If you get your daily greens via pre-bagged lettuce, you may want to double-check your stash. The Food and Drug Administration announced it’s investigating an outbreak of listeria infections linked to Fresh Express packaged salads. The Fresh Express bagged salads affected are on recall. As a result of the contaminated salad, ten people have been sick, ten people have been hospitalized and one person has died across eight states.
Fresh Express announced a recall of the affected salads made at a facility in Streamwood, IL due to potential bacteria listeria monocytogenes. The recall affects products with the codes Z324 to Z350 distributed at retailers across a handful of states. The states include Connecticut, Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, as well as in Canada.
“Fresh Express immediately halted all production at the Streamwood facility and initiated a complete sanitation review,” the company said in the statement. “Fresh Express has already been in contact with retailers who received the recalled items, instructing them to remove them from store shelves and stop any further shipments to stores from distribution centers and other inventories.”
Consuming the bacteria can result in listeriosis, which often causes fever, chills, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, headache and diarrhea. Listeriosis is especially dangerous for young children, elderly people, immune-compromised and pregnant people.
