Dole Fresh Vegetables is recalling its packaged salads from the company’s Bessemer City, NC and Yuma, AZ processing facilities because of a possible Listeria contamination.
The company says it’s also temporarily suspending operations at both facilities to conduct an “extensive cleaning and sanitation protocol,” according to an announcement Monday.
Products subject to the voluntary recall have a product lot code beginning with either the letter N or Y in upper right corner of the package and a best-by date between Nov. 30 and Jan. 8.
Consumers who still have any of these packaged salads should throw them out immediately.
The decision to suspend operations and recall all products from these facilities was made after finding a strain of Listeria in one package of Dole-branded Garden Salad produced in the Bessemer City facility and one package of shredded iceberg lettuce from the Yuma facility.
Both those items were randomly sampled in Michigan and in Georgia and were a genetic match for a strain of Listeria that the FDA and CDC believe is responsible for 16 illnesses since 2014.
Though healthy people with Listeria may only have a high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, infection can cause miscarriages and stillbirths among pregnant women. It can also be dangerous for young children, frail or elderly people and others with weakened immune systems, health officials say.
