FDA Alerts Public of Expanding Strawberry Recall Over Concerns of Hepatitis A Exposure
The agency said that in recent days a few more suppliers initiated a voluntary recall of additional select packages sold at national stores.
Last Tuesday, the FDA announced that additional suppliers who provide strawberries to consumer stores such as Walmart and Costco have strawberries that were part of a voluntary recall. This has been an ongoing FDA investigation of hepatitis A infections linked to frozen organic strawberries imported from Baja California, Mexico.
According to the FDA, on June 12, the Willamette Valley Fruit Co. of Salem, Oregon, initiated a voluntary recall of select packages of frozen fruit products containing strawberries. Recalled products include Great Value Mixed Fruit 4-lb, Great Value Sliced Strawberries 4-lb, Great Value Antioxidant Fruit Blend 2-lb, Rader Farms Organic Fresh Start Smoothie Blend 48-oz. bag (each bag consists of six 8-oz packages), and Rader Farms Organic Berry Trio 3-lb.
The strawberries were sold to consumer stores Costco, Walmart, and HEB.
On June 7, 2023, Wawona Frozen Foods said it voluntarily recalled year-old packages of its Organic DayBreak Blend distributed to Costco Wholesale stores in Arizona, California, Colorado, Utah and Washington from April 15, 2022 to June 26, 2022.
In addition, California Splendor, Inc. of San Diego, California, has voluntarily recalled certain lots of 4-lb. bags of Kirkland Signature Frozen Organic Whole Strawberries that were sold at Costco stores in Los Angeles and Hawaii, and at two San Diego business centers. And Scenic Fruit Company of Gresham, Oregon, has performed a voluntarily recalled frozen organic strawberries, sold to Costco, Aldi, KeHE, Vital Choice Seafood, and PCC Community Markets in certain states and to Trader Joe’s nationwide.
The FDA also reported the latest update on the food-borne outbreak. As of June 14, there has been 9 total cases with 6 in Washington state, 2 in California, and 1 in Oregon. There has been 3 hospitalizations and no deaths. The last reported illness was April 12.
To find more information on this recall and the specific products involved in it and the states where the products were distributed, interested parties can go to this FDA page.
