10 Listeria monocytogenes illnesses linked to ready-to-eat foods

100% OF PERSONS INTERVIEWED WERE ALREADY HOSPITALIZED BEFORE BECOMING INFECTED

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is investigating an outbreak of ten Listeria monocytogenes infections that have been linked to a strain of the pathogen found recently by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in an environmental sample collected during a site inspection at Fresh & Ready Foods, LLC (San Fernando, CA).

The outbreak strain was first recovered from a patient in December 2023, and the most recent confirmed case dates back to September 2024. No cases have been reported in 2025.

The CDC investigated this outbreak in 2024. Epidemiological evidence revealed that the outbreak victims were in healthcare settings such as hospitals prior to becoming sick, and the likely source was a food served in those types of institutions. However, there was not enough information available to link the illnesses to a specific food or supplier.

The CDC reopened its investigation in April 2025, when it learned that the outbreak strain had been found during an FDA site inspection at Fresh & Ready Foods.

Outbreak victims range in age from 41 to 87 years, with a median age of 60. Nine of the ten victims were male. Eight of the ten victims lived in California; the other two resided in Nevada at the time they became ill.

Investigators from state and local public health agencies are interviewing outbreak victims to determine what foods they may have eaten in the weeks before becoming ill. Of the six people with information, all six (100%) were hospitalized before becoming sick. Records reviewed from facilities indicated that ready-to-eat foods made by Fresh & Ready Foods were served in at least three of the facilities.

The company has recalled more than 80 products bearing USE-BY dates from 4/22/2025 to 05/19/2025. The recalled products, which were sold under the brand names Fresh & Ready Foods, City Point Market Fresh Food to Go, and Fresh Take Crave Away, were distributed between 04/18/2025 and 04/28/2025 in vending and breakroom areas within corporate offices, medical buildings, and healthcare facilities located in Arizona, California, Nevada, and Washington.

Fresh & Ready’s checkered history

Fresh & Ready Foods, LLC is under the joint jurisdiction of the USDA’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (Establishment numbers M39892+P39892+V39892) and the FDA.

The FDA inspected the company’s San Fernando, CA, facility on seven occasions between 2009 and 2022. On six of the seven occasions, the operations were classified as either Voluntary Action Indicated (VAI) or Official Action Indicated (OAI).

No Warning Letter appears to have been issued in response to the 2017 (OAI) inspection.

2009: Voluntary Action Indicated

Gloves used in food handling are not maintained in an intact, clean, and sanitary condition
Sanitizing agents are unsafe under conditions of use
Failure to hold ingredients in bulk or in suitable containers so as to protect against contamination.

2010: Voluntary Action Indicated

Suitable outer garments are not worn that protect against contamination of food and food contact surfaces
Your HACCP plan lists monitoring frequencies that do not ensure compliance with the critical limit
Your HACCP plan includes a corrective action plan that is not in accordance with 21 CFR 123.7(b) to ensure affected producct is not entered into commerce
Your verification procedures do not include, at a minimum, reassessment of the HACCP plan whenever modifications to the process are made
Your records do not include the date and time of the activitiy the record reflects
Your sanitation control records do not accurately document the conditions or practices observed at your firm

2011: No Action Indicated

2015: Voluntary Action Indicated

You are not monitoring the sanitation conditions and practices with sufficient frequency to assure conformance with Current Good Manufacturing Practices including protection of food, food packaging material, and food contact surfaces from adulteration.

2017: Official Action Indicated

You did not maintain your plant in a clean and sanitary condition and keep your plant in repair
You did not implement the monitoring procedures listed in your HACCP plan
Your HACCP plan does not list the food safety hazards that are reasonably likely to occur
Your HACCP plan does not list one or more critical control points that are necessary for each of the identified food safety hazards

2018: Voluntary Action Indicated

You did not implement the monitoring procedures listed in your HACCP plan
You are not monitoring the sanitation conditions and practices with sufficient frequency to assure conformance with Current Good Manufacturing Practices including prevention of cross-contamination from insanitary objects

2022: Voluntary Action Indicated

Your hazard analysis did not identify a known or reasonably foreseeable hazard that required a preventive control
Your process controls procedures did not include appropriate parameters and maximum/minimum values
Your HACCP plan does not list the food safety hazards that are reasonably likely to occur
Your HACCP plan lists monitoring procedures and frequencies that do not ensure compliance with the critical limit

What you need to know

The joint investigation by the CDC, the FDA, and the USDA is ongoing. Here are the FDA’s recommendations for keeping yourself and your loved ones safe.

Recommendations

Consumers, distributors, and foodservice customers, who purchased or received recalled Ready-to-Eat (RTE) foods manufactured by Fresh & Ready Foods, LLC, should not eat, sell, or serve these products.
Foodservice customers, retailers and consumers who purchased or received the recalled products, should carefully clean and sanitize any surfaces or containers that it touched. Follow FDA’s safe handling and cleaning advice to reduce the risk of cross-contamination. Listeria can survive in refrigerated temperatures and can easily spread to other foods and surfaces.
If you or your family member have symptoms of listeriosis you should contact your health care provider to report your symptoms and receive care.

Recommendations for At-Risk Groups

Listeria is most likely to sicken pregnant women and newborns, adults aged 65 or older, and people with weakened immune systems. Other people can be infected with Listeria, but they rarely become seriously ill.
Pregnant women typically experience only fever, fatigue, and muscle aches. However, Listeria infection during pregnancy can lead to miscarriage, stillbirth, premature delivery, or life-threatening infection of the newborn.
Call your healthcare provider right away if you have symptoms of a Listeria infection.

TAINTED formats 3 — “Reads like a true crime novel” – Food Safety News

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Click on the link to listen to a short excerpt, then follow the buy links to add a digital, print or audio copy to your personal library.

Chapter 6. Birth of a Pathogen

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US food safety takes yet another hit

The US Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) has hammered another nail into the coffin that holds the remains of the US food safety system.

The FSIS has run away from its proposed rule to limit Salmonella contamination in raw poultry, bowing to opposition from the US poultry industry. The notice of withdrawal appeared in the April 25, 2025 issue of the Federal Register.

The proposed rule, which had been in the works for three years and was published in the Federal Register on August 7, 2024, would have defined as adulterated raw chicken carcasses, chicken parts, comminuted chicken, and comminuted turkey products contaminated with certain Salmonella levels and serotypes.

The August 2024 proposal represented nothing more than a first baby step toward controlling Salmonella in raw poultry in the US, focusing primarily on just five of the more than 2400 known serotypes, and only requiring action on other serotypes if they are present at a concentration of more than 10 viable microbes per gram or milliliter of sample.

Compare this to countries such as France, where the presence in raw poultry at any level of any Salmonella serotype is grounds for a recall.

Is this reversal of a proposed minimal control over Salmonella in raw poultry a precursor to the abandonment of other regulatory policies relating to microbiological adulteration of raw meats and poultry?

Will FSIS withdraw its rule limiting Salmonella in raw, breaded poultry products?
Will FSIS withdraw its rule declaring E. coli O157:H7 and several other shiga toxin-producing E. coli serotypes to be adulterants in raw meat?
Will FSIS withdraw its rule mandating HACCP-style food safety programs in the meat and poultry industry?

I hope not.

Here is a list of some of the other steps reported to have been taken by the FDA in the administration’s quest to deregulate food safety and decimate accumulated decades of expertise in the agency.

Communications teams at the FDA—CUT
FOIA response teams at the FDA—CUT
FDA milk quality testing program—CUT
Responsibility for FDA routine inspections likely to be shifted to individual states—whether or not the states have the budget or the expertise to carry the inspections out according to FDA requirements
FDA’s laboratory proficiency testing program—SUSPENDED
FDA research into methods for detecting bird flu in milk, cheese, and pet foods—CUT
Personnel at two FDA labs—Moffett Lab in Chicago and the Alameda lab in the San Francisco area—were fired; some have been rehired after it was determined they were fired in error.

Meanwhile, the FDA is investigating two new outbreaks of Salmonella Enteritidis infections, totaling 72 cases so far. The source(s) of the outbreaks have not yet been determined; however, Salmonella Enteritidis is a common contaminant in raw poultry and raw eggs. If eggs from Turkey are the source, will we ever be told?

Interested in learning more about food safety and the history of foodborne disease outbreaks and investigations?

Click on the link to listen to a short excerpt, then follow the buy links to add a digital, print or audio copy to your personal library.

Chapter 6. Birth of a Pathogen

Order TAINTED now from your preferred on-line retailer

FDA is now a black box

The FDA communications teams have been trashed by the Trump administration. Likewise, the Freedom of Informaction Act (FOIA) response teams and policy teams.

What does this mean for public health and food safety?

Siobhan DeLancey, a 21-year veteran of the FDA, who for the last several years managed communications for the agency’s Center for Veterinary Medicine (CVM), didn’t mince words in her recent Opinion piece in Food Safety News.

There will be no more safety alerts, no bird flu updates, no information detailing what we’re doing about PFAS. No leverage to spur a recalcitrant company to do the right thing. No news about pesticides or antimicrobial use.

She went on to say,

[G]ood luck relying on a timely response to your FOIA request to reveal the inner working of the agency or gleaning information from the Federal Register. Guidances for Industry on how to comply with the law? Doubt you’ll see many in the next four years, and even if one gets through deregulation, how will you know?

On April 22, 2025, pet food safety advocate, Sue Thixton, reported in Truth About Pet Food that a pet owner had arranged for two samples of Answers Pet Food to be tested for the presence of gentamicin by an independent laboratory.

Gentamicin is an antibiotic whose use is discouraged in cattle due to its long retention time in animal tissue. The US Federal Register does not cite a permitted level of gentamicin in beef tissue. Canada lists a maximum residue limit of 0.1 parts per million (ppm) in muscle of cattle.

One of the samples—ANSWERS PET FOOD STRAIGHT BEEF—was found by the lab to contain 320.6 ppm of gentamicin. The second sample—Answers Pet Food Detailed Beef—contained 76.2 ppm.

According to Thixton’s post, multiple pets became very ill, but survived. She added, “It is unknown if a recall will be issued on these products.”

The following day, Answers Pet Food posted a multi-paragraph rebuttal on its Facebook page, calling the pet owner’s claim “baseless.”

Why is this story relevant?

Prior to January 22, 2025, when Trump took office, it would have been possible to contact the CVM communications team by email or phone, find out whether or not the agency was aware of the situation and, if necessary, point them to the posted report.

On several occasions in the past, eFoodAlert has done exactly that, with the result that a problem of which the CVM was previously unaware became flagged for follow-up.

One such occasion was the concern raised by multiple pet owners early in 2024 about Purina pet foods.

Now this avenue no longer exists.

There is no longer any way of communicating informally with the CVM or with other areas within the FDA.

There is no longer any way of learning in a timely fashion whether the CVM knows about this incident.

Even if the CVM investigates and discovers a problem, unless the company recalls the product, there will be no alert to consumers, because there is no one left to write the notice.

While it may still be possible to submit a Freedom of Information Act request to learn whether other pet owners have reported similary issues or whether there was an inspection of the manufacturing facility, the chances of receiving a timely response to such a request have dropped to nil, due to lack of personnel.

A final word

I have had dealings with Siobhan DeLancey and various other members of the FDA’s communications teams for almost two decades. I have always found them to be professional, thoroughly invested in the importance of their work, and eager to furnish whatever information and explanations permitted within the bounds of confidentiality requirements.

Without the assistance of Siobhan and her colleagues, and without the work of the FOIA teams, I never would have been able to research and write my two food safety books.

I shall leave the final word to Siobhan (again, from her Food Safety News piece):

We should all be frightened when the ability to communicate is taken away. The administration has become braver about suing or otherwise intimidating news media that run stories counter to its narrative. Now, it’s muzzling its own public servants. How long before it comes for you?

Interested in learning more about food safety and the history of foodborne disease outbreaks and investigations?

Click on the link to listen to a short excerpt, then follow the buy links to add a digital, print or audio copy to your personal library.

Chapter 6. Birth of a Pathogen

Order TAINTED now from your preferred on-line retailer

“A complete and compelling account of the hidden and not-so-hidden ways the food we give our beloved pets can be contaminated.” – JoNel Aleccia, Health Reporter, Food & Nutrition, The Associated Press.

“An invaluable resource for busy pet owners” – Food Safety News

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