Tuesday, March 31, 2009

Hold the Pistachios

Updated below:

Hold the pistachios! Don't eat them--but don't throw them away yet. The FDA is issuing this advisory after a Central Valley plant issued a recall.

A California food processing plant is voluntarily recalling up to 1 million pounds of roasted pistachio products that may have been contaminated with salmonella, the Food and Drug Administration announced Monday.

The nuts came from Setton Farms in Terra Bella, California, about 75 miles south of Fresno. They were largely distributed in 2,000-pound containers to food wholesalers who would then package them for resale or incorporate them as ingredients in other products, such as ice cream and trail mix.

This is a recall based on testing by Kraft foods and not based on an outbreak of infections. Kraft found strains of salmonella during routine testing.

While no one has gotten sick this could have a another massive ripple effect like the peanut debacle--Setton is the second-largest pistachio processor in the nation.
The FDA says this is directly related to a recall issued by Kroger on Friday, when it yanked several cans of private-label pistachios due to salmonella.

The FDA wants consumers not to eat any pistachio products for now. If you have any on hand, don't throw them out--more recalls could come later, and keeping them on hand will make it easier to trace the contamination.

Update: The FDA has a brand new pistachio recall page on its website. Now you can keep track of pistachio recalls along with the peanut butter recalls which continue to come in every day and now add up to nearly 4,000 products.

Thanks to Steve at YDD for mentioning this in the comments. I have been meaning to post this but stuff interfered.

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