Fruit Recall at Costco and Trader Joe's - Recalled by Wawona Packing Company in California

[zoramargolis]

Wawona Packing Co. in California is recalling certain lot numbers of peaches, nectarines, plums and pluots packed in June and early July and sold nationally at Trader Joe's and Costco, due to Listeria contamination. There is a link in the article to a list of lot numbers. If you scroll down past the list of numbers, there are images of the fruit labels with the specific fruit numbers visible. I had a package of plumcots purchased dring that time at Costco, but the number did not match. Good thing, because I've already eaten some.

Fruit recall

[ktmoomau]

This also goes for Wegman's as they notified us via email that they had sold some of the recalled products too.

[Pat]

This article says it also covers Walmart and that Wegman's has recalled baked goods that contain fruits from the same company.

Fortunately, I've been finding such good regionally-sourced stone fruits, I haven't bought them anywhere else in recent times.

[Barbara]

This article says it also covers Walmart and that Wegman's has recalled baked goods that contain fruits from the same company.

Fortunately, I've been finding such good regionally-sourced stone fruits, I haven't bought them anywhere else in recent times.

Yeah, this is not the time to be buying fruit in supermarkets. I bought two pints of blueberries from my favorite farmer on Saturday and, when I rinsed and sorted them to make a dessert, I found exactly ZERO bad berries and NO stems to pull. Worth the extra cost for them because the last thing I worry about is nasty diseases from anything I buy from him. I know, First World problems--except for the parts of the world which never even see industrially-produced food.

[ktmoomau]

Yeah, I only bought two nectarines to hold me over until I could go to the next Farmer's Market, glad I didn't buy more.  Of course Wegman's automatically refunded us. 

[DonRocks]

Wawona Packing Co. in California is recalling certain lot numbers of peaches, nectarines, plums and pluots packed in June and early July and sold nationally at Trader Joe's and Costco, due to Listeria contamination. There is a link in the article to a list of lot numbers. If you scroll down past the list of numbers, there are images of the fruit labels with the specific fruit numbers visible. I had a package of plumcots purchased dring that time at Costco, but the number did not match. Good thing, because I've already eaten some.

Fruit recall

I've had plumcots, but until I read this, I've never heard them called pluots (or apriums, or apriplums) before.

[astrid]

Is there any evidence that buying from smaller/local fruit and veg producers would reduce exposure to food borne illnesses?  I understand the logic behind meat and dairy outbreaks being tied to large processors.  But for fruits and vegetables, wouldn't bigger packers would actually have better control of possible outbreaks, since they have more standardize sanitation procedures and often have good refrigeration chains from the orchards to the supermarket?

Anyhow, we bought and ate a crate of peach that was on the recalled list.  No sickness.  But I am very annoyed that it took them almost 2 months to discover and report this issue.  Shouldn't they be doing this on at least a weekly or biweekly basis?

[Pat]

Is there any evidence that buying from smaller/local fruit and veg producers would reduce exposure to food borne illnesses?  I understand the logic behind meat and dairy outbreaks being tied to large processors.  But for fruits and vegetables, wouldn't bigger packers would actually have better control of possible outbreaks, since they have more standardize sanitation procedures and often have good refrigeration chains from the orchards to the supermarket?

Anyhow, we bought and ate a crate of peach that was on the recalled list.  No sickness.  But I am very annoyed that it took them almost 2 months to discover and report this issue.  Shouldn't they be doing this on at least a weekly or biweekly basis?

I'm not sure how much it might reduce one individual's exposure, but contamination of food that s widely distributed means many, many more people are potentially exposed to illness than of something harvested on a smaller scale and distributed locally or regionally.  For instance, if someone going through chemo eats a bacteria-contaminated farmers' market peach, that person may suffer severe health effects.  That person is out of luck regardless of where the peach came from.  The number of chemo patients potentially exposed to that kind of danger is much greater if there's contamination of a product distributed nationally.  The larger packers might have better quality control for preventing contamination than any one small farm, but if something gets through, it's a much bigger problem.

There was a mention on The Post's Free Range chat today from a commenter who said that apparently Giant has recalled peaches and nectarines too (or at least some of them).

[deangold]

One issue is that large scale processors often use methods that can actually spread a contaminant from one small subset of the product to yjr entire batch.

Large bagged lettuce producers use the same water to wash thousand if not hundreds of thousands of pounds of lettuces.  So when there is contaminated water used to triple wash their lettuces, contaminated by cow fecal matter from a high intensity cow feedlot infecting the ground water, it didn't affect a few boxes at one farmers market, but it was used and used until the potential exposed numbered in the millions.

Just recently, a major producer of "latino style"* fresh cheeses, pasteurized on and all, issued a recall because the cheeses ere listeriosis infected.  Now wooden boards or hand crafted small batch raw milk cheeses were involved.

Our food safety system looks at small hypothetical risks of small producers and ignore the structural risks inherent with large scale production.

*this was the terminology in the recall notice, not my description.

[ktmoomau]

One issue is that large scale processors often use methods that can actually spread a contaminant from one small subset of the product to yjr entire batch.

Large bagged lettuce producers use the same water to wash thousand if not hundreds of thousands of pounds of lettuces.  So when there is contaminated water used to triple wash their lettuces, contaminated by cow fecal matter from a high intensity cow feedlot infecting the ground water, it didn't affect a few boxes at one farmers market, but it was used and used until the potential exposed numbered in the millions.

Just recently, a major producer of "latino style"* fresh cheeses, pasteurized on and all, issued a recall because the cheeses ere listeriosis infected.  Now wooden boards or hand crafted small batch raw milk cheeses were involved.

Our food safety system looks at small hypothetical risks of small producers and ignore the structural risks inherent with large scale production.

*this was the terminology in the recall notice, not my description.

Dean,  just a small thank you for sharing some of the information you read.  I thoroughly enjoy reading your informative posts on food production methods and etc.