Personal Injury Law

Salmonella not your fault? Prove it

By Dr. Doug Powell

The Associated Press reports that certain packages of Kowalke Organics alfalfa spouts are being recalled due to possible salmonella contamination.

The California Department of Public Health said the packages were mostly distributed at Gelson's and Whole Foods grocery stores in Southern California. According to Kowalke's owner, Mike Matthews, only one package purchased in a store as part of a "secret shopping" investigation by state agents tested positive for salmonella, and it had a sell-by date of June 21.

The health officials "looked at our paperwork and we're 100 percent clean. The test we have for that batch was negative," Matthews said. "Since we know it was clean when it left our truck, the only way that it could have happened was in cross-contamination down the line in the store."

Officials disagreed with that deduction—and solitary test result (which came from a sample on Kowalke's premises, according to Matthews, and not on the truck)—and recommended a recall of all of Kowalke's sprouts with sell-by dates from June 18 to June 30. Public health spokesman Al Lundeen said most sprout contamination comes from seeds, so all the products that were grown from that seed lot should be recalled.

Cross-contamination at retail is certainly a possibility. I'd be more apt to believe it, though, if I knew more about the testing procedure, and perhaps found out that more than one sample was tested per batch. With the limited information Matthews has provided, I have to agree with the health officials' recommendation to issue a broader recall.

If you've got a food safety plan in place, tell the public about it—all of it. The public can always handle more information about food safety, not less.
 

Full post as published by BarfBlog on June 25, 2009 (boomark / email).