New rules help find, recall tainted spinach
KING CITY, Calif. -- Tough food safety precautions and produce-tracking systems implemented last year after a fatal E. coli outbreak were put to the test when spinach from a produce company came up positive for salmonella bacteria, prompting a new recall.
Metz Fresh LLC of King City issued the recall Wednesday, after salmonella was found during a routine test of spinach it was processing for shipment, company spokesman Greg Larson said.
The recall involved 8,118 cases of spinach, but the company said more than 90 percent of that amount was identified before it reached stores.
"Most of it was stopped instantly, in the shipping channels," Larson said.
Fewer than 1,000 cases were distributed throughout the United States and Canada to be sold in retail and food service packages. There were no reports of illness linked to the tainted spinach.
Meijer, Certified Grocers, Dominick's Finer Foods and Jewel Food Stores in the Chicago suburbs said they did not carry the Metz brand.
Larson said Metz Fresh began telling stores and restaurants Aug. 24 not to sell or serve the spinach after a first round of tests came up positive. Wednesday's public recall to consumers came after those tests were confirmed, he said.
Testing and tracking are required by the California Leafy Green Products Handler Marketing Agreement, which established food safety rules that all participating growers must follow. The agreement evolved from last year's E. coli outbreak that killed three people and sickened 200, prompting the Food and Drug Administration to warn Americans not to eat fresh bagged spinach.
The warning was lifted after the contamination was traced to spinach processed and packed by Natural Selection Foods LLC in San Juan Bautista.
The California agriculture industry, which produces about three-quarters of the nation's lettuce and spinach, took a huge financial hit from the outbreak last September.
Some growers said Metz Fresh's ability to catch the bacteria showed new testing regimes implemented by the industry were working.
"I think the test of the industry is how we react to these types of situations," said grower Joseph Pezzini, who heads the board that administers the new produce safety rules. "No one was harmed by the product and that's important."
Public health experts questioned that assessment.
"The industry has taken some important steps, but they have certainly not solved the problem if we're looking at another major recall a year later," said Caroline Smith DeWaal, food safety director at the Center for Science in the Public Interest.
Jean Halloran, director of food policy initiatives at the Consumers Union, faulted the produce industry for resisting mandatory government regulations and instead enacting its own leafy green marketing agreement.
Metz Fresh is "certainly to be commended for detecting the problem and issuing the recall, but why wasn't the system set up to test this before it left the plant?" said Halloran, whose nonprofit organization tests food and provides information about threats to consumers.
The California Department of Public Health and the Food And Drug Administration are investigating the Metz Fresh processing facility in King City.
Salmonella sickens about 40,000 people a year in the U.S. and kills about 600.