Salmonella Outbreak Linked to Onions Sickens over 800
A month or two ago in the blog, we discussed the importance of having a food traceability system within your operation. Again, this past month, we were reminded of why such a system can be so very important. If you are in the foodservice industry, you have likely been following, or at least heard about the Salmonella Oranienburg outbreak. If you haven’t, you likely might be living under a rock. To-date, cases have gone back as far as late-May 2021 and have been identified in 37 states and Puerto Rico.
Although, the actual number of people impacted is likely much higher because many people recover from Salmonella without seeing a medical professional, as of late-October 808 illnesses and 157 hospitalizations have been linked with the outbreak. Fortunately, no deaths have been reported as of this publishing in early November 2021.
While the investigation is on-going, ProSource Produce, LLC (or otherwise known as ProSource, Inc.), based in Hailey, Idaho, and Keeler Family Farms, based out of Deming, New Mexico have been identified as the two main suppliers of the whole, fresh onions, which were imported from Chihuahua, Mexico. The onions in question can be either red, yellow, or white, and are various sizes (e.g., jumbo, medium) and in cartons ranging from five to 50 pounds and in mesh sacks ranging from two to 50 pounds. Distributors and/or brands who also carried the onions include Big Bull, Peak Fresh Produce, Sierra Madre, Markon First Crop., Markon Essentials, Rio Blue, Rio Valley, and Sysco Imperial. Four other recalls have been issued from suppliers who used the recalled onions in processed products or have otherwise repackaged them in other types of products.
Because the shelf life of onions is quite long, it is important to carefully check your inventory records to ensure you have not received a shipment of the recalled product.
Because the shelf life of onions is quite long, it is important to carefully check your inventory records to ensure you have not received a shipment of the recalled product. If you receive product from a broadline distributor, you have likely been contacted if you received the product. But don’t rely on your supplier, practice your own due diligence. If you don’t have the packaging, cannot track down the invoice for the current stock of fresh onions, or are simply not quite sure where the product came throw it out. I’d rather you throw out a few hundred dollars of onions than to be involved in a foodborne illness outbreak.
The specific cause has not yet been identified. It is possible that we may never know the actual source, but the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention investigation is on-going. You might recall a similar outbreak of Salmonella Newport 2020 that sickened 1,127 individuals and hospitalized 167 in the U.S., not including those in Canada. At the time, it was the largest Salmonella outbreak in the U.S. in the last decade. The Food and Drug Administration was not able to identify a conclusive cause of the outbreak but surmised that it could have been an irrigation issue because of the water source tests that found Salmonella Newport near the fiends in which it was grown.
The recall highlights the importance of active managerial control and having an active and proactive approach in your operational food safety plan. I did promise in my last blog we would discuss a bit more this month, but rest assured, it will be the focus of my blog later this month.
Be sure to join us on November 17th for our SafeBites webinar, entitled, “Practicing Good Agriculture: A Primer for Foodservice Operations”, which is quite timely given the onion outbreak we are experiencing. The webinar will be especially pertinent for those of you who current work with a local farmer in procuring produce or are looking to start a farm-to-table program for your foodservice operation. Be sure to register today. Risk Nothing.
Food Safety Considerations for the “New Way” of Dining, Part II – Back-of-house
In our first blog this month, we discussed the importance of front-of-house practices as we emerge from the pandemic this summer and into fall. Making your guests feel safe will be an important point as we welcome them back to our establishment. The safer they feel, the more likely they are to revisit and this could, in turn, be a competitive advantage for your business.
Food Safety Considerations for the “New Way” of Dining
Spring is my favorite time of year, as we head out of the winter months, welcome warmer weather, and increase the daylight hours. As such, we turnover a new leaf and welcome new life as our grass, trees, and perennials come out of dormancy. This year as the Coronavirus vaccine continues its roll out and we welcome a third vaccine onto the market this morning, perhaps this spring we are turning over a ‘new leaf’ in a much more profound way, as we see light at the end of the Coronavirus tunnel.
Developing Good Food Safety Habits
Good habits and habit development are something that has fascinated me for several years. If you’ve attended any the training programs or presentations that my colleagues and I have conducted through our Center for Food Safety in Child Nutrition Programs, you’ve likely heard me opine about the importance of habits and how habits are created. Many times, in foodservice operations we wonder why our staff don’t follow the food safety practices we have established in our operation. Perhaps they don’t wash their hands when they are required, perhaps they just don’t use the proper method of handwashing, or perhaps we find that they don’t complete our HACCP logs as often as our program dictates should occur. And while we can stomp our feet and say “it is their job, they should just do it”, it really isn’t that simple. We can’t order people to change, although if we could, business and human resources would be so much simpler.
Getting Your Playbook for Food Safety Organized
As anyone who has ever worked in a foodservice operation knows, from the time food is received in your establishment to the time it is served to your customers, following proper food safety practices is crucial. What many don’t often think about is this time really should extend from the time the manager places their orders with their suppliers (including which purveyors you utilize), through the time the food is consumed – even if that consumption occurs off your premises and days after the original order was picked up by the guest. This is something that has certainly been highlighted by the pandemic as customers across the nation are utilizing take-out, curbside to go, and third-party delivery options more so now than ever before.
