Tag Archives: Sprout

New guidelines in Ireland for ready-to-eat sprouted seeds

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The Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) has published guidelines for the safe production of sprouted seeds to be consumed raw, following the recent outbreaks of E. coli O104:H4 in Germany and France linked to the consumption of these seeds.

These guidelines introduce pathogen control measures for seed suppliers and sprouted seed producers. These include testing and certification requirements for seeds and a disinfection step and testing for sprouted seeds. The measures are being introduced to reduce risks to consumers’ health.

Most sprouted seed outbreaks have been attributed to contamination of the seeds used for sprouting. The moist, warm conditions of sprouting can allow small numbers of pathogens present on seeds to multiply by several orders of magnitude during the sprouting period.

To avoid confusion among consumers, the FSAI is advising producers of sprouted seeds who are using these guidelines; to label their products as ‘ready-to-eat’. Sprouted seed producers who cannot implement the control measures specified in the new guidelines should continue to ensure that their products are labelled as ‘cook before consumption’. Retailers and caterers should check that their suppliers of ready-to-eat sprouted seeds are following these FSAI guidelines.

The FSAI is advising members of the public who choose to sprout seeds at home, that they should continue to cook these products before consumption. This is because seeds certified free of pathogenic bacteria are unlikely to be widely available for some time. These guidelines can be accessed on our website on the following link http://bit.ly/o9VWuW.

Unfortunately, no one knows if any particular sprouter is following the guidelines.

A table of sprout-related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/sprouts-associated-outbreaks.

Germany fingers cucumbers as E. coli source – again

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Cucumbers came under fresh suspicion on Wednesday in Germany’s desperate hunt for a pathogen that has killed 26 people, with investigators discovering the mutant bacteria on food scraps in a family’s garbage.

It was the first time the type O 104 enterohaemorrhagic Escherichia coli (EHEC) had been confirmed on any food since the outbreak began in mid-May. All the other evidence has come from fecal tests.

The scraps turned up in garbage in the eastern city of Magdeburg, authorities of the state of Saxony-Anhalt said.

Three of the family have been sick: the father only had a stomach upset, the mother has been discharged after a hospital stay for diarrhea and the daughter is suffering from hemolytic-uraemic syndrome (HUS), a condition caused by EHEC where the kidneys fail.

Experts said they still did not know how the bacteria came to be on the cucumber, which had been in the bin for a week and a half.

Earlier in the day, investigators affirmed that bean sprouts from a market garden remained the likeliest cause of the E coli outbreak, despite the fact that the pathogen has not been found on any sprouts.

At a Berlin news conference, officials summed up the evidence against sprouts.
One woman working at the Bienenbuettel Gaertnerhof, an organic sprout grower, has been infected with EHEC, the germ behind the outbreak, and two other women there had unexplained diarrhea in May, Lower Saxony state officials said.
Two more clusters of EHEC victims were meanwhile confirmed as having eaten sprouts from the Gaertnerhof.

Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner said a total of eight clusters of EHEC victims who ate Gaertnerhof products had been spotted this way

German E. coli O104: 26 dead, 674 HUS, 1755 sick

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While German Chancellor Angela Merkel was dining in D.C. last night with President Obama, two more people died in Germany’s E. coli O104 outbreak, and today health-types said raw sprouts remain a primary suspect.

At least 26 people have died, 674 have developed a life-threatening complication from E. coli and 1,755 are stricken.

“It’s not normal that people go out for a salad and die of the consequences,” Linda McAvan, a U.K. member of the European Parliament, said today at a session devoted to the outbreak.

Sprouts can’t be ruled out as a cause of the outbreak because the bacterium may be gone from the farm where they were grown, scientists said. Traces may be undetectable now if the offending produce was grown from a depleted batch of contaminated seed weeks ago, said James Paton, head of the bacterial pathogenesis laboratory at the University of Adelaide in South Australia.

“They are still pretty strongly suspicious of the sprouts because the epidemiological link was strong,” Paton said in a telephone interview today. “It’s just that they haven’t found it at the farm.”

The property, Gaertnerhof Bienenbuettel, which has produced sprouts for 25 years, said it recalled produce and informed its customers immediately. Lab tests in mid-May found no evidence of E. coli, its proprietors said in a statement, adding they were “shocked and concerned” at being linked to the infection.

Outside health experts and even German lawmakers have strongly criticised the German investigation, saying the infections should have been spotted much sooner.

Weeks after the outbreak began on May 2, German officials are still looking for its cause.

Consumer Affairs Minister Ilse Aigner said today bean sprouts remain the focus, adding the Biogaertnerhof market garden remained under suspicion because its products had been eaten by so many EHEC victims. ‘There are now eight sickness clusters that can be traced back to this farm,’ she said.

Biogaertnerhof, owned by a strict vegetarian, grows sprouts from mung beans, peas and other plants and distributes them to factories, canteens and shops in northern Germany, mainly for use in salads.

Bahr said an official warning to Germans against eating any raw lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers or sprouts remained in place until the source was confirmed.
 

German E. coli O104 outbreak: 22 dead, 627 HUS, 1,1,526 sick; raw sprouts fingered

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The head of Germany’s national disease control center last night raised the death toll to 22 – 21 people in Germany and one in Sweden – and said another 2,153 people in Germany were ill from the bacteria. That figure includes 627 people who have developed a rare, serious complication that can cause kidney failure.

Updates are expected later today.
 

High bacteria levels in bean sprouts

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CBC News asked hockey goon and University of British Columbia microbiology type Kevin Allen to test 44 packages of sprouts for bacteria from across the country and he found lots.

There was no salmonella but Allen found 93 per cent tested positive for bacteria, and in some cases, high levels of enterococci bacteria, which is an indicator of fecal contamination.

"They [bacteria found] come from our intestinal tract and we don’t want the contents of our intestinal tract on our food," he said.

Sprouts are particularly susceptible to contaminants because they are grown in moist, warm environments, which are ideal for the rapid growth of bacteria, Allen said, adding that washing them before consuming them likely wouldn’t help.

"Personally, I don’t consume sprouts and I would not feed them to my children, either," Allen said.

Allen also tested 106 samples of bagged veggies and found 79 per cent of the herbs and 50 per cent of the spinach had similar bacterial contamination.

Allens report can be found at http://www.cbc.ca/manitoba/includes/pdfs/produce_survey.pdf. We all look forward to the results being published in a peer-reviewed journal before being further bandied about.

A table of North American raw sprout-related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/sprout-associated-outbreaks-north-america
 

Eat here and barf: seven Jimmy John’s union workers fired

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Jimmy John’s launched a new ad campaign earlier this month stressing speed instead of safety after making 130 or so people barf with salmonella-in-sprouts-on-sandwiches in two separate outbreaks.

Over the past two days, seven core members of the Jimmy John’s Workers Union were fired at five Minneapolis-area locations for distributing hundreds of posters claiming that eating at Jimmy John’s Gourmet Sandwiches puts customers at risk of food-borne illness.

The poster shows identical sandwiches, one labeled as being made by a healthy worker and one by a sick worker. The poster asks if customers can spot a difference between the two. “We hope your immune system is ready because you’re about to take the sandwich test,” it reads.

I would have gone with the sprout and ingredient angle, what with all the sick people, but having sick sandwich artists work is an excellent way to spread norovirus, salmonella and lots of other nasties.

According to The Minnesota Daily, the posters were in response to the union’s unmet demands for paid sick days, which “force” employees to come in sick, putting customers at risk, they said.’’

Union supporter David Boehnke, said, “We were fired for saying we want better working conditions for ourselves. We were standing up for ourselves.”

Boehnke said their activities were legally protected because the employees were organizing for higher wages. However Franchise Owner Mike Mulligan of MikLin Enterprises disagrees.

According to a statement from MikLin, the posters disparaged the company’s reputation and showed “extreme disloyalty and malicious intent to damage” the company.

If you want to preserve the company’s reputation, try not to make customers barf – it’s bad for business.

The workers currently have a four-point system, in which workers are deducted one point for missing work without finding a replacement and half a point for coming to work 10 minutes late.

At four points, the worker is fired.

Serial safety offender: Maryland sprout processor enters into consent decree with FDA

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Last month, the feds took action against a Maryland sprout grower for running a dump of a food facility. A company manager said at the time, "We’re 100 percent complying with their finding and how to resolve any and all issues.”

Apparently not.

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that Vegi-Pak Farm LLC of Mt. Airy, Md., and its president, Sun Ja Lee, and general manager, Brian W. Lee, signed a consent decree recently prohibiting them from processing, holding and distributing bean sprouts due to their failure to comply with federal food safety laws.

Vegi-Pak Farm grows, processes, packages and distributes ready-to-eat soybean sprouts and holds and distributes tofu and mung bean spouts. The products are sold to markets in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.

The consent decree, entered in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland, on March 4, 2011, stems from evidence that Vegi-Pak Farm violated the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act by introducing into interstate commerce food that was prepared, packed or held under insanitary conditions, and by adulterating food after shipment in interstate commerce.

The decree prohibits the defendants from processing, holding and distributing bean sprouts until they demonstrate to the FDA that their facility and processing equipment are sanitary and in compliance with the requirements of the Act and its implementing regulations. The defendants must, among other requirements, retain an independent sanitation expert to develop a sanitation plan and destroy all in-process and finished food articles in the facility. The FDA may require the sprout grower to recall products, cease production, or take other corrective actions if the agency discovers future violations.

Violations found during FDA’s September 2010 inspection of the facility included the presence of numerous flies, inadequate removal of waste, inadequate conveyance of liquid waste; inadequate screening against pests; inadequate cleaning and sanitizing of processing equipment; inadequate hand washing facilities and poor employee sanitation practices.

FDA details hazards at sprout producer; who was the auditor

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Why are these problems always found after the outbreak?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration shows up after the outbreak, which is why retailers like Jimmy John’s hire third-party auditors to verify the safety of their suppliers. Someone may want to ask Jimmy John’s, how does someone become eligible to supply ingredients for the sandwich artists? Any food safety criteria?

Can’t wait to find out who the third-party auditor of this sprout outfit was – and yet another reason company’s with their names on product, like Jimmy John’s, should be using their own people who may actually care about the brand. Or making people barf.

According to CIDRAP, FDA says it found a variety of possible contamination sources responsible for the salmonella-in-sprouts outbreak that has sickened 125 people, primarily in Indiana and primarily related to eating sandwiches from Jimmy John’s.

The FDA findings are detailed in a Form 483 report the the agency released following its inspection at Tiny Greens Organic Farm of Urbana, Ill. In December the firm recalled alfalfa sprouts and Spicy Sprouts (a mixture of alfalfa, radish, and clover sprouts) after they were implicated in an investigation of Salmonella cases in people who got sick after eating at Jimmy John’s restaurants.

The latest update from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on Jan 14, put the size of the outbreak at 125 cases in 22 states and Washington, DC. The FDA found a Salmonella isolate matching the outbreak strain, known as I 4,[5],12:i:-, in a sample of runoff water from the company.

The FDA’s 6-page inspection report says the company grew sprouts in "soil from the organic material decomposed outside" without using any monitored "kill step" on it.

These were among the other FDA findings:

* An "amphibian/reptile" was kept in the reception room of the firm, which adjoined the production area.
* The firm couldn’t show that its antimicrobial treatment for seeds, which was not specifically described in the report, was equivalent to the recommended treatment with a bleach solution.
* Employees stored their lunches, including such items as raw bacon, in the same cooler where finished sprouts were stored.
* Organic matter was seen on a table where sprouts were packaged, and a "biofilm-like buildup" was seen on sprouting trays after they were cleaned.
* What looked like mold was seen on walls and ceiling in a mung-bean sprouting room.
* Condensation dripped from the ceiling in production areas throughout the inspection period, which lasted close to a month.
* An outside lab that the firm used to test its water and sprouts used a method that was not validated for detecting Salmonella in those items.
 

Are all Jimmy John’s ingredients made this way?

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Alfalfa sprouts grown in Illinois have sickened at least 112 people in 18 states with salmonella since Nov. 2010, and many of those sick ate the sprouts on Jimmy John’s sandwiches.

On Jan. 3, 2011, in a separate outbreak, health officials fingered clover sprouts produced by Sprouters Northwest, Inc. of Kent, Wash. as the source of a separate salmonella outbreak that has sickened three in Oregon and four in Washington. Once again, the vehicle in at least some of the illnesses was Jimmy John’s sandwiches with sprouts.

In mid-Jan. 2011, John Liautaud, the owner of the Jimmy John’s sandwich shop chain, said his restaurants will be replacing alfalfa sprouts with allegedly easier-cleaned clover sprouts, effective immediately.

Mr. Liautaud, perhaps you should inspect your suppliers. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration did that at the Sprouter’s Northwest facility and found:

• failure to take necessary precautions to protect against contamination of food and food contact surfaces with microorganisms and foreign substances;
• failure to clean food-contact surfaces as frequently as necessary to protect against contamination of food;
• failure to clean non-food-contact surfaces of equipment as frequently as necessary to protect against contamination;
• effective measures not being taken to protect against contamination of food on the premises by pests;
• failure to properly store equipment, remove litter and waste, and cut weeds or grass that may constitute an attractant, breeding place or harborage area for pests, within the immediate vicinity of the plant, building, or structures;
• failure to maintain buildings, fixtures, or other physical structures in a sanitary condition;
• failure to hold raw materials in bulk or suitable containers so as to protect against contamination; and,
• failure to maintain buildings and physical facilities in repair sufficient to prevent food from becoming adulterated.

The original table of North American raw sprout-related outbreaks is available at http://bites.ksu.edu/sprout-associated-outbreaks-north-america-1990-2009.
 

Salmonella-in-sprouts sick climbs to 125, water sample positive

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As soon as Tiny Greens of Illinois was fingered as the source of the suspect sprouts in a salmonella outbreak largely linked to Jimmy John’s sandwiches, an astute public health-type e-mailed me and said, “check out their water supply.”

I’m not sure what water is being used where and for what, but according to the Tiny Greens website, they recycle all water.

“At Tiny Greens, we have one of the only complete systems that we are aware of to clean, improve, and re-use our water. The natural biological processes that are continually present in the undisturbed eco-systems around us are utilized in a controlled environment to clean and re-cycle our water.”

Here’s what looks like the important point:

“Next, the middle layer of clarified wastewater liquid flows out of the septic tank into a sand filter. The sand filter uses outside air, thus further treating the water aerobically (using bacteria requiring oxygen). Sand filters provide a high level of treatment and normally produce effluent that tests 99.9% bacteria and virus-free. … Sand filters are the preferred treatment method at Tiny Greens and their nutrient-rich, disinfected water can be utilized as free fertilizing water for growing plants."

99.9 per cent may sound impressive, but may also mean crap (literally).

On Friday, CDC announced that from Nov. 1, 2010, through Jan. 11, 2011, 125 individuals infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella serotype I 4,[5],12:i:-, whose illnesses began since November 1, have been reported from 22 states and the District of Columbia. Results of the investigation indicate a link to eating Tiny Greens Alfalfa Sprouts or Spicy Sprouts at Jimmy John’s restaurant outlets.

Testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of one environmental (water run-off) sample identified Salmonella serotype I 4,[5],12:i:- that is indistinguishable from the outbreak strain.

Tiny Greens’ owner Bill Bagby criticized testing by the FDA and the Illinois Department of Public Health as not being comprehensive enough.

“The [FDA statement] is misleading. That burns me up! … I learn something from every single inspector that comes here. Looking at all of this in a positive way, this is a chance for us to do something better.”