes – including on direct food-contact surfaces. The strains recovered from the processing facility matched the strains found by USDA in the spinach and lettuce samples.

Nicho issued a second recall notice on December 19th, at the end of FDA’s inspection. Once again, the recall was announced only by letter. I learned about the recalls in mid-February, – TWO MONTHS AFTER THEY WERE “ANNOUNCED” – courtesy of FDA’s Weekly Enforcement Report for February 15, 2012. As I posted on February 19th, the Nicho Produce “A Cut Above” recall encompassed 33 different items, distributed in Texas.

This is an egregious example of a Class I recall that SHOULD have been announced to the public. It should not have taken two months for FDA to release information about the recall. I realize that the recall affected produce that was distributed only in one state. But the extent of distribution should not have been a deciding factor. Residents of Texas deserve to know when a contaminated food has been circulating in their midst. As do the rest of us.

It’s time to put an end to stealth recalls.

International Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Watermelon

Outbreaks of Salmonella Newport infections have been reported in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Germany according to information released today by the UK Health Protection Agency (HPA).

HPA has confirmed 30 cases in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland reported five cases; Germany’s Robert Koch Institute and the Republic of Ireland have confirmed 15 cases and 4 cases, respectively. One UK outbreak victim – an individual with serious underlying health complications – has died.

The 30 outbreak victims in England, Wales and Northern Ireland range in age from six months to 85 years; 70% of the case-patients were women, and the outbreak is tilted geographically towards the East of England. Four of Scotland’s five victims were young children, according to the HPA. The outbreak first was detected in early December 2011, and the most recently reported illness was at the end of December.

An Outbreak Control Team is working in the UK to determine the source of the illnesses. A questionnaire has been administered to 15 of the English case-patients so far; 10 of them confirmed having eaten watermelon in the three days prior to becoming ill.

Last November, HPA conducted a local food survey in Preston (Lancashire, England), and recovered Salmonella Newport from a ready-to-eat sliced watermelon fan. Genetic fingerprinting (PFGE) determined at the time that this was a previously unreported strain. The genetic profile of that strain matches the outbreak strain recovered from the four Scottish children who were diagnosed in late December. The same strain also was confirmed in patients from Germany and the Republic of Ireland.

This would not be the first time that Salmonella-contaminated watermelon was the source of an outbreak. In 1954, 17 residents of Upton, Massachusetts (USA) developed salmonellosis after consuming watermelon that was grown in Florida and purchased from a single supermarket in Milford – a neighboring Massachusetts town. Salmonella Miami was found in stool samples from outbreak victims, and from watermelon samples from the homes of two victims. And in 1991, 39 people in the USA became infected with Salmonella Javiana after eating watermelon.

HPA is not yet prepared to state definitively that watermelons were behind this outbreak, and there is no indication so far where the suspect melons may have been grown. Chances are – based on the illness onset dates that have been reported so far – that the offending watermelons will be off the market before they have been identified. Nevertheless, consumers in the affected countries would be wise to avoid purchasing cut watermelon. It is safer to buy an intact melon and sanitize the outside surface before cutting the fruit.

Guest Blog: Safe Employees = Safe Food

The following Guest Blog first appeared on Marler Blog, and is reproduced here with the kind permission of its author, Bill Marler.

Safe Employees = Safe Food

When AP reported this week that an owner of Jensen Farms was being fined by the U.S. Department of Labor for failing to provide safe migrant worker housing, I must admit even I was a bit shocked. Could it be that an owner of a business that allowed the deadly fecal bacteria Listeria to coat its product would also treat its employees like crap too?

Well, apparently yes. It seems that Eric Jensen, the Colorado Cantaloupe grower that caused an outbreak that killed 30 (by my count 32) – sickening a total of 146 – people, rented migrant workers unsanitary, overcrowded rooms at a motel he owns. Inspectors said many rooms lacked beds, laundry facilities and smoke detectors. Jensen now faces a whopping $4,250 in civil penalties. As the Department’s Denver director said:

“Profiting at the expense of vulnerable workers is not just inhumane, it’s illegal.”

I would add immoral and really, really stupid – especially when it comes to producing safe food.

Less we forget, the FDA and the staff of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee found a number of safety lapses at Jensen Farms that likely led to the outbreak:

Condensation from cooling systems draining directly onto the floor,
Poor drainage resulting in water pooling around the food processing equipment,
Inappropriate food processing equipment which was difficult to clean (i.e., Listeria found on the felt roller brushes),
No antimicrobial solution, such as chlorine, in the water used to wash the cantaloupes,
No equipment to remove field heat from the cantaloupes before they were placed into  cold storage, and
FDA officials were highly critical of the processing methods used at Jensen Farms. According to these FDA officials, the probable causes of the melon contamination at Jensen Farms included “serious design flaws” in the processing technique used at Jensen Farms, “poor sanitary design of the facility itself,” and “lack of awareness of food safety standards by Jensen Farms.” In particular, FDA emphasized to Committee staff that the processing equipment and the decision not to chlorinate the water used to wash the cantaloupes were two probable causes of the contamination.

Hmm, does this sound familiar to you? Remember the sickening of 1939 people with Salmonella and the recall of 500,000,000 eggs in 2010 linked to Iowa’s Wright County Egg? Who could forget the FDA inspection report highlights of some of its findings at Wright County:

Chicken manure located in the manure pits below the egg laying operations was observed to be approximately 4 feet high to 8 feet high at the following locations: Layer 1 – House 1; Layer 3 – Houses 2, 7, 17, and 18. The outside access doors to the manure pits at these locations had been pushed out by the weight of the manure, leaving open access to wildlife or domesticated animals,
Un-baited, unsealed holes appearing to be rodent burrows located along the second floor baseboards were observed inside Layer 1 – Houses 1-9 and 11-13; Layer 2 – Houses 7 and 11; Layer 3 – Houses 1, 3, 4, 5, and 6; Layer 4 – House 3,
Dark liquid which appeared to be manure was observed seeping through the concrete foundation to the outside of the laying houses at the following locations: Layer 1 – Houses 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8, 11, 12, and 14; and Layer 3 – Houses 1, 8, 13, and 17,
Standing water approximately 3 inches deep was observed at the southeast corner of the manure pit located inside Layer 1 – House 13,
Un-caged birds (chickens having escaped) were observed in the egg laying operations in contact with the egg laying birds at Layer 3 – Houses 9 and 16. The un-caged birds were using the manure, which was approximately 8 feet high, to access the egg laying area,
Layer 3 – House 11, the house entrance door to access both House 11 and 12 was blocked with excessive amounts of manure in the manure pits,
There were between 2 to 5 live mice observed inside the egg laying Houses 1, 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10, 11, and 14, and
Live and dead flies too numerous to count were observed at the following locations inside the egg laying houses: Layer 1 – Houses 3, 4, 6, 8, 9, 11, and 12; Layer 2 – Houses 7 and 11; Layer 3 – Houses 3, 4, 4, 5, 7, 8, 15, 16, 17, and 18. The live flies were on and around egg belts, feed, shell eggs and walkways in the different sections of each egg laying area. In addition, live and dead maggots too numerous to count were observed on the manure pit floor located in Layer 2 – House 7.

And, guess what else – the owner of Wright County, Jack DeCoster, cared little for his employees too. A few examples:

In 1997, DeCoster Egg Farms agreed to pay $2 million in fines to settle citations brought in 1996 for health and safety violations at DeCoster’s farm in Turner, Maine. Then-Labor Secretary Robert Reich said conditions were:

“As dangerous and oppressive as any sweatshop.”

In 2002, the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission announced a more than $1.5 million settlement of an employment discrimination lawsuit against DeCoster Farms on behalf of Mexican women who reported they were subjected to sexual harassment, including rape, abuse and retaliation by some supervisory workers at DeCoster’s Wright County plants.

And, who can forget Stewart Parnell and the Peanut Corporation of America Salmonella outbreak of 2009 that sickened 714 persons in 46 states – killing nine. The FDA reported that the company shipped tainted products under three conditions: (1) without retesting, (2) before the re-test results came back from an outside company, and (3) after a second test showed no bacterial contamination.

As one PCA employee was quoted as saying:

“I never ate the peanut butter, and I wouldn’t allow my kids to eat it.”

My strong suspicion is that Jensen Farm workers were not eating Jensen Farm cantaloupes as they sat in their overcrowded hotel rooms. And, I would be willing to bet that Wright County employees were not taking a dozen eggs home to the family from work.

Perhaps there is a lesson here? Perhaps how you treat your employees, and how the employee feels about the product, says volumes about the quality and safety of the product? If the employees will not eat the product, perhaps that products should simply not be sold.

About the author: Bill Marler is a personal injury and products liability attorney, and an internationally known food safety advocate. He began litigating foodborne illness cases in 1993, when he represented Brianne Kiner, the most seriously injured survivor of the Jack in the Box E. coli O157:H7 outbreak. Bill is a graduate of the Seattle University School of Law, and the Law School’s “Lawyer in Residence.”