42 Ill in Salmonella Outbreak Across 5 States
More than 21,000 pounds of pine nuts are being recalled after evidence of Salmonella contamination was found in samples from Sunrise Commodities, the distributor who sold them in bulk to food vendors in Florida, New Jersey, New York and Canada.
The Turkish pine nuts are implicated in an outbreak of Salmonella Enteritidis that has sickened at least 42 people across 5 states. No deaths have been reported, but 2 people have been hospitalized.
The expanded recall announcement, issued Friday afternoon, comes more than a week after a 5,000-pound recall of pine nuts sold in bulk bins and used in prepared foods at Wegmans Food Markets in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland and Virginia between July 1 and Oct. 18.
In a news release, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers not to eat the Turkish pine nuts distributed by Sunrise Commodities, which is based in Englewood Cliffs, NJ. The FDA said its tests confirmed Salmonella in samples collected from a Sunrise Commodities warehouse; additional testing is underway to determine if the Salmonella matches the outbreak strain.
Public health labs had already found the outbreak strain of Salmonella in multiple samples of pine nuts or in pesto made with the pine nuts collected from Wegmans stores and from patients' homes.
The expanded recall includes four lots of pine nuts packed in 22-pound boxes with these markings:
-- Warehouse Lot 27963 with the identifying code "PO#: 50165"
-- Warehouse Lot 29628 with the identifying code "PO#: 50558"
-- Warehouse Lot 27713 with the identifying code "PO#: 49595"
-- Warehouse Lot 27427 with the identifying code "PO#: 50032"
The FDA said Sunrise Commodities alerted its customers on Thursday to the results of the product tests and epidemiologic investigation, and asked them to notify their subsequent customers of the recall.
One of those was Badia Spices, which said it had repacked the Sunrise Commodities pine nuts and sold them in retail stores in Florida, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and New Jersey between June and October.
"If consumers have Turkish pine nuts or products containing Turkish pine nuts and are not sure if the pine nuts are part of Sunrise Commodities' recall," the FDA advised in its news release, "then they should contact the store where the food item was purchased or throw the product away."