A bag of Dole's Hearts Delight salad mix sold at a store in Canada, tested positive for E. coli triggering a recall in at least nine states. Neither Canadian health officials nor Dole Food Co. have received reports of anyone getting sick from the product, despite speculations that the product, which is suspected of being contaminated with E. coli O157:H7 has been distributed all over Canada.
The affected packages contain romaine and green leaf lettuce and butter lettuce hearts.
“Don’t play Russian roulette,” said Rene Cardinal, national manager of the fresh fruit and vegetable program at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. “If you have it in your home, destroy it.”
Cardinal added that not all bags are necessarily contaminated, “but don’t take any chances.”
The food safety agency discovered that a sample of Dole’s Hearts Delight mixed lettuce salad was tainted with bacteria as part of random testing completed over the weekend. It’s possible the recall could be expanded as the agency begins an investigation to determine the origin of the bagged salad and where it was distributed.
However, he noted it will take time for the government to determine where the produce was grown because it is a blend of different lettuce types.
“If it had been one single type of lettuce it would be easier,” he said. “It’s too premature at this point in time (to say) what caused the contamination.”
Last year, E. coli-tainted spinach was linked to the deaths of several people in the U.S. Hundreds more were made ill. The spinach scare, as well as subsequent recalls involving items such as carrot juice and lettuce, prompted governments and the food industry to find new ways to improve produce safety.
But this most recent recall shows there is still a long way to go before problems involving food safety are eliminated, said Mansel Griffiths, director of the Canadian Research Institute for Food Safety at the University of Guelph, Ont.
“Hopefully as we identify these issues and put things in place — the correct production practices for the fruit and vegetable industry — then we can reduce the problems that we have.”
The traceability of food, which refers to the ability of authorities to determine where food came from and how it was distributed, is a major factor affecting how quickly possible sources of contamination can be pinpointed and dangerous foods pulled off shelves, Griffiths said.
“Certainly it would help if you could trace the sources of this lettuce as quickly as possible so remedial measures could be taken,” he said.
Despite these latest safety scares, the industry has been making major gains to improve the safety and quality of food, said Heather Holland, senior technical manager of food safety and government relations at the Canadian Produce Marketing Association.
“In actual fact, we’ve been working on food safety for a number of years,” she said.
The fact that this week’s recall is focused on a specific type of Dole brand lettuce shows that the industry’s focus on improving safety and production is working, Holland said.
“What we’re seeing here is the benefits of good practices,” she said. “We’re able here to have the scope of the product narrowed down to a lot number and a best-before date.”
The affected Dole brand lettuce blend is sold in 227-gram packages, coded UPC 0 71430 01038 9 and lot code A24924B, with a best-before date of Sept. 19. It may have been distributed nationally.
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